Goody Bags
For Purim

Parcel project brings community together
for holiday mitzvah.

DIANA LIEBERMAN

Staff Writer

IV

e could just have easily done this in our
classrooms," said Linda Klein, who
teaches at Temple Emanu-El in Oak
Park. "But we would have missed all the

fun."
Instead of celebrating Purim in their Sunday school
classroom, Klein and her second-graders spent Feb. 29
at the Max M. Fisher Jewish Federation Building in
Bloomfield Township. They sang Purim songs,
enjoyed the antics of Devora the Explorer, played
Purim Jeopardy, stamped and colored craft items and
filled paper bags with mishloach manot, kosher goodies
to give as Purim treats.
"Coming here, we see all kinds of people, from all
over, all looking different," Klein said. "It gives them a
sense that we are a community — everyone coming
together to do the same thing."
Through the Great Purim Parcel Project, the chil-
dren, their parents and many others decorated and
packed about 3,800 local mishloach manot bags. These
bags — and any other gifts brought to the offices of
Federation's Alliance for Jewish Education — will be
distributed to residents of JARC homes and Jewish
Apartments, to those served by Kadima, Yad Ezra and
Shalom Detroit, and to others who might appreciate a
cheering gift during this happy holiday.
The Great Purim Parcel Project is a program of
Alliance's JEFF department (Jewish Experiences for
Families), made possible by a gift from Bill and
Audrey Farber of Franklin.

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Clockwise from top: Purim Parcel participant Maya Seigmann of Oak Park, nearly 2, clutches her daddy, Tal, with one hand and
a doughnut in the other. Laurie Kach of Farmington Hills and son Daniel, 6, choose stickers to decorate the bags they've just filled.
Jacob Zimmer, 6, of Northville and his mom, Lisa, fill mishloach manot bags at the Great Purim Parcel Project.

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