Opinion
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Editorial
Careqiving At Its Best
F
or 100 years, Jewish Home & Aging
Services has kept its promise to the
community, to care for frail older
adults with the highest standards reflecting
the art of Jewish caregiving.
Known as the Jewish Old Folks Home
when founded in 1907 at Brush and Winder
in Detroit, the agency evolved into Jewish
Home & Aging Services and followed the
progression of the Jewish community to the
Petoskey Street home in 1937, to Borman
Hall in northwest Detroit in 1966 and into
the northern suburbs at the "flagship"
Fleischman Residence/Blumberg Plaza in
West Bloomfield in 1982.
It has been a century of great successes
as JHAS enhances the quality of life of the
elderly in an environment that empha-
sizes and respects Jewish values. But the
years haven't been free of challenges. JHAS
Executive Director Carol Rosenberg points
out that "we've probably had at least one big
crisis a year for 100 years, but it's nothing we
couldn't overcome'
The Jewish community is rightly proud of
the work of JHAS. Almost 700 people gath-
ered at the Detroit Opera House on a Sunday
night (Sept. 30) to pay tribute to JHAS and
to Rosenberg for her 27 years of service and
stewardship. The 100th anniversary celebra-
tion raised more than $600,000 for the Acts
of Loving Kindness Gimelut Chasadim pro-
gram to help support the frail elderly who
need financial assistance. It's just the latest
success for JHAS.
Other JHAS shining stars include the
Dorothy & Peter D. Brown Memory Care
Pavilion and Brown Jewish Community
Adult Day Care Program; the Marvin &
Betty Danto Family Health Care Center;
Medilodge of Southfield (formerly Menorah
House); the Club in the Plaza, which is a
daytime program for older adults; Respite
Care, which is temporary lodging for
those who need only a short stay; Jewish
Community Chaplaincy, a program that
provides religious programs and services to
people in non-Jewish health care facilities;
the Merle & Shirley Harris Guardianship
Program, providing legal representation to
vulnerable older adults; and a program for
Holocaust survivors and their families.
JHAS assists about 2,500 people with the
aid of the JHAS Auxiliary, volunteers and
benefactors. Fleischman alone conducts 250
programs a month, including music, games,
lectures and trips into the community. But
Rosenberg and her 150 employees also
know the challenges.
People are living longer and require new
gerontology techniques and specific skilled
care with modern technology "More transi-
tions have occurred in the past 25 years
than in the previous 75:' says Rosenberg.
"We now take care of retired doctors,
lawyers, engineers, who need books and
computers and want to learn more. But
their love for the Jewish religion remains
constant:"
JHAS is confident that productive ideas
will continue to emerge — from a holistic
approach to wellness for people older than
55 to partnering with other agencies and
hospitals to create integrated care.
With the announcement by the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit that
older adult services will be restructured and
intensified, JHAS won't serve another 100
years in its present form. A new paradigm
for such services is being created, as it
should. New opportunities will be a highly
anticipated result of this new vision and
direction.
But that doesn't mean we won't continue
to tap into the knowledge, expertise and
leadership of JHAS or whatever part of it
blends into the new "Eldercare Central" for
Jewish Detroit. II
Forever Cheim by Michael Gilbert
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Reality Check
Get On The Bus
T
he bus ride was my cousins' idea.
Kathy and Glenn asked if I would
draw up an itinerary to take us to
all the houses their dad had lived in when
he was growing up in Detroit.
It seemed like an interesting way to
observe my Uncle Seymour's 86th birth-
day, and by "interesting" I really mean
odd. I had never known my dad's younger
brother to wax nostalgic and a bus ride of
this nature was once described to me in
Yiddish as a fershlepteh krank — a long,
drawn-out illness.
Nonetheless, I aim to please and drew up
a route for this surprise voyage. To my sur-
prise, everyone who boarded the bus, about
25 in all, was enthusiastic. Then we turned
onto Vinewood Street and suddenly the trip
took on a deeper level of meaning.
The house on Vinewood had long ago
entered the realm of legend in our family.
Among my dad and his siblings, this was
their land of lost content; the wonderful
house they had lived in when they were
young in the 1920s and 30s.
24
October 11 . 2007
There weren't many other Jews
on Vinewood, and his face
the paneled living room. Here was the
in this neighborhood, which is
brightened just to see it again. upstairs bedroom where he slept. There
now part of the Hubbard Farms
When the bus stopped, Glenn was the slope from the porch down to the
Historic District. But my grand-
jumped off and, to our shock, street where they all sledded on winter
father ran clothing and shoe
ran up to the front door. He
afternoons.
stores in nearby Delray and this
explained the situation to the
I have been in larger houses with more
was a convenient location. It was
two elderly women who own
elaborate decor and detailing. Maybe to
a fine house, befitting a prosper-
it now. They looked out at
someone else it would have appeared
ous businessman and part-time
our bus with understandable
fairly ordinary. But to those of us who had
George Cantor
chazzan.
apprehension, but decided
heard all the stories, it was a trip back to a
Columnist
Then it all came crashing
the story sounded good and
past we never knew. The trip continued to
down. A heart attack, the Great
so why not.
other houses on Highland and Snowden,
Depression, mortgage payments that never
About a dozen of us, led by my uncle,
and we stopped and took pictures. But
were made; and by 1933 or so they had
went inside. I know several people who have neither had the same impact.
to leave. I think my dad and his siblings,
returned to the homes they knew in the 50s
At the end we understood that we had
in one way or another, were trying to get
and 60s and re-entered. But I wish I could
been on much more than a bus ride. We
back there the rest of their lives.
describe more adequately the thrill that
had reconnected as a family to some part
We all have dreams about the homes we went through all of us as we entered this
of us that had been lost.
knew as a child. For me, it was a one-bed-
living room. We all knew the stories. I had
When we got back home, I told Kathy
room apartment on LaSalle Boulevard in
seen the house from the outside a few times. and Glenn that it was a wonderful idea
a building that was torn down years ago.
Occasionally, my dad would drive down here and I had always thought so. That was a
But in my dream it is rebuilt, better than it on his birthday and show it to us.
lie, but who's going to tell them? I
was, safe and happy.
But for my uncle actually to walk inside
My uncle is the last surviving mem-
for the first time in more than 70 years
George Cantor's e-mail address is
ber of the family who knew that house
... well, this was rather special. Here was
gcantor614@aoLcorn.