This Week

Champion Of Diversity'

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Elaine Driker receives JCCouncil's
Activist of the Year Award.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer

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5/24

2002

20

laine Driker began building
bridges long ago and hasn't
stopped yet. For her many
contributions to the Jewish
and Detroit communities, she received
the Jewish Community Council's
Activist of the Year Award at the
Council's annual meeting on May 21.
Driker, who lives near Palmer Park
in. Detroit, has remained involved in
race relations with the
city of Detroit for
years.
"She blazed her own
trail, yet she stood as
the underpinning for
so many of us and lift-
ed so many of us," said
Melvin "Butch"
Hollowell, a communi-
ty activist who grew up
as Driker's neighbor
and still lives nearby.
She "has made it a very
special place for all of
us who call this com-
munity our home."
David Gubow, chair
of the Activist Award
committee, called her
a "champion of diver-
sity."
"Through her
numerous roles in the
community, Elaine has
been a role model for many others,
especially younger adults," he said.
"This city has meant a great deal to
me," Driker told 125 Council mem-
bers and friends at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield. "The
Council gave me the means to find
my voice — to work with people
within the Jewish community who
believe as I do that there is so much to
be gained if we can look at each other
as individuals with distinct and
remarkable characteristics, even
though, and especially if, those charac-
teristics are different from our own.
"And to work with people from
the general .community who share
my belief — and Council's belief—
that through personal relationships
and by working together, we can
build a better world for ourselves,

and for future generations to come."
The annual award honors an indi-
vidual whose efforts have helped to
achieve Council's mission by advanc-
ing Jewish interests and building rela-
tionships.
Driker was the founding. co-chair of
the Detroit Jewish Initiative, which
actively involves the Jewish communi-
ty in efforts to enhance the quality of
life in Detroit. She is now on the DJI's
executive advisory board. The DJI is a
program of the JCCouncil and the

Above:
Melvin Hollowell

Left:
Elaine Driker

Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit.
An urban planner by training, she
created and directed the Detroit
Orientation Institute at Wayne State
University, educating almost 1,000
bUsiness, nonprofit and media leaders
on the history and complexity of
Detroit.
She also managed the Detroit
Strategic Planning Project's Race
Relations Task Force and serves on the
boards of the Detroit Institute of Arts
and Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park.
During the annual meeting, the
Council board also installed Ann
Zousmer as president, Steve Silverman
as president-elect, Arline Gould and
Wendy Wagenheim as vice presidents,
Micki Grossman as secretary and
Richard Nodel as treasurer. ❑

