Obituaries Ilene Kaufman Techner ach week, thousands of people visit our "new"address: www.irakaufman.com . Just like our current location since 1961, we are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Stop by our Web site and you'll see the pride we have in serving the community for almost 60 years and the pride we all should feel about our Jewish traditions for THE IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL over 3,000 years. Bringing Together Family, Faith & Community THE KAUFMAN COMMUNITY CORNER Popular Bus Tour of Jewish Yesteryear again offered by Jewish Historical Society of MI, Sun. July 16, 2000 Popular demand and a sold- out initial tour has prompted the Jewish Historical Society of MI again offer a bus tour of Detroit. See where previous generations lived, shopped, and went to shule on a 4-hour bus tour of Detroit's Jewish yesteryear, Sun. July 16, 2000. Learn about Detroit's Jewish history from downtown to suburbs on a luxury air- conditioned bus. The tour is $15 for JHSM members, $18 for non- members. A light snack is offered. The tour meets at 12:15 pm at the parking lot of the JCC on 10 Mile. For more info, call (248) 557-8315. 18325 West Nine Mile Road, Southfield, MI 48075 • Telephone: 248-569-0020 • Toll Free: 800-325-7105 Please visit us at our web site: www.iralcaufman.com RODNICK BROS., INC. Fruit & Gift Basket Specialists (8 1 0) 772-4350 Daily & Nationwide Delivery WE'RE NUMBER ONE SINCE 1940! MONUMENT CENTER INC. Yaste C GLATT KOSHER "Same Location 45 Years" r7:711 - Under the Supervision of the Council of Orthodox Rabbis • Monuments and Markers • Bronze Markers • Memorial Duplicating • Cemetery Lettering & Cleaning CEMETERY INSTALLATION ANYWHERE IN MICHIGAN Call 248-542-8266 7/7 2000 134 661 E. 8 MILE ROAD FERNDALE 11/2 blocks East of Woodward WE NOW HAVE SEATING FOR YOUR INDOOR DINING PLEASURE. FULL LINE OF COMPLETE HOMEMADE DINNERS AND MEAT OR FISH TRAYS WE CATER TO MEET ALL YOUR NEEDS 25270 Greenfield • Oak Park ( 248) 967-1161 He was also an editor of the Yiddish Forward newspaper. Mlotek was born in the town of Proszowice, Poland, and moved with his family to Warsaw at the age of 7. As a young man, he was active in the Bund and other Jewish labor and social- ist organizations and published Yiddish poetry in newspapers. He spent World War II in Shanghai and moved to the United States in 1949. Editor's Note: Yiddish theater star Zalmen Mlotek _is sitting shiva for his father Joseph Mlotek and will not be part of the Yiddish Concert in the Park sponsored by the local Workmen's Circle. The program of klezmer music will go on as scheduled at 7 p.m. Monday, July 10, in Rothstein Park, Oak Park. Actor Matthau Dead At 79 Los Angeles/JTA — Actor Walter Matthau, who got his start in New York's Yiddish theater, died July 1 in Santa Monica, Calif , following a heart attack. Matthau, who turned grumpiness into an art form, was 79. - During a stage, movie and televi- sion career spanning 50 years, Matthau is perhaps best Walter Matthau remembered for his role as the slob Oscar Madison yoked to the finicky Felix Unger in the film ver- sion of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. His hangdog looks and growling voice graced more than 60 films and 23 plays. He won an Oscar in 1966 for best supporting actor as an unethical lawyer in The Fortune Cookie, and received best actor nom- inations for Kotch and The Sunshine Boys. In private life, Matthau was "an incredibly proud Jew" who frequent- ly participated in Shabbat and High Holy Day services at the Synagogue for the Performing Arts, recalled Rabbi Jerry Cutler. The actor never hesitated to con- . front antisemitism and once had it out with British actress Vanessa Redgrave after she praised the Palestine Liberation Organization and denigrated Israel, Rabbi Cutler said. Born Walter Matuschanskayasky on New York's Lower East Side, the future actor experienced the hand- to-mouth existence of an immigrant family. His father, Melos (Milton), a Russian-born electrician, abandoned the family when Walter was 3. His Lithuanian-born mother, Rose, worked in a sweatshop to sup- port Walter and his brother. The family moved frequently from one cold-water flat to another to stay ahead of the rent collector. At 11, Matthau started selling ice cream and soft drinks in the Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue. For an additional 50 cents, he performed in bit roles. In his first part, with two lines, Matthau played an old lady in a crowd scene, he recalled later. Matthau excelled_as an athlete in high school and, among numerous other jobs, worked as a boxing instructor and basketball coach. After three years' service in the Air Force during World War II, Matthau turned to serious study as an actor. In his first professional per- formance, he was cast in Three Men on a Horse in 1946. Matthau frequently portrayed explicitly or implicitly Jewish char- acters. In 1994, he played Albert Einstein in the comic film I. Q. and two years . later he was an old-time Jewish radical in Bn Not Rappaport. Two months ago, his final film Hanging Up came out, in which he played a cantankerous family patri-, arch. In an interview at the time, he bemoaned the lack of good parts for older actors. Matthau was married twice, first to Grace Johnson, with whom he had two children, David and Jenny. After a divorce, he married Carol Marcus, a close friend of the writers Truman Capote and James Agee. She had previously been married twice to the writer William Saroyan. The couple's son, Charles, direct- ed his father in the 1996 film The Grass Harp. Matthau displayed a lifelong pas- sion for sports, classical music and gambling. In contrast to his profes- sional grumpiness, the actor was described by one friend as "the best- natured of men."