Pho to by Joshua Kriscal
community through interest-free incen-
tive home loans and community-build-
ing events. The Neighborhood Project
also serves Southfield.
Third Challenge
Trevor Weltman of Huntington Woods prepares for his Jan. 5 bar mitzvah with
Rabbi Joseph Klein.
So the temple stayed. Eventually,
some families returned and others
moved in, with the help of United
Jewish Foundation of Metropolitan
Detroit's Neighborhood Project, a 13-
year-old program credited with
strengthening the Oak Park Jewish
TEMPLE EMANU-EL
50th anniversary
r and service.
15 — Rabbi Eric Yoffe,
re f the Union of
H ebrew
tioris, representing 900
n gregations in North
will speak at Shabbat
services.
24 — Samuel L.
rScholar-in-Residence
ith singer, teacher
anny Maseng.
emple Emanu-El
1950s sock hop.
,dult 1950s theme
usical celebrat-
nnual congrega-
ih celebration
end.
on page 44
Photo cou rtesy Temple Emanu-El Archives
plans drawn for a three-acre parcel
donated by member Bernard Lieberman
and an additional eight acres purchased
with congregational funds. The building
was to be set back far from 10 Mile.
"We didn't know where the freeway
was going to go, which is why the
building was set so far back from the
road. We thought the freeway might go
in front of it, not in back of it," Sacks
said.
The school wing was added in the
early 1960s, during the time that Stark
was president of the congregation and
Milton Rosenbaum was rabbi. "We
were growing so fast that by the time
the wing was built, we had outgrown
it," Stark said.
The Jewish Community Center's
Jimmy Prentis Morris Building next
door was utilized for extra space for
Hebrew school.
Another stress in the mid- to late-1980s
was the building of the 1-696 exten-
sion.
Final plans for the freeway had the
route through Temple Emanu-El's back
yard, as opposed to the front yard. A
number of fears surfaced, including
that the route of the highway would
make religious services impossible to
hear and that many would abandon the
area if housing prices dropped. Rabbi
Lane Steinger worked to ease the fears
while the temple board again decided
to stay put.
Talk no longer focuses on the free-
way. Standing on the property during a
cold winter day recently, the sound of
the freeway is barely perceptible. Inside
the temple, it is impossible to detect any
difference in sound. And housing prices
have doubled and tripled in the Oak
Park-Huntington Woods area in the
Second Challenge
Before the continuation of I-696 was
finalized, many members began to
migrate further north and west to larger,
more comfortable homes. At the same
time, the larger Reform temples had
also moved to Oakland County from
Detroit, drawing some of Emanu-El's
membership.
This migration was the source of
many conversations, said Sacks. A for-
mer president of the temple, she said
many felt the future of the temple and
the Jewish community would not be in
Oak Park.
"Many times the question of moving
came up, but each time:it always came
down to the fact that these were our
roots," Sacks said. "There were Jewish
people living here and/we felt an obliga-
tion to serve them."
At the temple's Oct. 2, 1955 groundbreaking are: Rabbi Frank Rosenthal, Walter Schmier, Bertram Kaatz Ben Weil anch far right,
Dorothy Weiner
2002
43