Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies - Wayne State University
John M. Haddow Memorial Program in Jewish Culture

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Knowing When To Tell

JFS social worker talks of revealing
a family secret that led to book.

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Barbara Lewis

Contributing Writer

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A Jewish musical revue of the greatest hits
including selections from Yiddish musical theater,
Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Broadway, Leonard Bernstein,
Simon & Garfunkel, and Debbie Friedman.

Featuring Temple Israel's Cantor Michael Smolash and Cantorial
Soloist Neil Michaels with an ensemble of musicians from the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Teddy Abrams conducting.

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Cantor
Michael Smolash

Cantorial Soloist
Neil Michaels

Conductor
Teddy Abrams

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Tickets: $25 per person

For tickets, call The Berman at (248) 661-1900
Or buy them online at: www.theberman.org

OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT

Ghosts: A Journey into a Family
Secret, one of its

Alliance
for Jewish
Education

Center for Judaic Studies

&Irk's/we/

DETROIT

SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

-

We Deliver Adult Jewish Education

A COMMUNITY-SUPPORTED ORCHESTRA

16 May 15 • 2014

Annie's Ghosts about Beth's secret
and his quest to uncover the truth.
Annie's Ghosts was named the
Great Michigan Read for 2013-2014
by the Michigan Humanities Council.
Author Luxenberg will speak at a
number of gatherings May 21 and 22
(see box below).
Luxenberg, an associate editor at
the Washington Post, says his moth-
er always made a point of saying she
was an only child.
Beth started seeing
Sedler regularly toward the
end of her life, when she
was ill from emphysema
and suffering from depres-
sion. Sedler was the only
person Beth told about her
sister. Even her psychia-
trist, Toby Hazan, didn't
know.
"It was a hard time for
Beth:' said Sedler, a JFS counselor for
28 years. "She was feeling depressed
and anxious. Most of her family was
out of town."
In the end, it turned out there

Talks Around Town

he Michigan Humanities
Council will celebrate the end
of Great Michigan Read with
several events featuring Steve
Luxenberg, author of Annie's

The Berman Center for the Performing Arts
6600 W. Maple Road, West Bloomfield

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C Jewish Federation

- Rozanne Sedler

Knowing When on page 18

Monday, June 23, 2014 at 7 p.m.

Cohn Haddow

ocial worker Rozanne Sedler
at Jewish Family Service had
a dilemma. Her client had
just told her a whopper of a fam-
ily secret, and Sedler didn't know
whether she should inform the client's
children.
The client, a
woman in her
80s who had long
claimed to be an
only child, had just
told her she had a
sister who had been
institutionalized
Rozanne
at age 2. She didn't
Sedler
know what became
of her.
Respecting client confidentiality is
a basic tenet in counseling. But this
client was often confused, and Sedler
couldn't be sure the story
was true. If it was true,
Sedler thought the client's
1 N Ni
children had a right to
H I 0
know because this particu-
lar family secret concerned
medical history.
So she told the client's
stepdaughter, and started
the process that not only
uncovered the secret story
of the sister, but also led
to a popular and critically acclaimed
book.
Sedler's client was Beth Luxenberg,
mother of journalist Steve Luxenberg,
who wrote the 2009 best-seller

"Families keep secrets
for a variety of
reasons; sometimes
the secret is too
painful to talk about."

Otidi3

THE CENTER

Steve
Luxenberg

Great Michigan
Read books for
2013-2014.
A talk spon-
sored by JFS on
May 21 is sold out,
but Luxenberg
will speak at 7
p.m. Wednesday,

May 21, at the Holocaust Memorial
Center in West Bloomfield and at
10 a.m. on Thursday, May 22, at
the Westland Public Library.
The week's events will culminate
with a final celebration at 7
p.m. May 22 at the Rust Belt
Market, 22801 Woodward Ave.
(at Nine Mile) in Ferndale. This
event features food, drinks,
select vendors and author
discussion. There is no charge,
but reservations are requested. To
register for the Ferndale event, go
to www.michiganhumanities.org or
call (517) 372-7770.

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