Photos by Krista Husa

Saving The
Day(care)

Temple Emanu-El agrees
to run infant program
at Oak Park Kr

LONNY GOLDSMITH
Staff Writer

A

Reform synagogue has
agreed to lease space to
continue running the
endangered infant-tod-
dler day care program at the Jewish
Community Center in Oak Park.
Temple Emanu-El, next-door
neighbor to the JCC's Jimmy
Prentis Morris Building, reached an
agreement with Center leadership
at a meeting on Tuesday, with the
synagogue's executive committee
ratifying the deal later that evening,
and the JCC finalizing it with its
board on Wednesday.
Parents of the 11 infants said
they were pleased with the move.
So was Michaelyn Silverman, the
director of the Temple Ernanu-El
nursery program. "We're delighted
and thrilled," she said. "We feel
that it is crucial to have a first-rate,
Jewish infant-toddler facility."
The JCC board of directors
decided March 17 that it would
close both their infant-toddler and
nursery-school day care programs at
JPM. Officials said the nursery
school program, with 10 children,
did not meet its educational goals
and that it had only operated the
infant-toddler program as a feeder
for the nursery school. They said
the programs lost at least $40,000 a
year, a cost it could no longer bear
while it was trying to cut its overall
operating losses by $200,000 a year.
Silverman said that after word of
the closing spread to parents and
they protested the decision, the
JCC leadership contacted her to see
if the temple was interested.
It was not immediately clear
how much rent, if any, the temple
would pay for the Center space, but
JCC Executive Director David
Sorkin said a rental agreement is
being worked out. The three or

Lonny Goldsmith can be reached at
(248) 354-6060, ext. 263, or by e-mail
at: lgoldsmith@thtjewishnews.corn

4/16
1999

I Detroit Jewish News

tures Por Tots

LONNY GOLDSMITH
Staff Writer

lir

ania Goldvekht's kitchen
doubles as a classroom, her
living room is a playroom
and one of the bedrooms
has cots laid across the floor for nap-
time. Posters of color charts, numbers
and letters hang on every wall of the
rooms that children occupy.
The chicken soup sits simmering on
the stove while a 9-month-old infant
sleeps soundly in the crib-filled room
adjoining the kitchen, waiting for
mom. He's the last of 12 children at
Goldvekht's modest Victoria Road
home in Oak Park. At 6:30 a.m. the
next morning, the first of the 12 chil-
dren will return to Fania's House, and
the routine will start again.
Jewish parents in Oak Park and sur-
rounding cities are scouting facilities like
Fania's House in the wake of a decision

-

JCC, although Goldvekht's clients
by the Jewish Community Center to
must supply diapers and formula.
close its infant and toddler programs at
Those items are provided at the JCC.
the Jimmy Prentis Morris Building. The
Center officials say their program is
closing, intended to cut the JCC's annual
more expensive because they maintain
losses by $40,000 a year, angered the 21
better facilities than the private homes,
families using the programs. They
with more full-time staff even on days
protested they had not been given ade-
when the number of infants is low.
quate notice that a decision was pending.
Both the Center and the private facili-
Fania's House, half a mile from
ties must meet the same state standards
JPM, is one of 39 houses that are
for staff and safety equipment.
licensed providers for in-home care for
Parents who settled on Goldvekht
children under a year old in the Oak
Park/Huntington
two r
Woods/Southfield area. No
o
r
agencies handle infant care.
w
•
Goldvekht, a Jewish
awY M
:1
immigrant from Uzbekistan
aRNM aV 4.,
who was a pediatrician and
The infants in day care at the JCC in
child psychologist, charges
$140 per week for full-time
Oak Park aren't going to be neglected.
care, which includes hot
Temple Emanu-El may take over the
breakfasts and lunches. That
is about 60 percent of what
program, and alternatives exist.
parents of infants pay at the

