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Away For The Holidays

Schoolmates, friends and other peoples' families help provide the New Year warmth.

Stacey Gross of West Bloomfield with Amy Rosenberg of Highland Park, Ill., one of many college friends
she shares the holidays with at school.

SHARON LUCKERMAN
Staff Writer

Mr hen living in Ann Arbor, Alice Schweiger had up to 23 "orphans"
— students away from home — at her High Holiday table.
"Holidays make kids nostalgic," she says.
The kids are appreciative and helpful, and always bring things
like wine and flowers. But the parents, too, send her gifts and flowers. For them,
a home-cooked meal and a place to celebrate bring peace of mind, says
Schweiger, who now continues her tradition in New York City.
Most of us look forward to the company of family and friends around the
High Holiday table. But when children are away at college, how do they feel
about the new experience, and how does their family cope with their absence?
Marcy Heller Fisher of Bloomfield Hills remembers last year, when one of her
children, who was studying in France, didn't come home for the holidays. "He
was missed," she says.
"We absolutely don't demand the kids come home," her husband Rob says.
"But they're all coming this year. They're missing classes to come ... They feel
like they belong."
Bette Cotzin of Ann Arbor will have a full house this year. Her daughter
Miriam, a rabbinical student in Los Angeles, was invited to help lead High

Holiday services at Temple Beth Emeth, where Cotzin and her husband both
have been presidents. To honor the occasion, daughter Debra, studying in
Jerusalem, and grandparents living in Florida, all decided to journey back to
Ann Arbor for the holidays.
When one of the daughters is not there, Cotzin says, "we always miss them,
and our congregation becomes our extended family. Many don't have children
here."
She has another tradition, though, that may help when not all family mem-
bers are in town. "Rosh Hashanah is a wonderful time for people to gather,"
says Cotzin, who has a luncheon after Rosh Hashanah services so people can
gather and "think about the new year in a warm welcoming way."
How many people show up? "About 90," she says, adding that she doesn't
have a huge house, but a condo.

Pizza Or Brisket?

Students unable to make it home for the holidays had a more mixed reaction
when asked how they cope.
"I had a kind of homesick feeling," says Stacey Gross, 19, of West Bloomfield,
when she couldn't go home for Yom Kippur last year. "But it was also nice to
celebrate with close friends on campus.

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