Striking A Balance

Yeshiva Beth Yehudah gains community support for its strong blend of religious and secular academics.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

StaffM-iter

I

f the impression left by many big
fund-raisers is that it was a con-
glomeration of "Who's who?" then
the sentiment uttered at the annual
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah dinner is:
"Wonder what they're doing here?"
With tables filled with hundreds of
guests who neither attended the
Southfield-based traditional Orthodox
day school nor send their kids there, the
question becomes: "What is so special
about this Jewish day school that so
many without direct involvement con-
tinually support it?"
"We were the only ones at our table of
10 who have kids at the Yeshiva," said
Dora Kurz of Oak Park. "I see people
who attend our dinners and programs as
being there to support our school and to
be able to see the constant growth that
Judaism is about. I love to attend our
functions with those who do not have
children at our school and see the
Yeshiva through their eyes."
And there were thousands of pairs of
eyes at this year's Oct. 24 event, which
for years has been the largest day school
fund-raising dinner in the country.
Once a small function attended by
school families, the dinner this year was
attended by 2,300 guests — paying
$200 a person – who were seated under
glass chandeliers, listening to harp and
violin music, in the Grand Ballroom of
the Marriott Hotel Renaissance Center
in Detroit.
A dinner highlight has come to
include keynote talks by such
high-profile speakers as former
President Gerald Ford, Vice
President Dick Cheney, Sen.
John Edwards, Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton, former New
York Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and
this year's speaker, newly nominated
Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
"For the last 10 years, because of the
enormous size of the dinner, we have
been able to attract national political
leaders with no honorariums paid," said
Maury Ellenberg, a Yeshiva parent and
the school's chairman for the last 13
years.
Combined with other community-

Chana Esther Richter, 5, of Southfield concentrates on her art project.

inclusive events — including an annual
auction, golf outing and evening of wine
tasting — this year's dinner
contributed a significant
amount toward the school's
$2.9 million in scholarship
needs for the year. The school
is on track for donations to
reach $2.5 milliion of that
amount.
Funding is, by far, the school's biggest
challenge. With only one-quarter of stu-
dents paying full tuition, the Yeshiva
grants more scholarship dollars than any
other area day school, according to
Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, Yeshiva executive
director.

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Who Are They?

Supporters of the Yeshiva come from a

variety of Jewish streams, religious obser-
vances and educational backgrounds.
And they come through many
avenues, including the school's continu-
ous door-to-door fund-raising and infor-
mational campaigns and invitations
from proud Yeshiva families who intro-
duce friends and colleagues to personal
religious traditions promoted through
the school.
Many become involved through par-
ticipation in the school's 6-year-old
Partners in Torah program. Pairs of
men, women and young adults are per-
sonally chosen to learn together by the
program's director, Rabbi Avraham
Cohen. The 300 twosomes meet weekly,
all at the same place and time, with one
the mentor for the other.
Looking for what he called "a desire to
reconnect with my Jewish roots," Peter

Cummings, this year's Yeshiva Beth
Yehudah Golden Torah Awardee, came
to Partners through a friendship with
Gary Torgow, the Yeshiva's president for
the last 13 years.
"Like so many Jews in America today,
I had gone to Hebrew school as a boy,
studied hard for my bar mitzvah, attend-
ed synagogue on Shabbat and then had
gradually drifted away," Cummings told
the audience after receiving his award.
"But now, almost 40 years later, I was
ready to come back and I was searching
for ways to do that.
That's where Torgow came in. "Gary
and I share a passion for the city of
Detroit, but what intrigued me most
about him from the start was his devo-
tion to his faith," Cummings said. "I
had never previously enjoyed a close
relationship with an Orthodox Jew. That
relationship has enabled me to witness
from a personal perspective something
all too rare — a person and a family
who experience true joy in the full
observance of their faith.
"I witnessed this joy at Shabbat dinner
at their home in Oak Park and at the
wedding of Gary and Malke's son Yoni
in Brooklyn. I would see Gary on
Sundays and observe how rejuvenated
he was from having given himself fully
to the observance of Shabbat the day
before.
Cummings said that Torgow sensed
his intrigue and introduced him to
Rabbi Cohen, with whom he has spent
the last two years in weekly Partners in
Torah study.
"Through that study, I have started
the journey back to my roots and
beyond, to a fuller appreciation for the
religion that sustained my great-grandfa-
ther when he left persecution in Russia
more than a hundred years ago. "
Dr. Janet Snider of Southfield has par-
ticipated in Partners since the beginning
of the program. "My partner and I did-
n't know each other before," she said.
"Now we share holiday meals together
and are in the seventh year of learning
together. Partners, to me, is all about
taking what I learned in school and
teaching and sharing it with the com-
munity"
The largest adult education program
in Detroit, Partners in Torah is "the
largest, most successful branch of the
national program," said Rabbi Joshua