HARRY KIRS BAUM
Staff Writer

I

t was the love he had for his
wife and the stories he had
heard of his cousin that helped
Eugene Kraft make a decision.
Manya Salinger, Kraft's cousin by
marriage, is a concentration-camp sur-
vivor who has spoken at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in West Bloomfield
once a week for many years. When she
talked about her work and the effect
her discussions had on the school-
children she encountered, Kraft paid
close attention.
After Kraft's wife, Mignon, died last
November, he was looking for a way
to memorialize her.
Ultimately, he decided on a $1 mil-
lion gift to the Holocaust Memorial
Center's capital endowment fund, the
first major pledge in a $15 million
campaign to expand the center and
build two new museums.
"I am aware of the tremendous num-
ber of children who tour the museum
and the impact that it has on them,"
said Kraft, chairman of the board of the
Serta-Restokraft Mattress Company.

ISRAEL PROMISE from page 6
The Sherman Family Israel
Experience Fund has been created as
one in a series of funds within the
Jewish Federation and United Jewish
Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit's
Millennium Campaign for Detroit's
Jewish Future. The goal of the
Millennium campaign is to promote
Jewish continuity and identity devel-
opment.
The endowment will give Detroit-
area teens "an enriching Israel experi-
ence that will further their sense of
Jewish self, as well as forge a deep and
lasting bond with the people and State
of Israel," said Penny Blumenstein,
Federation's president.
Subsidies were provided for most of
the approximately 450 young people
who went on the previous two Teen
Missions. Last year's mission cost of
$6,400 was reduced to $3,495 for
most of the 216 who went, said Trudy
Weiss, Missions coordinator of the
Michigan/Israel connection. Those
who could pay the full price did, so
the subsidy could be used for those
who needed it.
"It was an amazing experience and,
in some ways, made me realize who I
am," said Melissa Roberts, 16, of West
Bloomfield, who went on the five-
week Teen Mission 2 Israel last year. "I

7/9

1999
10 Detroit Jewish News

Love And Shoah

$1-million gift will aid expansion of the
Holocaust Memorial Center.

"If we can enlighten the children,
they will pass this attitude to their
children and hopefully eliminate this
prejudice," he said. This new com-
plex will do much to ensure that the
Holocaust is never forgotten, and to
prevent such a tragedy from happen-
ing again to any people."
A dedicated philanthropist, Kraft
has supported the Allied Jewish
Campaign, the American Diabetes
Association and the United Negro
College Fund, among others.
Salinger, who was imprisoned in
four concentration camps and liber-
ated from Bergen-Belsen at the end
of World War II, was married to
Kraft's first cousin, Martin, a soldier
who met her in Europe after the
war. She said she was delighted by
Kraft's gift
"This is more than just a Holocaust

Memorial Center," she said. "It's
something much more elaborate and
meaningful for many generations to

The HMC announced its plans to
add two wings earlier this year,
increasing the 12,000-square-foot
structure to about 53,000 square feet,
including a library, the Museum of
European Jewish Heritage showing
Jewish life before World War II, and
an International Institute of the
Righteous that honors the righteous
through history

The cost of the expansion, slated
for a spring 2000 groundbreaking, is
estimated at $15 million, but may
reach $20 million, said Rabbi Charles
Rosenzveig, the HMC's executive
director.
"Our plans are much more compre-
hensive now than they were before,"
he said. Up to 15 names of million-
dollar donors will be etched into stone
on a special Master Builder's wall, "so
their names will never be replaced byr± \
another," he added.
"I feel proud to be identified with
a museum complex that will high-
light Jewish culture and history and
will honor the great deeds of the
Righteous throughout history," Kraft
said. "Those who tour the Holocaust
Memorial Center will hopefully ben-
efit from these examples and becorn:'
a defense against intolerance." [ I

41-4

.

made friends from here and Israel that
hopefully I will have forever."
With strong backing from Israeli
leaders, the idea of a guaranteed "trip
home" has been growing nationally as
a way of offsetting the rapid decline
in American Jewish identity. Some
Jewish leaders dismiss the notion of a
spring-break jaunt to Israel as a
magic bullet" that cannot be as effec-
tive as sustained Jewish day and con-
gregational school training or deep
family commitment to retaining reli-
gious and cultural identity
But it is a popular nostrum. Last
November, Michael H. Steinhardt,
one of Wall Street's wealthiest money
managers, and Charles R. Bronfman,
co-chairman of the Seagram Company
in Montreal, each contributed $5 mil-
lion to launch the Birthright Israel
program. The program's ultimate plan
is to pay for a 10-day, first-time trip to
Israel for any Jew in the world
between the ages of 15 and 26.
The Sherman Fund will be a "good
complement" to that effort, said Larry
Sherman.
"I believe that Israel is central in
all Jewish life," added his wife. "I
believe that you need both the Jewish
education that you get here as well as
a trip to Israel. You can't do one
without the other."

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Clockwise: Eugene Kraft gave a gift for expansion of the Holocaust
Memorial Center. Mandell (Bill) and Madeleine Berman supported family
Jewish education. D. Larry and Jane Sherman endowed youth trips to Israe

