[This Week

Day,
rdinary People

Our reporter and photographer make
a few stops on the philanthropic route.

HARRY KIRSBAUM Staff Writer

KRISTA HUSA Photographer

IV

ith the Allied Jewish Campaign about to wrap up its nearly $30-mi1-
lion drive for 1998-99, we realized we write about a lot of the big pic-
ture things the Campaign supports, but not always about what differ-
ence the money makes in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Detroiters.
So we asked the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit to show us a day
in the life of the programs the annual Campaign supports. We expected the
programs to put their best foot forward, and we asked them for great photo
opportunities. They set us up with eight different stops that crisscrossed the
metro area. What we saw were some ordinary, some touching and some funny
examples of Jewish communal life on Feb. 25 — a cold, blustery day.

Car, Home And Job

It's 8:30 a.m. and Lena Israetel is warming up her car in the garage of her Oak
Park home. She's the New American program administrator at Jewish Apartments
and Services' Teitel Building, five minutes from home. She deals with the Russian-
speaking elderly who live in the building.
Her 1993 Ford Escort was bought in
. : : : : : it fir
part with an interest-free loan from the
PULP
Hebrew Free Loan Association (HFLA).
* *4
i:
n IN 1111111111 am
The $6,000 down payment for her
.... wes sai6..
house came from the Neighborhood
Forget the big operations.
Project, a Federation program that
strives to maintain a Jewish presence in
Federation funds touch
Oak Park and Southfield with interest-
a lot of lives in quiet
free loans.
In 1998, $92,400 was allocated by
but important ways.
Federation to help 250 HFLA appli-
cants. About $115,000 went to the
Neighborhood Project.

: 141:111111.

'

`

Learning The Basics

At 10:07 a.m. in the Adult Day Program on the first floor of the Jewish
Vocational Service in Southfield, we saw Cindy Sherman finishing her stress
management class. Sherman, 63, greeted us with a hearty "Shalom," and told us
she's the rabbi of the building and can't wait to have her picture taken. She is
mildly mentally disabled and lives with six other residents in a JARC agency
home on Downing Street in Beverly Hills.
We followed her down the spotless hallway to a room set up like a one-bed-
room apartment, complete with food and clothing, where she is taught the
basics. She practiced making her bed for us.

3/1.
19;

Detroit Jewish News

21