spirituality
Team Effort
With a little help from friends,
JARC home's sukkah goes up.
T
he six men who live in JARC's Grand Home in West
Bloomfield look forward to Sukkot every year. They
enjoy making the decorations for the large sukkah on
their back patio where they will eat some of their meals as well
as take part in the mitzvot of sitting in the sukkah and shaking
the lulav and etrog.
The residents just needed a little help erecting their metal-
framed sukkah before the eight-day holiday starts at sundown
on Sunday, Sept. 30. So last Sunday, a small group of volun-
teers, including some folks from the Jewish News, helped with
decorations and building the sukkah. Three of the residents
— Michael Rosen, Charles Kuschner and Jack Saffer — partici-
pated by helping to stretch out the wall and making and hang-
ing decorations.
A total of 110 volunteers — including families from Temple
Emanu-El in Oak Park, a Boy Scout troop, teens from Adat
Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills and eight 16-year-old
girlfriends — also did similar work at 14 other JARC homes
throughout the area. E
Grand Home resident Michael Rosen colors a picture to hang in the sukkah.
Inset: Grand Home residents Michael Rosen, Jack Saffer and Charles Kuschner tie
decorations they colored onto the sukkah.
Standing in front of the finished sukkah: Hoffman, Cohen,
Melissa Garrett of JARC, residents Rosen, Kuschner and Jack
Saffer, Jackie Headapohl, JN Story Development Editor Keri
Guten Cohen and Diane Headapohl.
JN Managing Editor Jackie Headapohl and her daughter,
JN Contributing Writer Don Cohen of
West Bloomfield, Jonah Hoffman of
Farmington Hills and Rosen hang part of
the wall.
Diane, of Sterling Heights add elastic loops to hold the
sukkah walls to the metal as others begin to hang the wall.
Sukkot Blessings
F
Hoffman and Cohen secure the roof.
50
September 27 • 2012
fiber artist Anita Sudakin of
Birmingham stands in a (partially
decorated) sukkah with two of
four hangings she made of embroidered
linen, each of which bears a Sukkot bless-
ing.
Sudakin jumped into the project when
Myrna Edgar of Birmingham, a fellow
member of National Council of Jewish
Women, mentioned that her daughter,
Julie, wanted her to draw or paint brachot
(blessings) on the walls of her canvas
sukkah in Oak Park. Although Sudakin
has never had a sukkah of her own, she
understood the spirit of the holiday and
suggested the hangings instead.
"It is part of a great history of the
Jewish people," she said. "[The panels]
belong in this setting, and they'll only
look wonderful when they're surrounded
by greenery and other natural materials."
Sudakin used free-motion machined
embroidery in autumnal colors on ecru
linen. A bamboo pole holds each panel.
Speedy Tees in Birmingham heat-trans-
ferred the blessings onto the linen. E