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A JEWISH RENAISSANCE MEDIA PUBLICATION

theJEWISHNEWS.com

» Israeli Nobel Winner

Prestigious award for chemist stirs pride among Technion supporters
in Metro Detroit. See page 29.

» Inside Madoff's Mind

New JET play imagines the "emotional architecture" of investment
scammer Bernie Madoff. See page 47.

» Recipes For Fall's Bounty

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

metro

With all the harvest produce still available, here are some news ways to
serve it. See page 54.

Professor Daniel Shechtman

cover story

Hoarders come from different backgrounds;
the common denominator is emotional attachment.

Ronelle Grier
Contributing Writer

I

he back room of the Franklin Public
Library is filled to capacity on this recent
fall evening, but none of the men and
women sitting in the large circle has come here
to read. They are here to learn about a disorder
known as hoarding from author, attorney, thera-
pist and consultant Terrence Shulman, whose
latest book is called Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls:
Compulsive Stealing, Spending and Hoarding.
Shulman, a former shoplifting addict who has
been in recovery more than 20 years, specializes
in the treatment of compulsive and often-related
behaviors such as kleptomania, shoplifting,
employee theft, uncontrollable shopping and
spending, and hoarding.
According to Shulman, hoarders come from a

variety of backgrounds; many had parents who
hoarded, while others were forbidden to keep
their own possessions. The common denomina-
tor is the emotional attachment to the clutter. A
person who hoards finds it difficult, if not impos-
sible, to discard things, even items that are no
longer useful, such as old newspapers or moldy
bread.
Shulman says the distinguishing factor of
hoarding is the inability to discard things because
of an emotional attachment, to the point where
the living spaces are too cluttered to be used for
their intended purposes.
George B. said he came to hear Shulman's pre-
sentation because of his mother, whose home
was so cluttered that he feared for her safety. The
problem, which began during his childhood, had
gotten worse once the kids had grown up and

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News

arts & entertainment

Riveting Portrait

T

he pioneering Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem was born in a shtetl in
the middle of the 19th century, and even today his name is synony-
mous with the Old Country and a vanished way of life.
Ex-Detroiter Joseph Dorman's
Blame
Fiddler on the Roof, which was adapted from a handful of Aleichem's
new film tells the tale of a
bittersweet Tevye stories. The musical introduced the once-hugely popular
literary giant.
author to new generations of American Jews but also cast him as a quaint
Sholem Aleichem: His literature helped
(albeit extraordinarily insightful) observer of a changing world.
"It's about time that the larger mass of people outside of Yiddish aficio-
forge a new Jewish identity.
nados understood who Sholem Aleichem was," filmmaker
Joseph Dorman says. "I think he's been hidden from view,
the real Sholem Aleichem, for years and years and years."
Dorman's erudite documentary, Sholem Aleichem:
Mi
mil
Laughing
in the Darkness, is scheduled to open Friday, Oct.
1942 - 2011
14,
in
Metro
Detroit.
Covering and
Connecting
"Sholem
Aleichem
created a kind of myth around himself
Jewish Detroit
Every Week
because he was trying to reach a not illiterate but uneducated
Eastern European Jewish audience,' Dorman explained. "And
in order to reach that audience, much like Mark Twain did,

1

SEE PAGE 50

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