Alexis Darmon, 12,
of Franklin and Emily

Chocron, 15, of West

Bloomfield warm up.

Maccabi
ArtsFest

A

at least two four-hour shifts. The Franklin
Baseball League donated softballs and the
North Farmington-West Bloomfield league
donated all the baseballs. When Polan visited
Birmingham Seaholm High School in July to
finalize plans for the swimming competition
in the school's new pool plus some baseball
games there, Seaholm Principal Terry Piper
sat in on the meeting and was very sup-
portive.
Three predominantly Jewish country clubs
— Franklin, Knollwood and Tam O'Shanter
— will allow the Maccabi golf competition
to be a traveling affair, with the 50 Maccabi
golfers playing one day on each course and
being hosted for lunch.
Polan can rattle off the numbers: venues,
volunteer slots, teams and competitors, the
number of portajohns and amount of ice
needed. The largest sports are basketball,
soccer baseball and tennis. Basketball has
600 athletes on 67 teams, using four schools
in three school districts. Bowling has the
smallest number of participants: 27.
"And the dance competition',' says Polan,
"is very impressive" with 71 girls and three
boys competing.
On Thursday, the last day of Maccabi
competition, athletes not in the champion-
ship rounds can watch the final events or
participate in Second Sport: Dodgeball, table
tennis and miniature golf tournaments will
be organized for them at the JCC.
The job of athletic chairman "hasn't been
more than I thought; says Polan. "But it has
been complex. It has taken me away from my
business, totally. And I'm enjoying 95 percent
of it:'
To keep himself and his volunteers
grounded, he likes to quote the man who
recruited him, Games Chairman Harold
Friedman: "Maccabi is a Jewish experience
with athletics, not an athletic experience for
Jews!'

Jewish Input
Sally Krugel is heading a committee that is
trying to ensure an informal Jewish experi-
ence for the teen athletes. Some 150 volun-
teers have pulled together four components.
The tzedakah project, chaired by SallyJo
Levine, has been a nine-month program.
It asked each participant — local and out-
of-town — to bring foodstuffs to Detroit.
Kosher items will be given to the Berkley-
based Yad Ezra Food Bank and others to
Detroit-based Gleaners Community Food
Bank. An anonymous donor will match the
value of the contributions with a check to
Leket, the national food bank of Israel.
In addition, Detroit team members were
asked to contribute gently used athletic
equipment at last week's team meeting. The
contributions will be distributed around
the world, including Israel, by the Global
Gear Drive of the National Alliance for Youth
Sports.
All the teams must complete commu-
nity service before arriving in Detroit, and
Maccabi in recent years has also included
a Day of Caring and Sharing at the Games.
It will take place Wednesday afternoon and
each delegation has been assigned to one of
15 organizations and charities.
Krugel said the logistics of transporting
2,700 teens and placing large numbers at
each site limited Susie Iovan and her com-
mittee. Teens will work at Yad Ezra, Gleaners,
Friendship Circle, the Holocaust Memorial
Center, Hadassah, Kids Kicking Cancer and
other groups.
The largest activity will be an educational
session at Temple Israel on the genocide in
Darfur, Sudan, and a Darfur march back
to the JCC by 1,500 athletes. They will also
be encouraged to join Will Work For Food,
which asks teens to get pledges in exchange
for any kind of volunteering in their home
communities, with the funds sent to Darfur
relief agencies.

When the teens are not participating in
sports, they can watch other teams or have
Hang Time at the JCC. Chaired by Tami
Brown, the committee is creating dozens of
interactive activities in the Charach Gallery
and adjacent Shalom Street. It will include
Jewish games, arts and crafts, computers,
three Israeli shlichim (emissaries), an Israeli
café and a South American artist to coach
those with an artistic bent. Volunteers will
staff the site from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday
through Thursday.
The fourth component, ambiance, is a
national effort to "infuse the Games with
things Jewish as much as possible," Krugel
says. Much of the focus will be in the lunch-
room (the JCC's Handleman Hall).
It will include signs in Hebrew and
English; a video display with Jewish topics
as well as footage from the Detroit Games; a
washing station and benchers for grace after
meals; cubes with Jewish puzzles and trivia
on each table; and Israeli and Jewish music
at several sites.
Krugel adds that every e-mail sent out by
Games Director Karen Gordon ended with
a Jewish value; the Shehechiyanu prayer will
be recited at the opening ceremonies; and
the athletes will be asked to add to a list of
100 Things they are grateful for "to raise con-
sciousness about all our blessings!'
The Games are also trying to "go green"
as a Jewish value. Krugel says all water
bottles will be collected for recycling; if pos-
sible, paper plates will be used instead of
Styrofoam; and the trivia cubes on the lunch
tables will save 11,000 sheets of paper.
One of the biggest benefits of the whole
Maccabi process, Krugel believes, is the
"huge injection of ruach spirit — for the
Detroit Jewish community. We can pull this
off because of the support of the whole com-
munity. It's very, very exciting for Detroit!'

—

t the same time 2,700
Jewish teens are co-
rn
ing to Detroit for the
: Maccabi Games, Terry Hollander
of West Bloomfield is going to slip
out of town for a different Maccabi
experience. Her team and their
"sports" are:
Molly Goldsmith, age 14,
Huntington Woods, participating in
musical theater; liana Dell, 17, West
Bloomfield, photography; Dylan
Keen, 13, West Bloomfield, culinary
arts; Emily Fishman, 16, Bloomfield
Hills, musical theater; Dan Hacker,
15, West Bloomfield, rock/pop
bands; Alex Levine, 15, Farmington
Hills, filmmaking.
The Detroit group will be in
Minneapolis starting Sunday
with more than 400 other teens
who are participating in the third
Maccabi ArtsFest. It's an oppor-
tunity for non-athletes to have
a Maccabi-type experience with
first-rate, in many cases nationally
known, coaches.
"It's not a competition," says
Hollander, Detroit delegation
head for ArtsFest. "At the end,
the participants put on a fabulous
performance." Other specialties
at ArtsFest include acting/improv,
costume design, creative writing,
dance choreography, jazz/world
music ensemble, visual arts and
vocal music.
The teens also stay with host
families and have a Day of Caring
and Sharing event. Last month,
Hollander hosted a brunch for
the Detroit participants and their
parents so they could get to know
one another. The team also is cre-
ating a Detroit T-shirt to wear to
ArtsFest.
"This is a fabulous program,"
says Hollander, who has been
involved all three years of Macca I
ArtsFest's existence but is leading
the Detroit delegation for the first
time. "There is a need for ArtsFest,
and they truly get the Maccabi
experience" through a combina-
tion of workshops, performance,
exhibitions, community service and
social activities.

- Alan Hitsky, associate editor

Ready To Roll! on page A18