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Publisher's Notebook
Editorial
Making The Case
For Jewish Detroit:
Help To Morgue:
The Jewish Way
1 9117 alk about coming together for a cause, one that unites the
If Not Now, Whei:
local Jewish and secular communities to help Metro Detroit
resolve an unlikely, but urgent concern: burying unclaimed
As Michigan puts out the welcome mat for
immigration, we need our own version of a
"Jewish welcome mat" to attract "immigrants" from
New York, Chicago and other high-cost areas.
A
side from financial woes plaguing
the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit, it's been a
very good 2014 for the Detroit Jewish com-
munity.
So far, the William Davidson Foundation,
the William and Audrey Farber
Philanthropic Endowment Fund and the
Mandell and Madeleine Berman Foundation
have revealed plans to invest more than
$35 million in gifts or grants for Hillel Day
School, Temple Israel, Akiva
Hebrew Day School, Hebrew Free
Loan and Congregation Shaarey
Zedek. At their core, these gifts
are designed not only to help
make Jewish preschool, Jewish
day school and college educa-
tions more affordable, but also to
provide state-of-the-art learning
facilities for our children.
An unexpected dividend came
in April from blogger Matthew
Williams, a respected doctoral
candidate at Stanford University, who con-
cluded in a conversation-stimulating and
widely shared assessment that Detroit is the
most affordable place in America to raise a
committed Jewish family.
All of this has me thinking about tiny
Dothan, Ala., ... again.
Remember Dothan? In September of
2008, I wrote about its aggressive efforts
to recruit young Jewish families to this
"regional hub of industry, healthcare and
education" that enjoys a "low cost of liv-
ing, vibrant economy and all of the conve-
niences of a larger city:' Dothan's Blumberg
Family Jewish Community Services "Family
Relocation Project" offered financial assis-
tance of up to $50,000 for those who quali-
fied.
Dothan was proactive in communicat-
ing its message — even taking out paid
advertisements in Rust Belt-centered Jewish
community publications. Dothan, with its
extremely modest Jewish communal infra-
structure and attributes, was successful in
recruiting more than a dozen young families
for a "fresh start:'
Meanwhile, our communal leadership
was still reeling from a 2005 demographic
study showing that Detroit's Jewish popu-
lation declined to 72,000 — a drop of 25
percent — since the previous 1989 study.
Most sobering was the realization that, aside
from Sunbelt retirement communities, we
had the highest median age and the smallest
number of 20- to 29-year-olds of any Jewish
community studied. If these trends weren't
acknowledged and aggressively attacked in a
sustained way, we were on our way to being
a Jewish community of 50,000, with half of
its population above age 65, by
the year 2020.
Could our community mus-
ter the courage and wisdom to
develop a long-term and appro-
priately funded plan to inventory
and proactively communicate
to others, including our own
children who had moved else-
where, the myriad attributes of
living, working, playing and rais-
ing a Jewish family in Detroit?
It wasn't rocket science to see
that without an influx of children entering
our well-developed communal pipeline of
preschools, day schools, synagogue reli-
gious schools, day camps, overnight camps,
youth groups and college Hillels, important
and well-meaning investments in facilities,
scholarships and programming would be
underutilized if not wasted.
You DESERVE A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE
June 12 • 2014
Casket Funding
Through a discretionary grant, the Jewish Fund, an independently
managed financial resource for community-based programs and ser-
vices, will pay for up to $60,000 in costs to buy caskets to facilitate
dignified burials. The Fund, with current assets of $63 million, slightly
higher than in the first year in 1997, benefits Metro Detroit, not just
the Jewish community. It emphasizes support of services that aid
vulnerable local Jews as well as support of health and social welfare
needs in the larger community.
The Fund also strives to engage Jewish involvement within the cen-
tral city as it strives to rebound from bankruptcy.
Tapping the Jewish Fund for the noble cause of solving the buildup
of unclaimed bodies at the Wayne County morgue makes perfect
sense. Created through the Detroit Medical Center's purchase of Sinai
Hospital of Detroit for $65 million in 1997, the Fund preserves the
memory of the Jewish community's humanitarian markers that col-
lectively led to Sinai's groundbreaking in 1951 – including the Orthodox
rabbis' "Buy a Brick to Save the Sick" march on Hastings Street on
Detroit's near east side in 1912.
Sinai was a byproduct of the discrimination confronting Jewish phy-
sicians who wanted hospital privileges in the early years of the 20th
century. But it was always inclusive in how it was staffed and whom it
served.
A fresh start awaits your family in
Dothan, Alabama; a regional hub of
industry, healthcare and education. We
enjoy a low cost of living, vibrant
economy and all the conveniences of a
larger city. Dothan's Jewish community
has a rich history and enjoys our
neighbors' deep respect. Discover a
higher quality of everyday, progressive
living in Dothan.
You Deserve It - We Can Help
Blumberg Family Jewish Community
Services' "Family Relocation Project"
offers significant financial assistance in
the form of no-interest grants, up to
e•
$50,000 to those who qualify.
For mom information, please contact us:
I• BLUMBERG FAMILY
DOTHAN, ALABAMA
,
J EWISH COMMUNITY
SERVICES
VI DOTHAN
2733 Ross CLARK CIRCLE
Qan
DOTHAN, ALABAMA 36301
PH, (334) 793-6855 EXT. 270
robg@lbaproperttes.com
BFJCS.org
Th< beautiful bench. of the Gulf of Mexico are
short drive away along with a huge variety of cultural
portunIties,in Agama, &nu i.e.., northern
g
ew
Jewish Detroit on page 35
34
bodies.
In a whirlwind timeframe, David Techner of the Ira Kaufman Chapel
in Southfield, at the behest of the Detroit Jewish community's Jewish
Fund, quarterbacked an amazing and dignified arrangement to give
a final resting place for up to 200 unclaimed bodies at the Wayne
County Medical Examiner's Office ("Dignified Burials," June 5, page 1).
It's a lesson in identifying a public need and rallying the proper forces
to drive forward with purpose and compassion.
Local members of the Michigan Funeral Directors Association are
leading an alliance of volunteers to engage in the humanitarian mis-
sion of designating bodies not claimed over 90 days, then burying
them in caskets in their own graves in local cemeteries – but not
before trying to locate family members so a common, interfaith memo-
rial service can be held. Funeral and cemetery professionals are donat-
ing the associated burial costs. MAI, a veterans' organization, is donat-
ing services and space at the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly.
Since news of the morgue crisis broke a few weeks ago, some family
members have stepped forward to claim bodies. So the actual number
of bodies to be buried through the coalition has fallen slightly.
Tradition Continues
Over 44 years of operation, Sinai Hospital administered high-quality
medical treatment and care for all patients, regardless of religious,
racial or ethnic background. It stood as a beacon of Jewish unity, con-
cern and resolve to the broader community it was part of.
The Jewish Fund ably became that beacon when Sinai closed. The
Fund represents Jewish Detroit's commitment to tzedakah through
twice-yearly grant cycles. Last year's grant total was nearly $3 million.
Over 17 years, the Fund has awarded 675 grants totaling $50 million.
Burying the dead with timeliness, dignity and compassion is a high
calling of Judaism; the funeral, burial, shivah and annual yahrtzeit are
all integral to celebrating and remembering the life of a loved one.
Taken further, Judaism commands reaching out to the larger com-
munity when a helping heart and hand are legitimately and sorely
needed – such as the gathering of unclaimed bodies at the Wayne
County morgue.
❑