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Jews reach out increasingly to inner-city
Detroiters through JCCouncil programs.
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New Detroit Inc.
honors the Jewish
Community Council
for helping mend
racial divides.
DAVID SACHS
Staff Writer
f you listen carefully, you can
almost hear the sound of new
grass sprouting up all over
Detroit — grass-roots alliances
forming between individual Jews
and inner-city Detroiters.
And the flourishing of these rela-
tionships could symbolize the dream
of a "New Detroit."
Being honored by the urban
coalition New Detroit Inc., for its
role in facilitating these contacts, is
the Jewish Community Council of
Metropolitan Detroit. Council, with
offices in Bloomfield Township, is an
umbrella group of over 200 local
Jewish organizations.
"Closing the Gap," is what New
Detroit calls the award it gave to
Council — for closing the gap per-
sonally, between suburbanites and
Detroiters, and closing the gap eco-
nomically, between have-nots and
haves. Honored June 26 at a dinner
at the Detroit Opera House,
Council was cited for its leadership
as a community organization foster-
ing "racial justice and cultural collab-
oration." Council Executive Director
David Gad-Harf and President
Kathleen Straus accepted the Closing
the Gap Award.
A Mayoral Challenge
It is in the past half-decade that
many of the Council programs rec-
ognized by New Detroit were devel-
oped, largely in response to a chal-
lenge by Detroit Mayor Dennis
Archer to David Page, former presi-
dent of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit.
About six years ago, both men
were speaking at a Jewish National
,
utok.
No
Fund event in Detroit. As Page
Basically, these are "small pro-
recalls, "I said to the mayor, 'We
jects with a lot of bang for the
support your efforts and anything
buck." That's how Barbara Blum,
we can do, just let us know'
a social worker and volunteer in
"He got up and said he appreciat-
the Latino community in south-
ed my words and
west Detroit, describes
assumed they weren't idle
the Council's efforts.
Diane Fishman
remarks. And he called
"We're not mission-
of West Bloomfield
upon us to follow up and
aries," she said. "We
tutors a Bagley
do something."
want to work with
Elementary School
But the repertoire of
people so they can
student in reading.
programs that Council
know us and we can
developed is more than
know them, to create a
just Jewish movers and shakers
positive expectation the next time
breaking bread with other movers
people meet Jews."
and shakers.
The programs involve primarily
Improving Relations
suburban Jews, young and old, help-
Robert Brown, a New Detroit stiffer
ing the underprivileged in Detroit.
and member of Council's board,
Jews, for instance, offering their time
said, "Council has made measurable
and expertise to energetic inner-city
efforts to improve race relations —
entrepreneurs struggling to succeed
to bridge the gap of crossing Eight
and also to help disadvantaged first-
Mile Road."
graders struggling to read.
„.\
7/7
2000
37