For Openers
A Passion For Reading
"I can normally read a book in a day and a half," she says.
"I play cards once in a while, but I'd rather read."
The DaVinci Code is slow going, she adds. "There's so
much to learn."
Born in Chicago, Gilman moved with her family to New
York as a teenager. "We all loved to read," she says. "We had a
lot of Shakespeare in the house, and my brother and I could
do the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet from beginning
to end."
Says Maza, who taught English and journalism at West
Bloomfield High School before retiring last year, "I still call
my mother when I can't remember a book's name or author,
or the name of a piece of music."
• Gilman worked both before and after her marriage — as a
secretary on Wall Street, receptionist-teacher for a dance stu-
dio, bookkeeper for her husband's business and much more.
It was her own idea to sell the family home in New Rochelle
and move to West Bloomfield to be near her daughter, two
granddaughters and four great-granddaughters — just in case
she ever needed their help.
That time hasn't come yet, Maza says. El
L
illian Gilman of West Bloomfield
has been reading The DaVinci
Code, Dan Brown's convoluted
thriller, for more than a week, and
she still doesn't know the identity of the mur-
derer.
But Gilman, who will celebrate her 90th
birthday Sept. 14, has learned several other
DIANA
interesting facts. For example, she says, "I had
LIEBER-
no idea the Louvre was three miles long."
MAN
A two-year resident of the Lillian and
Staff Writer
Samuel Hechtman Jewish Apartments,
Gilman read more than 24 books over the
summer — enough to earn her two gift cer-
tificates for Borders Books & Music from the West
Bloomfield Township Library.
For her birthday, her Hechtman friends gave her more
books, and another Borders gift certificate.
"Lillian is a very intelligent, wise woman — she reads all
the time," says Elaine Goldsmith, the library's coordinator of
outreach and homebound services.
Gilman was among the top readers in the library's summer
reading program — but she rarely sets foot in the library.
Instead, she's one of the increasing numbers of seniors who
take advantage of West Bloomfield's traveling mini-library.
Every month, Goldsmith brings an assortment of new and
old books from the library's general collection as well as some
special requests, including large-print materials and audio
books, to 11 senior residences and nursing homes in West
Bloomfield. She also sends out requested books to home-
bound people of any age, all packed in a nylon mailing bag
with return postage guaranteed.
Gilman, who enjoys the works of John O'Hara, Rosamund
Pilcher, Barbara Taylor Bradford and James Patterson, reads
about the latest literary picks every week in the New York
Times Book Review, delivered to her home by her daughter
Harriet Maza of West Bloomfield.
LgnV 5cha
Don't Know
© 2003
VIT bile it is traditional that
a male take on the job
of mohel (ritual circum-
ciser of Jewish male
babies), it is not a job forbidden to
females. Can you name the first
female mohel?
— Goldfein
'nos JTQL11
,
SUISIDLLMOITD `E.10cITZI `3JIM
at i a Fetal samid!ips
margall ccz: snpoxy uI :Jamstry
SSOTAI JO MOTS
notables
"We are talking about saving people's
lives. What's more important than
that? To save one person is to save the
whole world; everyone in Israel knows
that. And that's exactly what we are
trying to do."
— Itay Balei, manager of security for
the Dizengoff Center branch of Bank
Leumi in Tel Aviv, quoted in
"Lifeguards of the Land" in the late
summer issue of Hadassah magazine.
Yiddish Limericks
Lillian Gilman, who turns 90 Sept. 14, was one of the top readers
in the West Bloomfield Library's summer reading club.
When all of the smoke finally cleared,
The headlines in Baghdad appeared:
"Saddam was no held.*
With his regime felled,
He took heat un fiss** and faleered.***
— Martha Jo Fleischmann
hero
** (he took) hands and feet (literal)
he took off in haste (idiomatic)
*** left
Shabbat Candlelighting
"When I light the Shabbat candles, I pray for the health and happiness of my family and for the
safety of my daughter and others in Israel. This week, I will add a blessing of thanks for the safe and
Yiddish-Islas
healthy birth of my new granddaughter.
yekl
— Shelli Dorfman, writer, West Bloomfield
Sponsored by Lubavitch
Women's Organization.
To submit a candlelighting
message or to receive
Candlelighting
Candlelighting
complimentary candlesticks
Friday, Sept. 12, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 19, 7:18 p.m.
Shabbat Ends
Shabbat Ends
Saturday, Sept. 13, 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 20, 8:18 p.
and information on Shabbat
candlelighting call Miriam.,
Amzalak of Oak Park at
(248) 548-6771 or e-mail•
manizalak@juno.conz
A stupid person; a sucker; a "green-
horn" — newcomer to the United
States who is taken advantage of; a
yokel.
Source: From The New Joys of Yiddish
by Leo Calvin Rosten, edited by
Lawrence Bush, copyright 2001, by
the Rosten Family LLC. Used by per-
mission of the Rosten Family LLC.
9/12
2003