The Role Of
Jewish Centers

Prof. Lupovitch to
discuss the dispute
over Oak Park JCC.

Louis Finkelman
Special to the Jewish News

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of you.

Detroit NCSY chapter members celebrate their Chapter of the Year win at
the spring regional convention in Dublin, Ohio.

Regional Champs

Detroit NCSY earns highest honor.

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16 June 25 • 2015

Zoe Schubot

JN Intern

T

his year, the Detroit chapter of
NCSY took home the Chapter of
the Year award at the Central East
regional convention May 25 in Dublin,
Ohio. The region also includes Cleveland,
Columbus, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. In
2013, the chapter also earned the title.
Noah Adler, Detroit chapter president,
explained the honor goes to the chapter
that exhibits the most success and growth
during the year. Through various events,
including barbecues, Pistons games and
Jewish learning sessions, the local chapter
of the Orthodox youth group grew its
membership.
"We had more kids than any other
chapter at Shabbatons, and we had
extremely effective events throughout the
year" Noah said.
"We had a lot of innovative program-
ming, and at the regional events, we had
a lot of extra attendees in contrast to the
other cities" said Alyssa Adler, Noah's co-
president and twin sister.
Alyssa said the chapter has about
100 members, who come from various
streams of Judaism. The events and the
camaraderie among chapter members,
she says, are her favorite aspects of par-
ticipating in NCSY.
"It gives you an outlook on how to mix
and hang out and create connections with
people with different backgrounds, but
who still have the same love for Judaism
and religiosity" she said.
The Adler twins, who will be seniors at
Akiva Hebrew Day School in Southfield,
submitted a report to the NCSY regional
director, providing a detailed account of
the chapter's accomplishments over the
year. They also provided statistical data
to back up their claims that this year was
one of growth. Each chapter vying for the
award also submitted similar reports.
The report shows an increase in
involvement for all documented events
between this year and past years, and also
details the various ways the Detroit chap-
ter accomplished its goals. The chapter

focused on outreach to students in public
schools, engaging younger members and
organizing chesed, or service, initiatives.
The Chapter of the Year designation
was bestowed at an awards banquet where
individual regional NCSY members also
received awards and honors based on
contributions to their chapters.
Detroit Chapter Director Rabbi Dovid
Lichtig said this ceremony is the highlight
of his year. During the festivities, he has
the opportunity to present awards to his
students and reflect with them on their
growth and success during the past year.
"It's always very special to me," Lichtig
said. "It's amazing to see a teen come in as
a freshman and then see how far they've
come and what they've accomplished over
those four years"
The win is even more impressive
because the Detroit Chapter went through
a portion of the year without Noah Adler.
He was hospitalized last fall with acute
disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM),
a disease that seriously impaired his abil-
ity to perform basic functions and caused
him to miss the fall regional convention.
Rather than allowing Noah's illness to
dampen their spirits, his sister, along with
other chapter members, rallied in sup-
port and kept him involved in NCSY, even
from his hospital bed. For example, they
hosted their weekly Latte and Learning
sessions in Noah's hospital room.
"He still really wanted to be involved,
and we made sure that he stayed very
involved — maybe not actively planning
things but still involved in the chapter"
Alyssa said.
Noah was able to attend NCSY's winter
convention, where he delivered a moving
dvar Torah talking about his realization
that his illness was God's way of giving
him a new appreciation for life.
As the Adlers' presidencies come to an
end, Noah said he's learned that inspira-
tion is one of the main focuses of NCSY.
"I've learned to be inspired and I've
learned to love Judaism more" he said.
"I've been trying to pass on the torch and
encourage others to be as inspired as I
was and want to do even more:'

❑

T

o historian Howard Lupovitch,
the potential closure of the
10 Mile Jewish Community
Center is the latest instance of a type of
intra-communal dispute that has been
a recurring part of Jewish communal
life for centuries: the often-difficult
dilemma of balancing between press-
ing financial considerations and what
seems fair.
Lupovitch, who directs the Cohn-
Haddow Center for Judaic Studies
at Wayne State
University, will
present a talk titled
"Anchoring the
Neighborhood and
Other Reasons
Why Community
Centers Strengthen
Howard
Jewish Life" at 7 p.m.
Lupovitch
Monday, June 29, at
the JCC in Oak Park.
"Jewish community centers,"
Lupovitch says, "have helped preserve
the integrity of communities and neigh-
borhoods:'
As Mordechai Kaplan — a rabbi
and visionary social analyst who lived
from 1881-1983 — noted, especially
in America, the land of Jewish vol-
untarism, we need as many different
ways as possible for Jews to affiliate and
connect. People have to express their
Judaism in more ways than just going
to synagogue; we need to share a broad
range of activities, including those
not explicitly Jewish. With this aim in
mind, Kaplan envisioned a place where
Jews would meet for social, intellectual,
cultural, athletic and religious activities
— the Jewish community center.
The oft-painful decision as to wheth-
er or not to close a particular Jewish
community center, Lupovitch says,
must be considered within the enor-
mously complex, ongoing give and take
between old and new Jewish neigh-
borhoods. In Detroit, the persistently
vibrant Jewish communal life in Oak
Park and Huntington Woods seems
to mark a deviation from a previous
pattern of older Jewish neighborhoods
eventually disappearing through north-
westerly migration and relocation —
this is the crux of the current dispute.
In his effort to look at this many-
faceted crisis as a historian and objec-
tive observer, Lupovitch anticipates
that "everyone in my audience will find
something to disagree with in this pre-
sentation:'

❑