Help For Day Schools

Newly created Jewish Education Trust offers tuition aid.

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Copy Editor/Education Writer

A

s the Jewish Academy of
Metropolitan Detroit com-
pletes its second full year as
a multi-stream Jewish day
high school, it looks forward to a new
kind of financial assistance.
Along with other local day schools
under the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit umbrella, the
JAMD now can offer its students
tuition assistance through theJewish
Education Trust.
Students, staff and friends of the
JAMD learned about the newly estab-
lished trust at the school's annual year-
end event held May 28 at the West
Bloomfield Jewish Community Center.
The idea for the trust came from
Robert Aronson, Federation's CEO.
"He told us, 'There isn't a school in
the community that isn't going to need
your support. We can't live on a day-to-
day basis,' " said Penny Blumenstein,
co-chair of Federation's Alliance for
Jewish Education, who, along with her
husband, Harold, was one of the
founding donors to the trust.
By underwriting the cost of tuition
for day school students, the trust,
which began with seven founding
donors, will help more families afford
what Blumenstein termed "the pri-
mary force for Jewish continuity."
"No matter how much Federation
gives, it isn't enough," she said. "We
have $10 million; we need $50 million."
Guest speaker Rabbi Joshua Elkin of
the Boston-based Partnership for
Excellence in Jewish Education
(PEJE), called the JAMD "an addi-
tional jewel in the crown of the
Detroit Jewish community."
PEJE helped underwrite the
Academy's opening and has continued
to offer technical as well as financial
support.
Rabbi Elkin based his address on the
need for day school education to per-
petuate the ideals of Judaism.
He emphasized that he was not
against the diversity implicit in
American society.
"We are a community that is
enriched by the religious and ethnic

Related editorial: page 33

6/7
2002

30

plurality that exists," he said.
"I'm simply worried about getting
enough prime time to get in an ethos
that's 3,000 years old. We are at the
start of an era when it will be consid-
ered every bit as American and every
bit part of the mainstream to support
an institution like this."
Rabbi Lee Buckman, JAMD head of
school, presented each of the Jewish
Education Trust's founding donors
with a glass globe, symbolizing the
world of Jewish education they are
helping to build.
"The most honored aliyah to the
Torah is the hagbah, the raising of the
Torah. It is a risky honor because one
may drop the Torah," Rabbi Buckman
said.
"But you, like the first family in the
Torah that took on the responsibility
and burden of carrying the Torah

through the desert, have taken on that
responsibility. You are helping us carry
the Torah for generations to come and
ensuring that the Torah is not
dropped."
The founding donors to the Jewish
Education Trust are Eugene and
Marcia Applebaum of Bloomfield
Hills, Mandell L. and Madeleine
Berman of Franklin, Harold and
Penny Blumenstein of Bloomfield
Hills, Samuel and Jean Frankel of
Bloomfield Hills, James and Nancy
Grosfeld of Bloomfield Hills, Sheldon
Sandweiss of Ann Arbor and the
Shiffman Family Day School Tuition
Assistance Fund, consisting of Lois
Shiffman of West Bloomfield, Gary
and Lisa Shiffman of West Bloomfield,
Alon and Shari Kaufman of West
Bloomfield, Ron and Ronda Ferber of
West Bloomfield.

❑

Below, clockwise from top left:

Mandell (Bill) Berman, a founding
donor of the Jewish Educational Trust,
chats with Tim and Helene Cohen.
Helene Cohen is the Jewish Academy
of Metropolitan Detroit's dean of
academic affairs.

Rabbi Joshua Elkin, executive director
of the Partnership for Excellence in
Jewish Education, speaks at the JAMD
event.

.

James and Nancy Grosfeld, among
the founding donors of the Jewish
Education Trust, receive a symbol of
the community's appreciation from Rabbi
Lee Buckman, JAMD head of school.

Rob Roth of Farmington Hills,
JAMD president.