Featuring:
Ballet Master and Choreographer
Oakland Community
College presents
Iacob Lascu
A Spring
A Family Affair
Mr. Lascu is highly respected in the
Metropolitan area for his work on the
Nutcracker Suite with the Detroit
Symphony. He is lead dancer, ballet
master_ and choreographer of the
Romanian National Ensemble
"Ciocilia" and the Rapsodia Romina.
He was also a ballet master and
assistant choreographer
for the Romanian Opera.
Ballet
Workmen's Circle honors David Hecker, a Michigan
labor leader who fights for social and economic justice.
A
SHARON LUCKERMAN
Editorial Assistant
(most every Democratic
political leader in the state
joined the community as
the Workmen's
Circle/Arbeter Ring presented David
Hecker, secretary-treasurer of the
Michigan Federation of Teachers &
School Related Personnel (MFT/SRP),
with its fourth annual Besere Velt (A
Better World) Award.
More than 200 neighbors and
friends gathered May 6 at the Oak
Park Community Center. They min-
gled with U.S. Representatives John
Conyers, David Bon ior and
Sander Levin, state Rep. Gilda
Jacobs, MFT President Rollie
Hopgood, Jewish Labor
Committee Michigan
Executive Director Selma
Goode (a former award win-
ner), former Gov. James
Blanchard, Metro Detroit AFL-
CIO President Donald Boggs
and Detroit City Council
President Pro Tem Marianne
Mahaffey, among others.
"You always know that for
Dave the heart of the matter is
the lives of the working peo-
ple," Mahaffey said at the cere-
mony.
Amid live klezmer music, children
jockeying for desserts and kibbitzing
adults, coordinator Ellen Bares-
Brackett and chairperson Arlene Frank
began the award program.
The Workmen's Circle selected
Hecker, who also serves on the Jewish
Community Council board, because
"he strives for social and economic jus-
tice for all people," said Bates-
Brackett, Michigan director of the
Workmen's Circle. "He lives our ideals
within a Jewish context."
History Repeating Itself
Thirty-eight years ago, Hecker's grand-
father, Joseph Hecker, also was hon-
ored by the Workmen's Circle for his
leadership and activism.
David Hecker tells the story of his
paternal grandparents coming to New
York City from Zamoscher, Poland, to
escape persecution. Active in the Bund
(a Jewish labor organization), his
grandfather was in the needle trades
industry and made women's hats. In
the United States, he joined several
labor unions and the Workmen's
Circle.
David Hecker learned the values of
community, fairness and justice from
his family, which are consistent, he
added, with Judaism.
"The work I do now, fighting for
public education, is fighting for the
men and women who make public
education happen," he said in an
interview. "Jewish people know how
important public education is ...
Without it, how would Jews and every
May 12, 2001
ORCHARD RIDGE CAMPUS
SMITH THEATRE
27055 Orchard Lake Rd.
Farmington Hills, Ml 48334
9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Intermediate Level
$10.00 Participant
$5.00 General Admission
(248) 522-3667 or
(248) 522-3494
OCC
is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution.
AVE. EVERYDAY`
Alice Audie-Figueroa and her husband
David Hecker enjoy the award ceremony.
other immigrant group become part of
this melting pot?"
Public education, he added, provides
opportunities and hope for children of
working people.
However, Detroit's labor history for
Jews is a very confused story, said
Sidney Bolkosky, professor of history
at the University of Michigan-
Dearborn. Jews were at odds with each
other because significant portions were
laborers or employers. He remembers
his mother telling him how Jewish
employers in the 1930s hired Jewish
goons to beat up Jewish workers.
"What do we need now between
labor and business? — tolerance,"
Bolkosky added.
Jews In Labor
Hecker's wedding of Jewish values
with political ideals tracks the not-
unusual movement of immigrant Jews
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