CONEY ISLAND

Greek and American Cuisine
OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

154 S. Woodward, Birmingham
(248) 540-8780

Welcome Back,
Kaplan

Halsted Village
(37580 W. 12 Mile Rd.)
Farmington Hills
(248) 553-2360

6527 Telegraph Rd.
Corner of Maple (15 Mile)
Bloomfield Township
(248) 646-8568

Former sitcom star headlines
Forgotten Harvest benefit.

4763 Haggerty Rd. at Pontiac Trail
West Wind Village Shopping Center
West Bloomfield
(248) 669-2295

841 East Big Beaver, Troy
(248) 680-0094

SOUTHFIELD SOUVLAKI
CONEY ISLAND
Nine Mile & Greenfield
15647 West Nine Mile, Southfield
(248) 569-5229

BILL CARROLL

Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
Also appearing will be nationally
Special to the Jewish News
known comedian Mark Cordes. Emcee
will be WDIV-TV4 weatherman
abe Kaplan is probably best
Chuck Gaidica, who will receive the
remembered as the creator
annual
Forgotten Harvest Star Award
and star of the 1970s TV hit
for
his
longtime
support of the group.
Welcome
Back,
Kotter.
sitcom
Kaplan has been a standup comedian
The comedian currently is enjoying a
on and off for 37 years, getting
comeback on the national
Gabe Kaplan: the idea while working as a hotel
standup circuit — after years
"I'll do some bellhop and watching comics
during which his career got side-
perform. He grew up in
poli tical
tracked by the stock market and
Brooklyn, the son of an
hum
or.'''
at Las Vegas poker tables.
Orthodox Jew who "spent money
Now, in the midst of his new-
as fast as he earned it" as a real estate
found success, Forgotten Harvest, the
salesman.
Detroit area hunger-relief agency, is
"[My father] didn't always live up to
bringing the comedian to town to
the talmudic viewpoint, but he was
entertain at "Comedy Night 2000," the
religious and a prominent member of
group's 10th annual benefit for hunger
the Prospect Park Jewish Center,
relief. Kaplan will perform 8 p.m.
where
I had my bar mitzvah," said
Saturday, Nov. 11, at Detroit's Music

a

FARMINGTON SOUVLAKI
CONEY ISLAND
Between 13 & 14 on
Orchard Lake Road
30985 Orchard Lake Rd.
Farmington Hills
(248) 626-9732

NEW LOCATION:
525 N. Main
Milford
(248) 684-1772

UPTOWN PARTHENON
4301 Orchard Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield
(248) 538-6000

HERCULES FAMILY RESTAURANT
33292 West 12 Mile
Farmington Hills
(248) 489-9777
Serving whitefish, lamb shank,
pastitsio and moussaka

I

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1

worgotten Harvest is a nonprofit
organization that provides
hunger assistance to the metro
Detroit area by collecting surplus
perishable food that would otherwise
go to waste from airlines, bakeries,
caterers, dairies, hospitals, meat and
produce distributors, and other
health department-approved estab-
lishments.
The food is transported directly to
25 soup kitchens and shelters in the
community — about 85,000 pounds

million meals per year. .
The Forgotten Harvest name is
unique to the Detroit area, and the
group has an office on West 10 Mile
Road in Southfield.
The program was launched in
1990, after Nancy Fishman of
Birmingham, a retired psychologist,
started it informally two years earlier.
She patterned it after Mazon, the
Jewish Response to Hunger, which
had several active groups in
California.
"In the early years, we held dinners
as part of our fund-raising activities,
then decided, and appropriately so,
that an organization called Forgotten

Kaplan in an interview from his new
apartment in New York.
Kaplan excelled at baseball in high
school, but, after several tryouts, could-
n't quite make a minor league team ros-
ter. His early comedy career took him
to small nightclubs and coffeehouses
around the country, until he hit it big
with an appearance on Johnny Carson's
Tonight Show in the early 1970s.
"Being on that show really meant
something then," Kaplan explained.
"You were the talk of the show busi-
ness world the next morning. It does-
n't mean as much today because there
are so many talk shows and you don't
get the same attention."
The pinnacle of Kaplan's career
came between 1975-1979 when he
created, wrote and starred as the
teacher in Welcome Back, Kotter, based

Harvest shouldn't be consuming food
while raising funds," said Fishman, a
past president of the group. "So we
switched to comedy nights and
they've been very successful."
Steve Jacob of Birmingham, a real
estate developer, is another Jewish
past president, and now is chairman
of the organization's executive board.
"The comedy night is our big fund-
raiser of the year. We collected about
$150,000 there in '99," he said.
"Forgotten Harvest is a great
organization with no bureaucracy
and a simple mission: pick up the
food and get it to the hungry people
the same day. It's very rewarding."

— Bill Carroll