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Red Hot!

Those hot dogs
are running the
bases as fast
as the Detroit
Tigers.

Alan Hitsky

Associate Editor

A

s the Tigers battle to
win the American
League's Central
Division race, Hebrew National
kosher hot dogs have had an
interesting run of their own at
Comerica Park.
Hebrew National is compet-
ing against the non-kosher Ball
Park Franks this season, replac-
ing Best hot dogs as the kosher
option in the stadium.
John Berespie, general man-
ager for Detroit baseball food
service provider Sportservice Co.
of Buffalo, N.Y., sells one Hebrew

National hot dog — at $5 apiece
— for every 2 to 3 people in the
stands at any Tigers game. He
also sells one Ball Park Frank
— at $3.25 each — for each per-
son in attendance. That's 50,000-
60,000 hot dogs when the Tigers
get 40,000 people at a home
game, a not uncommon feat dur-
ing this magical season.
Berespie says the kosher dogs
are a premium product because
they are all-beef
and are larger than
the non-kosher
competitor. He
says there are five
Hebrew National
dogs per pound,
compared to six
Ball Park Franks
per pound.
Hebrew National,
owned by ConAgra Foods, has
made a major initiative to be
involved with Major League
Baseball, according to Berespie.
Their products are found in
many Major League ballparks.
Before the Tigers' July 21 home
game against Oakland, Hebrew
National sponsored a "Higher
Authority Hawker Challenge"

University Rankings

Jewish Origami

In its listing of 100 top universi-
ties in the world, Newsweek
magazine on Sept. 6 ranked
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
82nd.
The top five schools: Harvard,
Stanford, Yale, Cal Tech and
Cal-Berkeley. The University
of Michigan ranked 11th and
Michigan State University was
62nd.
The scores were based on the
number of highly cited research-
ers at each school, articles pub-
lished in Nature and Science
magazines, articles listed in the
ISI social sciences and arts and
humanities indices, percent-
age of international faculty
and international students, ISI
citations per faculty member,
faculty-student ratio and library
holdings.
Hebrew U. was ranked
60th out of 500 schools.by
Shanghai Jiaotong University
in China. Shanghai Jiaotong's
criteria made up 50 percent of
Newsweek's criteria.

Looking for a fun diversion for the
kids — and adults — during the
High Holidays and beyond? Check
out Joel Stern's Jewish Holidays
Origami (Dover Publications,
$5.95). Along with information
about eight major Jewish holi-
days, the book offers step-by-step
instruction for making such items
as a siddur, a Torah scroll that
opens and closes and has a lock-
ing mechanism, expressive Four
Sons, the Red Sea parting and
Miriam with her trimbrel. And the
objects are divided by skill level
so you can advance as you master
the Origami folds. Happy holidays,
happy folding!

- Alan Hitsky, associate editor

- Keri Guten Cohen,

story development editor

From Passover: the Simple
Son and the Son Who Does Not

Know How To Ask

for fans to select Comerica
Park's best hot dog vendor.
Charley "Opera Man" Marcuse
of Huntington Woods won the
contest and was awarded a trip to
New York to see a Tigers-Yankees
game in late August.
Hot dogs and baseball have
a long history. According to
Major League Baseball, hot dogs
became standard fare at ball-
parks beginning in 1893. Legend
has it that the
owner of the St.
Louis Browns
also owned a
local bar and
began selling
sausages with
his popular beer.
Another leg-
end says that in
1902, during a
New York Giants game on a cold
April day at the Polo Grounds,
concessionaire Harry Stevens was
losing money trying to sell cold
food. He sent his salesmen out to
buy "dachshund sausages" and
rolls, and the sausages were sold
from portable hot-water tanks.
"Get 'em while they're red hot;' the
vendors cried.

