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JNArts & Entertainment
16 Detroit Jewish News
DETROIT
Call The Sales Department
(248) 354.7123 Ext. 209
maze MEWS
„TIN
JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer
P
urim may be best known
for festive carnivals, but
another important compo-
nent of the holiday is
reaching out to the poor.
While the majority of metro
Detroit Jews enjoy relative affluence
— a population study from 1989
found a $55,000 median household
income in the Jewish community
compared to a median household
income of $34,612 in the larger metro
Detroit community that year — a
small number of Jews constantly
struggle to make ends meet.
For the most part, Jews suffering
from chronic poverty do so for the
same reason as people in the commu-
nity at large: inability — often due to
mental and physical disabilities, old
age, health problems or substance
abuse — to earn a decent living.
Often they are estranged from, or do
not have, extended family.
In the early 1990s, many of the
Jewish poor were New Americans
from the former Soviet Union, note
social service providers. But as New
Americans adjust to their new sur-
roundings, a new group of low-
income Jews is becoming more visible:
households led by single mothers,
many of them displaced homemakers.
In the community at large, 46 percent
of displaced homemakers live at or
below the poverty line, according to
Jewish Vocational Services Executive
Director Barbara Nurenberg.
Fortunately for the Jewish poor, the
community offers a wide safety net of
social services that enables most who
seek help to at least keep afloat. The
problem is that not all impoverished
Jews, particularly those still living in
the city of Detroit, are aware of what
help is available.
Rabbi Noah Gamze of the Isaac
Agree Downtown Synagogue, the only
synagogue with weekly services in the
city, has encountered a number of Jews
in the Cass Corridor and other neigh-
borhoods near his synagogue. Some are
homeless and others live in subsidized
housing, often without telephones.
"We do have poor Jews, but the trou-
ble is we don't always know who they
are or how to locate them," he says. In
many cases, they are people who are
running away from something."
A handful of low-income Jews —
mostly men older than 50 — show up
for Shabbat services at the Downtown
Synagogue, where a full kiddush is
served and some clothing is distrib-
uted. Gamze sometimes hears about
other impoverished Jews through area
Christian clergy.
"A number of years ago, I did a
funeral for a man living in a boarding
house owned by a black reverend. The
man had told the reverend he was
Jewish. The reverend felt he should
have a Jewish funeral and arranged it,"
recalls Gamze, adding that only the
other people at the boarding house
attended the funeral.
Most of the indigent Jews who
Gamze has encountered had "bad luck- '
in business or bad family situations,
then drifted into skid row." He noted
that some also have disabilities or
emotional problems.
Jewish Vocational Services assists
120 inner-city poor Jews through a
program called Project Outreach,
which sends a case worker and volun-
teers to visit disabled elderly Jews in
non-Jewish facilities.
JVS's Nurenberg said many of the
Project Outreach clients were released
after living in mental institutions for
decades and were overwhelmed to find
the Jewish community had moved and
the city had changed almost beyond
recognition. Some are Holocaust sur-
vivors who were institutionalized
shortly after arriving from Europe.
"For them, we're their family," said
Nurenberg.
Low-income Jews also participate in
other JVS programs — such as job
training, employment opportunities
and a program helping displaced
homemakers make the transition to
paid work. However, because these
programs serve the broader communi-
ty, JVS does not track how many of
the participants are Jewish. JVS
receives funding from the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, as
well as secular non-profits and govern-
ment agencies.
The Oak Park-based kosher food