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Gift Guide and
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» Calendar Concurrence The first day of Chanukah
and Thanksgiving Day won't align again for more than 75,000
years. See page 50.

» More Reader Value Jewish News acquires the daily
deal websites Oy What A Deal and Hip City. See page 46.

m iWaTROIT JEWISH NEWS

IN
THIS
ISSUE

» Heart To Heart

Family meet transplant recipients
saved by their daughter's organs. See page 62.

metro

Beyond

Thanksgivukah

A bar mitzvah theme
that created itself.

Shelli Liebman Dorfman I Contributing Writer

A

s if simultaneously planning for Chanukah and
Thanksgiving wasn't enough, the Wrotslaysky fam-
ily of Southfield also threw a bar mitzvah celebra-
tion into the mix.
It was always the plan for Yehudah Wrotslaysky to become a
bar mitzvah on Chanukah, the holiday that includes his birth-
day, but the overlap of Thanksgiving was a later revelation.
"I went into labor the first night of
Chanukah at the Akiva Chanukah concert-
party:' said his mom, Debbie. "He was born
that night"
About two years ago, the Wrotslayskys
realized the upcoming Chanukah-
Thanksgiving Day connection.
"We love the fact that we will be able to
-I
celebrate both holidays with family and
friends who will be in town for the bar
mitzvah',' said Yehudah's dad, Hershey.
Even the bar mitzvah boy's name is linked to both holidays.
Yehudah is the Hebrew name for Judah Maccabee, hero of the
Chanukah story. And, remarkably says his mom, "Tehudah'
means `thanksgiving?
Elaborating, his dad said, "The translation of the name
Yehudah comes from our matriarch Leah's gratefulness to God
after the birth of her fourth child. Our Yehudah is our fourth
child as well — after three girls:'
The family includes 25-year-old Ariella and her husband
Mikey Skoczylas, 29, of Southfield, and their children, Aron,
3, and Jay, 2; Michal, 21, a senior at Stern College for Women-
Yeshiva University in New York, and her fiance, 22-year-
old Menachem Goldstein of Chicago, a senior at Yeshiva
University; and Shiri, 19, a sophomore at Stem.

Illustrat ion by Kim De Ma rco

Yehudah
Wrotslaysky

Michigan

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