metro

Sarah and Harold

Gottlieb with

entertainer

Mandy Patinkin

at a recent JCC

concert

job advice. He'd ask her if he should try
something; if she responded, "I don't think
so:' he knew he had to do it.

Giving Back

4

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, Nit

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In Memory
Of Stephen

Parents memorialize son by funding
JCC music and arts festivals and cultural arts.

Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News

T

here are times when a pal's sug-
gestions are best left ignored. And
sometimes, friends give you the
best advice.
Harold Gottlieb and Bill Farber are bud-
dies.
"Go ahead, give," Bill told Harold. "You'll
feel good if you do."
So Harold did.
In only a few years, Harold and Sarah
Gottlieb have established funds for two
of the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit's biggest events: the
JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival and
the JCC Stephen Gottlieb Festival of Arts
— and they just made another significant
financial gift to be used for cultural arts
programming.
Collectively, their donations are "among
the most significant gifts this JCC, or any
JCC, has ever received;' said JCC Executive
Director Mark A. Lit. "They will impact
this community for many generations to
come
This was quite a gesture from a man
who grew up in a small, three-bedroom

32

October 6

2011

house in Detroit that was home to four
brothers who slept head-to-toe, a mother
and father, a grandfather (whose bed
was the couch) and one boarder. Then
the Gottliebs' best friends from New York
moved in, too.
"We came with a truckload of sardines
and imported caviar," says Sarah Gottlieb,
once that New York couple's little girl. Her
father's store had gone out of business,
and they were moving to Detroit to start
over.
Of course, there wasn't space for another
family, but what did that matter?
"Whoever came to town — there was
always room:' Sarah says.
Sarah was 10, Harold a few years older.
"We hated each other:' they say. Harold
fondly remembers thinking how nice it
would be if he could just push Sarah into
the street and she would be out of his
house and out of his life.
In high school, Harold took a bunch
of jobs including manager of the games
room at the JCC on Woodward Avenue
where, he says, "I helped Sarah get a job"
as switchboard operator.
"I got my own job!" Sarah interjects. She
had flunked out of secretarial school —

the problem was shorthand. But working
the switchboard? That was paradise. "I
wanted it to be my life's career:' she says.
She must have looked lovely amid all
those wires. "In a moment of weakness,"
Harold says, he invited Sarah to Belle Isle
for a game of tennis.
Sarah's parents were not thrilled. What
kind of husband would he be? "All he can
do is give you salami sandwiches," they
admonished. "Is that what you need?"
Apparently, Sarah had no problem with
salami sandwiches. She was 20 when
Harold asked her to marry him, and she
said yes.
Harold, meanwhile, was setting out
on a new path. Determined to follow his
father's directive never to borrow or lend
money, and breaking with the JCC after
the director refused to allow a gentile
acquaintance to join the stamp club,
Harold went to work. With no money he
couldn't enroll in college, but he loved chil-
dren so he became a camp counselor, then
a chicken farmer, an insurance salesman,
a detective, a nursing home director, co-
owner of a pharmacy and finally owner of
more than 16 hotels.
He always turned to Sarah for his best

So Harold was quite the independent.
Then he learned something surprising: his
father had, in fact, borrowed money —
from the Hebrew Free Loan. His brother
had done the same. Harold told his friend
Bill Farber, who suggested, "So maybe
you would like to give money somewhere.
You'll feel good if you do."
Harold gave — a little here, a little
there. Mostly, he and Sarah were busy rais-
ing three sons. One was named Stephen.
He was a kind boy with a great sense of
humor who loved practical jokes. His great
passion was music, and he was very good
at flute, guitar, drums and piano — even
though he'd had it with lessons only a few
months after his parents rented a piano
because he really, really wanted to play
and, of course, he was never going to quit
lessons.
Stephen married his sweetheart Lisa,
had three children, and worked as a part-
ner in business with his father. When
Stephen died of a brain tumor in 2006,
his friends and family were left in such
anguish that every word to describe his
death seemed empty, and every moment
was like some kind of pain that burned
the heart and wouldn't let go.
But Harold remembered his friend's
advice: "You'll feel good if you give." So
when another friend, Martin Hollander,
suggested the Gottliebs create a music
festival ("You can afford it," Hollander, the
family's accountant, flatly told them), they
said yes. They called it the JCC Stephen
Gottlieb Music Festival.
"We don't want Stephen's name to be
forgotten, ever:' Sarah says.
The Gottliebs, members of Temple
Israel, are all about keeping their feet on
the ground. They attend every Stephen
Gottlieb festival event (the Michigan
Board of Cantors concert is always a
favorite) where they serve as ushers and
often direct friends like Marty and Terry
Hollander, Douglas and Barbara Bloom,
and Bill and Audrey Farber to their seats.
(And while Bill Farber is the one without
whom these festivals would not have been
possible, Harold wants to point out: "He's
also the kid who cheated off me in algebra.
He'll tell you he didn't, but he did.")
Harold Gottlieb — the boy in his family
deemed the least likely to succeed — has
sold off much of his business and now
uses the money to make donations.
"This is my legacy," he says. And yes, it
does feel good to give, he says. And yes,
even in this hard world, "I still believe that
everything works out for the best:' L

Elizabeth Applebaum is a marketing specialist

for the JCC.

