Comm uni ty

Mazel Toy!

We withour famikvattO friettbs a very
healthy, happy an prosperous new Vear.

We wish our fan ilit lanb friends a very
healthy, baPPY
prOperous new year.

KAREN, TERR'f, CJ & ERIC WEINGARDEN

To

Love

September has become a significant month
for this young couple.

BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

.

LILLY & MiCitAiL WEISS

A Very Happy and Healthy
New Year to All Our
Friends and Family.

GLORIA (GOLDIE) & MARVIN BOOKSTEIN

S

arah Bershad and
Neil Sherman met,
then got engaged,
down in a stairwell.
Things can only be looking
up in their future together.
The couple was attending
Michigan State University last
year when each attended
Shabbat services at the MSU
Hillel building. Sarah, 22, of
West Bloomfield, left the
Reform service as Neil, 24, of
Windsor, walked out of the
Conservative service. They
were talking to other people as
they passed each other on a
stairwell.
"I heard him tell someone
he was from Windsor, and I
guess I made some disparaging
remark about the city," Sarah
recalls. "That got his attention
fast, and we struck up a con-
versation."
Remembers Neil: "I had
noticed her earlier, and want-
ed to meet her anyway, so this
was a good way to do it."
Sarah was active in the
Hillel program as a member
of the student board and vice
president. She also was a
singer in the a cappella choir.
She subsequently graduated
from MSU with a degree in
elementary education and
now is a student teacher at
Vandenberg Elementary
School in Southfield under a
program that also will earn
her a master's degree.
Neil now is in his last year
at MSU's Law School and

We wish our family..and friends a very
healthy, baPPY an prosperous new year.

May tote co ves hg yez ► e

be filled with

altk and kappiness and

rwospeeity folA all ot4e

Sarah Bershad and Neil Sherman

clerking for a Bloomfield Hills
law firm. He didn't know too
many students on the MSU
campus, and just wanted to
get out and meet some
Jewish people" that night last
fall. "I really didn't feel like
going, but I forced myself ...
and I'm glad I did."
Following the Sept. 24
stairwell encounter, the cou-
ple started dating. This sum-
mer, Neil decided to pop the
question. On July 15, he
lured Sarah to the empty
Hillel building on some pre-
text, after devising a story to
get the key in advance from
Hillel Program Director
Bryan Abramson.
"I wondered what on earth
was going on when he took
me through this dark build-
ing — onto the stairwell
where we had met," said
Sarah. Earlier, he had spruced
up the stairwell by placing
two dozen roses there, plus a
portrait they had admired in

"

Family and r-eiencis

a store of two people dancing
in the rain.
Neil then got down on his
knee and proposed marriage
in the old-fashioned way.
After an affirmative answer
from Sarah — and a few kiss-
es — they ran out to the
parking lot to phone their
parents and friends with the
good news. "I still have
copies of all of those cell
phone bills," Sarah laughs.
They'll wait until Sept. 1,
2001 to get married — on
her parents' 27th wedding
anniversary.
Music is a big part of their
lives; Sarah sang for the MSU
Women's Glee Club and
appeared in amateur theater
productions. Neil also sings,
and once played guitar in a
band.
But Sarah still prefers
Reform religious services and
Neal prefers Conservative. "I
haven't 'reformed' him yet,"
she says. ❑

your paper.
your community.
""P voice.

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