Cover Story

Danny
Friedman
and classmates
rehearse for the
music review on
stage at Orchard
Lake Middle
School.

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Friendship Circle

When Danny was 8, Friedman received
a call from Bassie Shemtov, who, with
her husband Rabbi Levi Shemtov, direct
the Friendship Circle in West
Bloomfield, providing assistance to fam-
ilies with children with special needs.
She hoped Danny would be interest-
ed in joining a project of the then-new
Lubavitch Foundation-affiliated organ-
ization, matching teenaged volunteers
to be "special friends," with children
with special needs.
"They were one of our very first
families, Bassie Shemtov remembers.
"We fell in love with Danny. He was
the cutest, most sociable and lovable
boy. They started coming to our fami-
ly programs and two volunteers came
around and played with Danny."
For the last year-and-a-half, Danny's
"special friend" has been Eddie Rubin
of Farmington Hills. Bassie found the
two are a good match because they
both love theater.
But there is more than acting and
singing that connects Danny with
Eddie, 14. "We're friends," says Eddie,
an eighth-grader at Walled Lake Middle
School and also a B'nai Moshe member.
The boys met through Friendship
Circle, but have continued a relationship
outside of the organization. "We see each
other two-to-three times a month," Eddie
says. "We've gone swimming, bowling, to
the movies, all kinds of things." Their
friendship continues, Eddie says, because
"I just see him as a regular 13-year-old
kid. I see him as a friend. He sees me as
his friend, too. We hang out."

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3/23
2001

Keep On Dreaming

No one ever told Danny Friedman
that maybe he wasn't expected to learn
to speak.
His life has been filled instead with
encouragement, goals and achievements.

"I don't think people realize how much
Danny can do," Friedman says. "I have
always cut out articles on Down syn-
drome kids going to college, for Danny"
"Linda is a great example of someone
who says her child is going to do what
every other child does," Bassie Shemtov
says. "The happiest moments in her life
are planning Danny's bar mitzvah."
Says Nina, "Danny's come so far
because my mom worked so hard with
him. She's my role model. She taught
me to be a pretty strong woman. She
fought when teachers and doctors said
Danny wouldn't amount to anything.
No one tells my mom that one of her
children can't do something."
Nina wrote a candle lighting ceremo-
ny she will read for Danny at his March
25 bar mitzvah party. "The theme of
Danny's party is, 'I put on a happy face
at Danny's bar mitzvah.' Danny is a
friend to everybody, so we made friend-
ship the theme: He always has a smile
on his face and puts one on the faces of
those around him," Nina says.
At Danny's party, he will do what he
loves best — perform a medley of
songs, including one from the play,

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat. He'll sing the same song
four days later in his school's music
review, dressed in a multicolored coat
designed just for him.
"The song is about dreams. It is per-
fect for Danny. It has so much to do
with him," Nina says.
Danny's voice, no doubt will boom
throughout the room, and with a song
typifying his life and direction, he will sing
the words from Dreamcoat's "Any Dream
Will Do" that could have been written
just for him: "The world and I, we are still
waiting...any dream will do."

For more information on Down
syndrome, visit our Web site at
www.detroitjewi sh news. corn

