Spirituality

Mitzvah Of The Soul

Graveside Kaddish stirs seniors and their chaperones.

Charlotte Waxer of West Bloomfield with chaperone Frank Kutinsky of Beverly Hills

Robert A. Sklar
Editor

H

er only son, David, was killed in
a car accident on July 4, 1973.
He was just 20.
But Charlotte Waxer, 83, who lives in
Fleischman Residence in West Bloomfield,
visits his grave at least once a year at
Machpelah Cemetery in Ferndale. She also
has a married daughter.
This year, the retired bookkeeper
paid her respects graveside with Frank
Kutinsky of Beverly Hills, a volunteer with
Kever Avot, an annual communal event
of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and
Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield. The
community-wide program arranges for
seniors to visit the graves of loved ones a
Sunday before Rosh Hashanah. Seniors are
paired with volunteers, who make it easier
to find the headstones and place ritual
stones and memorial flowers.
"The event is very nice and Frank was

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very helpful," said Waxer, the act of placing
a stone on her son's grave still fresh in her
mind.
"I enjoy people like Charlotte said
Kutinsky. "How else would she get here?"
Kutinsky was among 150 volunteers
who accompanied 92 Jewish seniors to
240 gravesites at 11 local cemeteries. The
special morning enables seniors without
the means or ability to get to the cemetery
to recite Kaddish at the gravesides of fam-
ily and friends during the High Holiday
season. The seniors were picked up by bus
at 10 assisted-care and independent-living
complexes.
Volunteer chaperones gathered at
Temple Israel for bagels, juice and coffee
before setting out. During a dvar Torah,
Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny said, "You make
the seniors feel so special by allowing
them to honor and respect the memory of
those they love."
"From the bottom of my heart:' said
Herb Kaufman of Ira Kaufman Chapel,

"I thank you for the mitzvah you are per-
forming."
"We're blessed to be able to do this:' said

Marc Siegler of Walled Lake, who chaired
the event with Norm Samson of West
Bloomfield.

Chaperone Bill Harder with Esther Weingarden, both of West Bloomfield