Insight

Remember
When • •

Builder of Bridge

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

B'nai B'rith honors Arnold Michlin for his lifelong dedication
to uniting Jews with other communities.

SAM ENGLAND

Staff Writer

I

him to join forces with George
Bashara. Together, they founded the
locally based American Arab & Jewish
Friends in 1981.
"Arnold is a tireless worker. He's
indefatigable, that's the word I'd use.
Indefatigable," says Bashara, a Detroit
legal advisor and former state Court
of Appeals judge.

want to see the work done,"
says Jewish activist Arnold
Michlin. "I'm not in it for per-
sonal credit." Still, the Oakland
Century Lodge B'nai B'rith saw fit to
give the Farmington Hills resident a
great deal of credit.
Michlin, a B'nai B'rith
member for more than 50
years, was honored as the
organization's Man of the
Year Aug. 24 for the work
he's done to unite Jews with
other religious and ethnic
communities in charitable
causes.
His efforts have taken
Michlin from the board of
the Anti-Defamation
League to founding the
American Arab & Jewish
Friends, to raising money
for a children's tennis center
(through the newly found-
ed Children's Sports for
Peace group) in Gaza City.
All his projects, he says,
amount to "building
bridges between people."
Michlin considers him-
self lucky to have been
Arnold Michlin
taught empathy during a
tumultuous time. "I grew
up in a non-traditional
Jewish home — remember,
I was born in 1920 —
"He can be a pest sometimes," he
where we were not taught to be
adds
lightly. But Michlin's unflagging
afraid or wary of Christians. We were
resolve,
Bashara says, only has done
taught that they could be our
good
for
the cause they share. I don't
friends," says the Altoona,Pa., native.
know
anybody
who has been more
"So I didn't have this innate fear of
dedicated.
I
have
a lot of admiration
different people, and have literally
for
Arnold."
spent my life building bridges
Neal AbuNab, who became
between them. From when I first got
involved
with American Arab &
into B'nai B'rith and got in contact
Jewish
Friends
about three years ago,
with the Anti-Defamation League, I
also
has
worked
with Michlin. "As a
learned to judge people by them-
man,
I
am
impressed
by his humility
selves, for themselves, not who they
and
his
down-to-earth
qualities,"
might be classified with."
says.
AbuNab
With this outlook, it was easy for

9/24
1999

26 Detroit Jewish News

He lauds Michlin's ability to talk to
"the extreme Arab side and the
extreme Jewish side" and bring them
together.
"He's a very non-threatening
human being," AbuNab says. "And he
has this twinkle in his eye of what you
might call innocent hope. At his age,
the twinkle is still there. And that's
what impressed me about
him. It's what attracted me
to his cause. He's a very
special human being. And
I think he deserves to be
recognized for that."
To devote the better
part of his life to this goal,
Michlin left a career in the
chemical business for the
field of community organi-
zation and charity work.
Since that move in 1981,
he's been working out of
his Farmington Hills
home, where he lives with
his wife, Florence. They
have four children, five
grandchildren and one
great-grandchild.
"They recognize his giv-
ing ability and his charita-
ble spirit," AbuNab says of
the B'nai B'rith leadership.
"And he's been giving for a
long time. And at the age
he is, if he'd spent all that
time at a business, he'd be
a very wealthy man.
But Michlin is not
wealthy. He says he cannot afford
travel to Israel, and will be unable see
the Gaza tennis center he's worked so
diligently to fund. He does not, how-
ever, lament his situation.
"I'm grateful for each day," he says
simply. "Because most people don't
know what their purpose is, but I do.
It's to build bridges between people.
Bridges of respect and understand-
ing."
As B'nai B'rith has shown, those
people Michlin brings together are`
grateful, too. H

))

A giant forest fire attributed to
arsonists caused a pall of smoke to
hang over Mount Carmel and the
city of Haifa.
Two hundred BBYOers pitched
over a 40-hour period to raise $700
at the Jolson AZA Softball
Marathon for Muscular Dystrophy.

Five Jews who were on the Jesse
Jackson mission to the Mideast
quit the delegation, protesting
Jackson's behavior on the tour.
Alan Herbach was appointed
assistant director, Michigan
Region, of the Jewish National
Fund.

,

Orthodox services and kosher meals
became available in East Lansing,
where seven MSU students rented a
three-story house established
through a Young Israel loan and a
gift from Mr. and Mrs. M. Biber.
A new class for students with
limited Hebrew educational back-
ground has opened at Hillel Day
School.

„
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
refused to receive any Jewish dele-
gation during his stay in the United
States.
After 19 years of business on
Dexter, Walter Herz Interiors
opened a new showroom on
Livernois.

PW
A"t,
The Israel government has decided
to join the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO).
Samuel Rubiner, secretary of the
Cunningham Drug Co., has been
named chairman of the major com-
mercial and professional unit of the
United Foundation Torch Drive.

— Compiled by Sy Manello,
editorial assistant