Metro

FRED M. BUTZEL MEMORIAL AWARD

Mickey Maddin and Bob

Slatkin during the Butzel

Photos cou r tesy Jew is h Fe dera t io n o f Me tropo litan De tro it

award ceremony

Federation. Aonors

Roberta Slatkiiil

"Bob has always believed that Jewish people
need to help each other."

Harry Kirsbaum
Special to the Jewish News

G

rowing up in the heavily Jewish
area of Seven Mile Road and
Livernois in Detroit, Robert
Slatkin didn't need a formal Jewish educa-
tion to "feel Jewish:'
"Living in my neighborhood, you
couldn't help but think that everyone's
Jewish:' said Slatkin, this year's recipient of
Detroit Jewry's highest communal award,
the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's Fred M. Butzel Memorial Award.
Although his Jewish studies stopped
after his bar mitzvah, Bob went to sum-
mer camp and the JCC with Jewish
friends; sat in on lively discussions over
Shabbat dinner at his grandparent's house

— and still grew up committed to his
people.
In 1966, his new bride, Donna, intro-
duced him to Federation's Junior Division
(now known as the Young Adult Division)
and he became its president in 1971.A
tour of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem during
a mission to Israel he took in 1970 con-
vinced him to do more.
Presiding over open board meetings,
increasing Junior Division campaign
gifts and his general leadership skills as
president won him the William H. Boesky
Award (now the Mark Family Young
Leadership Award) in 1972. He went on to
receive the Frank A. Wetsman Award for
Young Leadership in 1977.
Slatkin joined the Jewish Community
Center board in 1974 as the Junior

Division liaison. His first assignment was
to help lead Sunday morning tours of the
new West Bloomfield JCC while it was
under construction.
By the time it opened, the new Jewish
Community Center bundling had the
highest membership in its history "and
our tours had a lot to do with that:' Slatkin
said.
But those living in the Jewish neighbor-
hoods of Oak Park and Huntington Woods
were bristling at the lack of improvements
at the Jimmy Morris Prentis Building of
the JCC.
"My assignment was to work with the
neighborhood volunteers and come up
with ideas:' he said. "I wanted to make the
center a true center that would serve the
diverse residents of the area and I wanted

it to have a swimming pool, a health club
and a greatly improved campus setting.
For a decade, I worked at making this
happen."
In 1984, he became JCC president and
joined the Federation Board of Governors.
"I had the privilege of driving another
member for his three-year term represent-
ing the Michigan Board of Rabbis:' he
said. "Rabbi M. Robert Syme was more
than my spiritual leader at Temple Israel
[in West Bloomfield]. He became a friend
and guidance counselor. I had found my
way to community involvement without
benefit of long Jewish experience, so I
gladly took his advice.
"Over the years, when I tried to thank

Robert Slatkin on page 18

October 8 • 2009

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