This
Th

Concern for a school
tragedy; volunteers for
Detroit; a reprieve for
Akiva's building.

Local school districts wasted no time
in talking with students and staff in
the wake of the shootings at a
Colorado high school on April 20.
Alexander Bailey, superintendent of
the Oak Park School District, will judge
the reactions of the students a couple
days after the incident took place.
"We asked the staff to pay close
attention to the students and see what
they are saying," he said. "It's just scary
and the fact that there is very little to do
),
to prepare is the most frightening part.
At Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit in Farmington
Hills, the flag is at half-mast and there
was a moment of silence during the
morning minyan.
This is what we do in situations
where something tragic happens
nationally," said Marianne Bloomberg,
Hillel's director of development.
Two Lubavitch schools, however,
are taking different approaches
towards dealing with incident.
At Beis Chaya Mushka, a girls'

high school in Oak Park, Rabbi
David Kagan is discussing with the
students "the actions that may lead to
this behavior, such as violent movies."
Rabbi Yitzchok Bergstein at the Beis
Menachem Elementary School in West
Bloomfield said most kids don't even
know about the incident in Colorado.
"The fifth graders will probably
discuss it with their parents, but most
kids don't have televisions or get news-
papers so they aren't exposed to the
news," he said.

The Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit promised to
pitch in $100,000 a year for the next
three years to City Year Detroit, an
AmeriCorps program that will put 70
corps members to work on eight projects.
These include Detroit community cen-
ters, homeless shelters and food banks.
After training, the corps members,
from 17-24 years old, will work from
September to May for $150 a week, said
Liz Kanter Groskind, the program's liai-
son with Federation. She hopes that
some corps members will be Jewish
young people, she said. "The whole
point of the City Year corps is to be as
diverse as possible."
But City Year Detroit startup cap-
tain Steve Stevenson said none of the
77 applications on his desk so far
appeared to be from Jewish people.

The developer purchasing Akiva
Hebrew Day School's red-brick home
has decided to lease the space out to a
charter school, the Academy of
America, for the next few years.
Jeffrey Surnow, who has agreed to
buy the Orthodox day school's prop-
erty in Lathrup Village for $1.35 mil-

Remember
When •

From the pages of The Jewish News
for this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.

1989

The old Akiva school building is getting
a new tenant — a charter school.

lion, originally planned to demolish
the ill-maintained building and put
up an upscale shopping center.
But he met resistance from Lathrup
Village's powerful historic society, which
wanted the 71-year-old former Annie
Lathrup Elementary School preserved.
Complicating matters is that this small
bedroom community, where median
household income is $71,472, is in the
midst of a "center city plan," which
calls for more upscale retail stores and a
focus on landscaping and aesthetics.
Lathrup Village Administrator Jeff
Bremer said he was pleased the his-
toric building will remain, but had
hoped Surnow would also develop
upscale stores, lofts and possibly
offices on the site.
Leaders of Akiva, which has occu-
pied the building since 1980, are sim-
ply looking forward to leaving it and
moving to the freshly renovated for-
mer Beth Achim this summer.
"We're glad we're able to close the
deal and move forward," said Akiva
President Michael Greenbaum, who
expects to close on the sale to Surnow
by the end of this month.

-11111MMIMINNIMII

Marking 100 Years
Of Detroit Jewry

The Lubavitch Youth Organization
established a hotline to let callers
know their Hebrew birthday as a
follow-up to Rabbi Menachem
Schneerson's calling on Jews to
observe their Jewish birth dates.
Employees at Lou G. Siegel's
kosher restaurant in Manhattan
loaded 500 glatt kosher Pesach
seder meals onto trucks in the first
step toward delivery to Moscow.

1979

Myron M. Milgrom was to be hon-
ored with the Distinguished Service
Award of the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.
Israeli Premier Menachem Begin
told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee that he supports
implementation of the death penalty
for terrorists in cases of "extreme and
cruel behavior" and would propose
legislation to that effect.

1969

Congregation Rodef Shalom of
New York plans to establish the first
all-day school in the U.S. under
Reform auspices.
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Laker were
to be honored at a gathering of the
Pinsker Progressive Aid Society.

1959

Charles Evans Feinberg, a collector
of Jewish ceremonial objects and
art, was chosen to receive the
Detroit Historical Society's annual
Patriotic Award.
A Swedish sailor was found
guilty and fined $55 in an Israeli
district court for painting a swasti-
ka on the side of his ship, anchored
in the port of Haifa.

1949

Teacher Joseph Chaggai teaches
a United Hebrew School class at
Tuxedo and Holmur in Detroit,
circa 1930.

Photo courtesy of the Leonard N. Simons Jewish Community
Airchives/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
If yOu have information about this photograph..
please call Heidi Christein, Jewish community
archivist, (248) 642-4260.

The Detroit Halevy Singing Society
has begun construction of the
Halevv Music Center at 13965
Linwood at Fleet.
One hundred students at Wayne
University signed a telegram sup-
porting a.student strike at City
College of New York. They want
two professors accused of racial dis-
crimination and anti-Semitism
removed from the faculty.

4/23

1999

Detroit Jewish News

33