TISItanah
It's a new year, and Ira Boykansky
will usher it in with a new Torah.
SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
StaffWriter
F
to someone, they ask if I'm related to Ira. Everyone
knows Ira."
Rabbi Rabin says Ira Boykansky attends all the
Jewish programming at Danto.
"He has a very strong Jewish identity," the rabbi
says. "He likes to put on tefillin and loves to speak
Yiddish, which he spoke as a child. He used to
attend the Yiddish theater."
Boykansky also loves Jewish music and has a
collection of Jewish songs on records. "He
used to run 'Ira's music session' at
Danto," Rabbi Rabin says.
Boykansky traveled to Israel with
his mother 30 years ago, and "his
parents and his paternal grandfather
were very instrumental in his life,"
says Sandra Boykansky.
She is married to Boykansky's
brother, Dr. Stanley Boykansky, and
the brothers also have a sister, Elaine
Kaufman of Clarkston.
Because he lives too far to attend
religious services at Young Israel of
Oak Park, where he is a life member,
Boykansky now is a regular at servic-
es held at both Danto and
Fleischman.
or Ira Boykansky, knowing he is the
impetus for a newly restored Torah to be
- read on Rosh Hashanah this year "is the
highlight of his life," says his rabbi,
Yerachmiel Rabin.
The Torah sits in the ark at the Marvin and
Betty Danto Family Health Care Center in
West Bloomfield, where Boykansky lives.
Until its arrival, the only Torah at
the 6-year-old skilled nursing facility
had been borrowed from neighbor-
ing Fleischman Residence, a Jewish
Home and Aging Services-operated,
licensed home for aged.
Last December, when an old Torah
was given to Danto, its chaplain Rabbi
Rabin asked JHAS Associate Director
Carol Rosenberg and JHAS Executive
Director Margot Parr for help in
securing a donor to have the Torah
refurbished. An anonymous donation
came to them for funding the renova-
tions in honor of Boykansky, for
whom Jewish tradition and obser-
ING ivit.MOM
vance have always been paramount.
QI
"The Torah has already been Ira's
eHII Y AND FAME
The Torah's Move
BO VIC ANSKY
portable support," Rosenberg says. 'As
Danto's new Torah came to the
he has gone through his many homes,
facility by way of Rabbi Robert
the Torah has been with him."
Scott, whose late wife, Ardis, had
Boykansky lived in Borman Hall
been a resident there.
and Prentis Manor, Jewish Home
Rabbi Scott, now a b'nai mitzvah
for Aged facilities sold in 1995,
instructor at Temple Israel in West
before moving to Danto when it
Bloomfield, is rabbi emeritus of the Tri-Cities
opened in 1996. The 71-year-old Boykansky,
Jewish
Communities, which once included the con-
born with cerebral palsy, may have difficulty getting
gregations of Temple Beth El in Midland, Temple
around, but it doesn't stop him.
B'nai Israel in Saginaw and Temple Israel in Bay City.
"He attends Jewish functions everywhere," says
"He knew that since the three synagogues reorganized
Boykansky's sister-in-law Sandra Boykansky of
12 years ago, there were Torahs not being used," says
Bloomfield Hills.
L'SHANAH
TOVAH! on page 16
"He loves to go. So often when I introduce myself