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FEB. 12-18, 2015 / 23-29 SHEVAT 5775

theJEWISHNEWS.com

A JEWISH RENAISSANCE MEDIA PUBLICATION

» Birthright Sweethearts Detroiters find their
soul mates on Birthright Israel trips. See page 14.

» Happy Homecoming Team Schostak has 130
restaurants, but this one's special. See page 36.

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

metro

» Wide Awake Stagecrafters adapts Steven Sater's
raw pop musical, Spring Awakening. See page 41.

Danielle Longo and Brad Gordon met on a
Birthright trip. They will marry in September.

» cover story

Making An
Impact

Beth El's Rabbi Miller
seeks to engage,
energize members.

Shari S. Cohen

Special to the Jewish News

I

n March, Rabbi Mark J. Miller will
mark his first year as lead rabbi at
Temple Beth El, Michigan's oldest
Jewish congregation. Previously he worked
for the oldest synagogues and temples in
Colorado, Los Angeles and Texas, so insti-
tutions with strong traditions are quite
familiar to him.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

Detroiter is forever changed
by 70th anniversary
of Auschwitz liberation.

m

Mike Smith I DJN Foundation Archivist

Above: Piotr Cywinski, executive director
of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial

Rabbi Mark Miller will mark his first year
at Beth El in March.

and Museums in Poland, speaks to the crowd.
The entrance to Birkenau is the backdrop with the
infamous train tracks in the center of the space.

JN

1942 - 2015

Covering and
Connecting
Jewish Detroit
Eve y Week

Oswiecim, Poland

T

hey were a most impressive group, despite their
age and infirmities. Some of them were still robust,
most walked slowly, and some needed assistance
or were in wheelchairs. The youngest was 85 years old;
many of them were older than 90.
They are survivors of the Nazi's Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camps. Many of them wore blue-and-white
striped scarfs with a large red "P" (for prisoner) in the cen-
ter. Although aged and slow moving, these are some of the
toughest people that we will ever know. They lived through
the horrors of the Nazi German death camp. More than 1.1
million Jews, Poles, political prisoners and others did not.
The survivors gathered together on Jan. 27, in Oswiecim,
Poland, for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary
of their liberation from Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet
Army. And, they were — deservedly so — the center of
attention. The event was the initiative of the Auschwitz-
Birkenau State Museum and the International Auschwitz
Committee.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8