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Shaping A Renaissance

$5 MILLION GIFT from page 6

e son of the late Joseph and
Tillie Applebaum, Eugene grew up
„the Russell Woods section of
(Oat. The family lived in a two-
fariftiqlat like many other Detroit
Jews of his generation. 1--lis father was
a self-employed. jewelry salesman.
.Applebaum attended
Winterhalter Elementary School on
13roadstreet, where his best friend
was now-U.S. Ambassador to
Norway David B. Herrnelin. The

-

Bloomfield will now be known as the
Eugene and Marcia Applebaum
Jewish Community Campus.
The Applebaum gift is earmarked
for the capital development side of
the Millennium Campaign for
Detroit's Jewish Future, the ongoing
$50-million effort to assure that local
Jewish institutions in the 21st century
will have both the necessary physical
facilities, operational resources and
programming to serve the Detroit
area's approximately 96,000 Jews.
Thus, say administrators of the
campaign, the first visible sign will be
to immediately enable the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit to
begin some much-needed renovations
at the D. Dan & Betty Kahn Building
of the Jewish Community Center.
Beyond that, the Applebaum legacy
will create a destination for Jewish fam-
ilies — in effect, a Jewish theme park.
"The campus will be the place to
congregate," said Applebaum. "But
were not there yet," he cautioned.
"We have to improve what's there. It
will be phenomenal. That's what this
gift is about, to bring the campus
into the 21st century, and make it
into a place used by children, adults,

Applebaum
Philanthropy

Many of Eugene and Marcia
Applebaum's philanthropic gifts are in
the educational and health care fields,
with an emphasis on Israel and Detroit.
Their latest gift matches the $5
million he gave in 1998 to his alma
mater, Wayne State University, for
the College of Pharmacy and Allied
Health Sciences.
Other beneficiaries include the

9/17
1999

10 Detroit Jewish News

two have remained close ever since.
Applebaum graduated from Central
High School and followed his
brother into Wayne State's pharma-
cy school.
After graduation from pharmacy
school in 1960, Applebaum went to
work at Merrill Drug at Puritan and
Greenfield, not far from where he
had grown up.
On Nov. 18, 1963 — only four
days before President John F.
Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas
— Applebaum opened his own store
in a shopping center at Greenfield
Road and Michigan Avenue in

Dearborn. He called it Civic Drugs
because it was across the street from
the Dearborn Civic Center.
Within two years, he began open-
ing other drugstores across southeast
Michigan. He incorporated under
the Arbor Drugs name in 1974; the
company went public in 1986. By
the time Applebaum sold Arbor to
Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS last
year, Arbor had grown to a 207-store
chain with 7,200 employees in just
the span of a generation.
Applebaum sold Arbor for $1.48
billion in CVS stock. At the time of
the sale, Eugene and Marcia

Jewish tradition of philanthropy.
the whole Jewish community."
"We want to make this campus a
Applebaum envisions the growth of
place
to be proud of. But we will not
vital educational, health and cultural
just
throw
things at the campus. This
resources already on the campus.
will be a very positive move.
"There will be more senior citizen tow-
"We want there to be some struc-
ers (ultimately 500 units) and eventual-
ture to the campus. It should be
ly a high school (the Jewish Academy
clean, well lit, and identified properly.
of Metropolitan Detroit). The D. Dan
We want people to come
& Betty Kahn
-'
to the campus, and we
-
Building of the Jewish
want
young people to
Community. Center
c.
want
to
go to it. We need
.
„4
will be going through
to give them some impe-
a major remodeling
tus," said Applebaum.
and the Holocaust
He said he hopes the
Memorial Center will
gift will serve as "a
be enlarged," he said.
springboard or a magnet"
In addition, the
and encourage additional
Dorothy and Peter
benefactors to come for-
Brown Center, a day
Eugene and Marcia Applebaum
ward. That has already
care service for adults
happened — both in the
with dementia disor-
Jewish community as well as in
ders including Alzheimer's disease, is
Applebaum's much broader definition
under construction.
of community — where Applebaum's
Recalling the importance of the
generosity has triggered a domino
Aaron DeRoy Jewish Community
effect among other donors.
Center on Woodward in Detroit
"The Jewish Community Campus
when he was growing up helped
is too important a piece of us not to
serve as a motivation for the native
be developed further. It will be the
Detroiter. Applebaum, 62, takes
job of the oversight committee to
pride in his strong sense of commu-
make sure it is," said Applebaum.
nity as well as in maintaining the

University of Michigan ($1.2 million)
and the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer
Institute in Detroit ($1 million).
Also:
• The Applebaums gave $500,000
to create the Eugene and Marcia
Applebaum Campaign Challenge
Fund, which provided matching
grants for donations to Federation's
Annual Campaign in 1997. Their
jump-start boosted the total raised
that year to $29 million compared to
$26 million in 1996.
• Eugene Applebaum, along with

David B. Hermelin and Joel Tauber,
opened the Applebaum-Herrnelin-
Tauber Child Development Center
in Yavne, Israel. Yavne was the
Detroit Jewish community's Project
Renewal sister city in the 1980s.
• The Applebaums have endowed
the Eugene and Marcia Applebaum
Professorial Chair at the Weizmann
Institute in Rehovot, Israel; the
Eugene and Marcia Applebaum . Beth
Hayeled Building and Jewish
Parenting Center in West Bloomfield
for Congregation Shaarey Zedek; and

Applebaum's stock holdings were
worth $396 million.
Arthur Liberian, now a Detroit-
area physician, was a classmate of
Applebaum. At a high school bas-
ketball game in the late 1950s,
Liberian introduced him to Marcia
Lipsky, whom he knew from the
neighborhood. Eugene and Marcia
were married on May 30, 1961.
Eugene has said of Marcia, daughter
of the late Seymour Lipsky and
Sadie Lipsky: "She's been so impor,
rant to all my decisions and every-
thing I've accomplished. She's been
a real soulmate." Fl

The Applebaum Campus Oversight
Committee will be comprised of both
Eugene and Marcia Applebaum; their
daughters Pamela Applebaum Wyatt
and Lisa Applebaum; Applebaum's
friend since childhood, Ambassador to
Norway David B. Hermelin; and
attorney Alan Stuart Schwartz.
In addition, both the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
and its real estate/banking arm, the
United Jewish Foundation of
Metropolitan Detroit, will be repre-
sented on the committee.
"It will be a quality-assurance com-
mittee. It will not be a showcase com-
mittee, but an operating committee,"
said Applebaum. "Part of our commit-
ment is that the campus develops in a
proper, organized fashion," he said.
"Our kids and grandkids have got
to get some of that," said Applebaum
of the spirit that existed when the
Jewish community was tighter-knit,
as it was in Detroit's Dexter-Davison
area a half-century ago. "But instead,
each generation gets less.
"We don't all live on the same block
anymore," said Applebaum. Then, after
a pause, he added, "But geographically,
this is the same block." Fl

Applebaum Vi
Society's Camp;;
• Eu ene
Israel Museum, aei Winds,
Opera Theatre and Detroit Sym
Orchestra, among other organization
• '.1hrough his collection of artvV-'8r
by Michigan artists that he displays in
his home and office, Eugene
Applebaum has been a patron of the
arts. His often-earl)r support for these
:W,
artists has resulted in increased "zt
awareness and recognition for theie`N
artistic endeavors.

g