A cartoonist for the New York
Evening Journal drew the scene
for his newspaper, but didn't
know how to spell "dachshund:'
So he penned "hot dog" in the
cartoon image.
According to the Hot Dog
Council, six million Americans
eat kosher products and only 25
percent of the kosher consumers
are Jewish. Last year, 14 million
pounds of kosher hot dogs were
sold at retail stores.
Another bit of history:
Sportservice Co. is celebrating 76
years serving baseball stadiums.
Its first client, beginning in 1930,
was Navin Field in Detroit. In
addition to providing food service
at the Tigers' 81 home games each
year, Sportservice has catered
weddings, bar mitzvahs and new-
car unveilings at Comerica. "We
often get requests for vendors
to hand out hot dogs" at fancy
private parties at the stadium,
Berespie says.
He's also relished the Tigers'
2006 accomplishments. "It's been
very exciting and a great, great
season," he says. "It's been a fun
year."

Seeking Information
Joyce Ockrant, who lives in
Maple, Ontario, has photographs
of her grandmother's family
taken in Detroit. The photos
show a little girl, Shirlann
Kaufman, 7, in stage costume,
and Shirlann at 12 with her
dancing partner, George Taylor,
14. The photographs were prob-
ably taken in the 1920s or 1930s.
She also has a photo of a little
boy, Billy Boy Kaufman, in a stage
costume of top hat and tails!
Ockrant believes these to be
the children of her grandmoth-
er's brother, Godfrey Kaufman,
who went to the U.S. and joined
the Army in 1918. He worked for
the Ford Motor Company and he
died in 1976 in Southfield.
Godfrey's parents were Rose
and Joseph Kaufman and he had
many brothers and sisters. One
brother also went to Toronto.
She's seeking descendants of
these relatives. If anyone has
information, e-mail her at
joyce_ockrant@yahoo.co.uk .

Old Mystery Pondered

- Keri Guten Cohen,

story development editor

❑

On a Saturday evening in May
1946, some 2,000 Jewish refu-
gees arrived by train at a border
railway station and displaced
persons camp between Berlin
and Hanover in the British-occu-
pied zone of West Germany. A Mr.
Stern reportedly had bought the
train in Poland with money from
an independent organization.
The camp manager con-
tacted the locally based British
Army Intelligence Unit. Mr.
Stern claimed he was a repre-
sentative of the American Joint
Distribution Committee. At
Bremen, a boat was supposedly
waiting to take them to Palestine.
Nothing was recorded of this
incident, but now, 60 years later,
one of the British officers is try-
ing to find out more about what
he was involved with and wheth-
er these refugees found the new
life they so desperately sought.
If anybody can help with infor-
mation regarding this incident,
please e-mail david.allthorpe@
btopenworld.com .

- Keri Guten Cohen,

story development editor

10

September 14 • 2006

Because space is virtually
unlimited on our Web site,
we're able to give you more
than we can in print. Often we
have many more photographs
than we can publish, so those
extra photos – maybe you're in
one! – go online in photo gal-
leries accompanying stories.
To find photo galleries on
JNonline.us, look under
Features on the left and see
what gems you'll find.

JBlog

Laurie Freeman writes weekly
about her adventures with
China Punim, her 4-year-old
daughter adopted from China.
Follow the fun.
Only at JNonline.us . Just click
on JBlog on the menu on the
left.

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Want the most current news
from Israel? Check our stream-
ing news from Ynetnews.com
for continuous updates and
longer news, opinion and fea-
ture stories.
Just visit JNonline.us and
click on a scrolling story on
the left.

Web Extras

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ahead of the printed issue of
the JN. In this spot look for
stories that deal with breaking
news.
Just visit JNonfine.us and
click on Web Extras on the
left.

Poll Results:

Should countries that do not
recognize Israel's right to exist
be allowed to contribute troops
to the U.N. peacekeeping force
in southern Lebanon?
Yes 12%
No 88%

This week's question:
Should major metropolitan
institutions be sensitive to
scheduling around the Jewish
holidays?
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