Clockwise, from bottom:

Marvin and Betty Danto
Family Health Care Center

Marker at the JCC Playground

The current Maple Road entrance
to the Applebaum Jewish Community
Campus in West Bloomfield

The pool at the Jewish Community
Center's D. Dan 6 Betty Kahn Building

The Applebaum gift should go a
long way toward ending the identity
crisis that the Jewish Community
Campus in. West Bloomfield has
been staggering through since its cre-
ation in the mid-1970s.
Said Robert Aronson, chief execu-
tive officer of the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit: "This com-
mitment gives shape to a renaissance
in this community for the next cen-
tury — it creates a momentum."
Aronson pledged that the
Applebaum gift will immediately
result in moving along the $18-mi1-
lion renovation of the Jewish
Community Center buildings in
West Bloomfield and Oak Park.
.Renovations were jump-started late
last year with a $1 million gift from
David and Marion Handleman for a
new social hall and auditorium in
West Bloomfield and the recent
selection of Matt Prentice's Bingham
Farms-based Unique Restaurant
Corporation to provide kosher cater-
ing for it.
Aronson envisions the West
Bloomfield campus as "a place where
a family can go to spend the whole
day. You can drop your child off in
preschool, go and work out, visit your
parent or relative, sit in the park and
picnic, visit the art gallery.
"It can, and should be, part of the
rhythm of life," said Aronson,
adding that he sees the Applebaum
gift as having an effect that is very
pro-Detroit. "What better way to
attract new people to the area? Young
people want jobs, but they also seek
socialization, to meet other young
Jewish people," he said.
Aronson envisions the Eugene and
Marcia Applebaum Jewish
Community Campus as becoming
that place.
But like Applebaum, Aronson
stresses, "It's not that today, but it

will be that. This is a process of
change. People need to buy into that
vision and to share that vision."
It is certainly a vision shared by
the Jewish Federation and the United
Jewish Foundation, and for it to be
successful, Aronson needs the com-
munity to buy into it as well.
Aronson said that with the devel-
opment of the Jewish Academy of
Metropolitan Detroit on the campus,

Helping Drive
A Community
Renaissance

Robert Aronson, Federation's
chief executive officer

students will be using the Jewish
Community Center during the day.
He sees that as yet another step
toward putting the Jewish family
back on campus.
So that the community recognizes
the Applebaum bequest, there will be
signage erected around the campus,
said Aronson. A formal dedication of
a plaza at the campus, to honor the
Applebaums, will take place in the
spring or summer of 2000.
Aronson said the oversight com-
mittee will make the determination

on any future development of the
campus. There are still some 30 acres
that are potential development sites.
The committee will set up a
higher standard. They will look at
every service program, to make sure
that activity is at the highest possible
level. Six agencies will have to report
back to the Applebaum committee.
Up to now, it has been essentially a
real estate committee, the United
Jewish Foundation of Metro Detroit
— the Federation's real estate com-
mittee — which has looked at real
estate issues. But the oversight com-
mittee should set the standard for
performance as well as determine
future development," Aronson said.
He visualizes the campus in terms
of far more than bricks and mortar.
"I see this in its totality. You have to
look at this commitment by Eugene
and Marcia Applebaum not as what
is, but what it can be," said Aronson.
How will the elderly residents of
the Jewish Apartments and Services
and the Marvin and Betty Danto
Family Health Care Center already
on the campus benefit from the
Applebaum gift?
"Clearly the conception of raising
the quality of service applies to the
eldercare services there," replied
Aronson.
"The creation of the Applebaum
campus will make living on campus
more attractive and will raise the qual-
ity of care to a higher level," he said.
That's why issues such as central
planning are going to be so important.
Aronson said the campus is sched-
uled for a third road for better acces-
sibility. This ring road will unite the
older-adult area on campus with the
Jewish Community Center. There
will be a new traffic light, and three
separate entrances to the campus,
two on Maple Road and one on
Drake. LI

9/17
1999

Detroit Jewish News

11