e

W

hen the Jewish News first

appeared 60 years ago,

news of the Holocaust

newspapers predominated, and everyone

lived in Detroit.

As the next six decades progressed,

the Jewish New.c chronicled this Jewish

community as it left Detroit for the

northwest suburbs, leaving community

centers and synagogues in its wake. The

Jewish News was there when Sinai
Hospital opened its doors and when the

IRWIN COHEN
Special to the Jewish News

1992

The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
sold the Butzel Building (before it was decided that
Comerica Park would be built behind it) to a
Detroit development company owned by cable
magnate Donald Barden ... Congregation B'nai
Moshe held services at the West Bloomfield Jewish
Community Center as its new building on Drake
Road took shape ... Beth Abraham Hillel Moses
and B'nai David were celebrating their centennials.
On May 3, 1992, the Max M. Fisher Building
on Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Township was
dedicated by the Federation. "To be honored by
your own community is the best tribute anyone
could achieve," 83-year-old Max Fisher said to the
200 assembled on that windy day.

Max Fisher,
right, receives
a rendering of
plans for the
Federation
building that
bears his name.

community rallied in support of Soviet

Jews and the Six-Day War.

In the past decade since that Golden

Anniversary issue, there were few slow

news weeks, but much of the upheaval

and change of earlier decades didn't occur

locally. The biggest international news was

the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister

The Hebrew Memorial Society, Chesed Shel
Emes, founded to provide free burials to those
who could not afford them, celebrated its 75th
anniversary ... The 200-member Troy
Congregation Shir Tikvah celebrated its 10th.

Yitzhak Rabin. The most disquieting news

continues to come from Israel and from

our own shores in the wake of Sept. 11.

What follows is a chronological snap-

1993

In a historic move, President Bill Clinton urged
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO
Chairman Yasser Arafat to shake hands after they
signed the Oslo accords.

shot of highlights from the last 10 years

of coverage in the Jewish News leading

up to our 60th anniversary.

3/29

2002

t

the world was at war and

was trickling out of Europe. Yiddish

.1N

e

— Kul listen Cohen,
story development editor

Detroit historian Irwin Cohen 's book, "Jewish
Detroit" by Arcadia Publishing Company will
be part of the 2002 Jewish Book Fair at the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit.
Cohen's comprehensive Jewish history on Detroit and
its suburbs, 1762-2002, will debut next year.

Sinai Hospital of Detroit celebrated its 40th
birthday ... More than 1,650 children attended
Tamarack Camps, the highest numbers in 15 years.
Federation sponsored a survey on education
known as the Giles Report, recommending that the
Agency for Jewish Education phase out the United
Hebrew Schools and that students be placed into
congregational schools. Some con-
gregations prepared by merging
their schools. Beth Abraham Hillel
Moses and B'nai David formed the
Congregational Religious School.
Philip Slomovitz, who helped
give birth to the Jewish News and
became its editor and publisher,
died at 96.

Philip
Slomovitz

1994

Under the direction of its president, Gary Torgow,
Southfield-based Yeshiva Beth Yehudah began a $1
million renovation ... A deficit of hundreds of
thousands of dollars forced the Federation to shut
down the United Hebrew Schools' transportation
system. Car-pooling vans became the most viable
option for parents.
B'nai David left its Southfield building and con-
tinued to seek a merger with B'nai Moshe ... Rabbi
Herbert Yoskowitz came to Beth Achim in July and
Rabbi Steven Weil to the Young Israel of Greenfield
in August. At the same time, Rabbi Daniel Nevins
began as assistant rabbi at Adat Shalom Synagogue
... Close to 900 people gathered at the corner of
Orchard Lake and Walnut Lake roads for the
groundbreaking ceremonies of Temple Shir
Shalom's new West Bloomfield building.
Paul D. Borman was confirmed as a federal dis-
trict judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.

1995

Shaarey Zedek counted women as part of its minyan
Hillel Day School decided to stay at its
Farmington Hills location and expand, rather than
to accept a $5 million donation towards construction
of a new building at a further suburban location ...
Shir Tikvah broke ground for its new temple on

