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Staff photos by Krim. Husa
Left: Justin Seltzer,
17, of Franklin wields
a sledge hammer.
Ben Falik, 19, of
Bloomfield Township,
hard at work.
BEN FALIK
Special to the Jewish News
and Chaldean
1 11 ewish
teens last week made an
unlikely donation to the
city of Detroit: 1,000
man hours toward rebuilding a
westside neighborhood.
"With a project like this, the
whole is always greater than the
sum of the parts," said Rabbi
Josh Bennett of Temple Israel as
the project wound down on June
22.
I joined the group on June 19
and found the "whole" to be
greater than anyone could have
possibly anticipated.
The Youth Federation of
Temple Israel (YFTI) and the
Chaldean Americans Reaching
and Encouraging (CARE) joined
forces to create JACOB, Jewish
and Chaldean Opportunity
Builders. JACOB then signed on
for five days of work
with the Motor City
Blight Busters.
Though this is the
first joint activity of its
kind, according to Rabbi
Josh, organizers were
encouraged to find it
came together naturally.
"This whole thing
came to be because
everyone wanted to do a
multicultural project and
6/29
2001