To Life!

KATRINA RELIEF

Temple to Temple

Emanu-EI members focus hurricane relief to help one congregation rebuild.

Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor

Left:

Margaret and Eric Goldstein of

Southfield with their daughters

emple Emanu-El members
saw a concrete way to help
a devastated Louisiana
synagogue recover from
Hurricane Katrina and they went
to work immediately.
Even before a fund-raising din-
ner Oct. 10, the Oak Park temple
raised $1,700 for the Northshore
Congregation in Mandeville, La.
Another $1,300 was realized at
the dinner attended by 200 peo-
ple, and they're still hoping to
send more.
Some of the motivation comes
from Emanu-El member Eric
Goldstein.
"When Rabbi [Joseph] Klein
first announced that he wanted
our congregation to reach out to
a sister congregation in the Gulf
States that had been hit hard by
Katrina, I informed him that my
brother Mark was a member of
the Northshore Jewish
Congregation," he said.
"We opened up communica-
tions with their president and
rabbi and learned about their
struggles and efforts to rebuild.
"In the midst of their turmoil,
Northshore members gathered
and sorted clothes to send to a
hospital in Mississippi,"
Goldstein told those at the din-
ner. "I would tope our congrega-
tion would perform such tikkun
olam [repair of the world] when
faced with such adversity."
Congregants at the dinner also
listened to Detroiter Charles
Criss, head of temple mainte-
nance, talk about his hard-hit
family in the Gulf area, particu-
larly Mississippi. Members col-
lected separate funds for his
family as well.
Rabbi Klein was pleased by the
turnout and generous response
and by the connection made
with the Louisiana synagogue.
"I hope that our relationship

Rachel, 10, and Miriam, 6

T

22

Below, clockwise from upper left:

Emily Zonder, 8, of Huntington

Woods with Alison Diez of Troy,

co-chair of social action commit-

tee at Temple Emanu-El

Social action committee member

Mary Gilhuly of Oak Park serves

dinner to Arleen Miller of

Huntington Woods.

Bea Sacks of Huntington Woods,

social action co-chair, welcomes

diners with Murt Sherbow of Oak

Park.

Rabbi Joseph Klein and

Charles Criss of Detroit

and efforts to help them will
extend beyond tonight's dinner:'
he said to his members. "Theirs
is going to be a long-term strug-
gle, and it is our responsibility to
reach out to them — person to
person, synagogue to synagogue
— and to help make a differ-
ence."
Alison Diez, co-chair of
Emanu-El's Social Action
Committee, said, "Listening to
the personal experiences of those
who left the Gulf Coast due to the
hurricane as well as those with
family from the region was quite
powerful and moving. While
there is still much healing and
work that needs to be done, aid-
ing our sister congregation with
its rebuilding sheds light on this
terrible tragedy'
Social Action co-chair Bea
Sacks and committee member
Mary Gilhuly were primarily
responsible for organizing the
fund-raising dinner. All food was
donated by Classic Cuisine. CI

October 20 . 2005