AKIVA CAGERS OUTFITTED
WITH NEW JERSEYS

Once an Akiva Pioneer, always an Akiva
Pioneer. Michael Klein, Akiva 2013
graduate, remains passionate about his
high school basketball team, which he
says was always a positive component in
students’ lives.
“No matter if the team won or lost, we
always enjoyed ourselves” he says. “The
basketball team was our extended fam-
ily, and we had only positive associations
with the entire experience.”
Klein started his first business, Mow
on the Go, at age 14. The business has
expanded to a full-service landscaping,
construction and snow-removal com-
pany.
Last April, Klein saw the Akiva
Pioneers in action at the Yeshiva

Akiva varsity basketball team with
Michael Klein and Coach Richard
Kaczander

University Basketball Tournament.
He was so impressed he wanted to get
involved. So he contacted Head Coach
Richard Kaczander and high school
Principal Rabbi Noam Stein to say he
would be honored to sponsor the team
and provide them with new jerseys — in
Akiva’s blue and white colors, with a pop
of green from the Mow on the Go logo.
“I plan to go to as many games as pos-
sible,” Klein says.

*

eleganza

boutique

SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL NEEDS ASSISTANCE

Allan Gale of West Bloomfield, associ-
ate director of the Jewish Community
Relations Council, learned about his
friend Suzanne Belling’s school, Torah
Academy, when he visited the South
African native in Johannesburg in 2013.
Just recently though, Gale was sur-
prised to find out that the school has
a couple of Detroit connections. The
brother of Torah Academy’s primary
school principal, Rabbi Motti Adar,
is Chanoch Hadar, who serves as the
rabbi of Royal Oak’s Woodward Avenue
Shul. Hadar led a group from his con-
gregation on a trip to South Africa a
few months after Gale’s trip. Also, Dina
Cohen (nee Kesselman), who works at
Torah Academy with Belling, was born
in Detroit.
Gale has been spreading the word
locally about the good deeds of his

friend’s school and also about the dire
straits the school and other Jewish insti-
tutions in South Africa are experiencing
since that country’s currency was recent-
ly devalued by more than one-third.
Gale says Torah Academy is known as
“the school with a neshamah (soul)” as
it adjusts tuition to admit children from
families of modest or low income who
make up 65 percent of the student body.
School budgeting is extremely tight and
even small donations of tzedakah in U.S.
dollars have been most welcome and
make an impact for the schoolchildren.
Fully tax-deductible contributions
in U.S. funds can easily be transferred
to the Friends of Torah Academy fund,
TASA, Bank of America, account
#483050539148, routing #021000322,
by visiting any of the numerous Detroit-
area Bank of America branches.

*

HELPING KIDS, TEENS MANAGE ANXIETY

Dr. Wendy Silverman, direc-
anxiety and treatment. Tips to
tor of the Yale Child Study
help children and teens man-
Center Program for Anxiety
age their own anxiety will also
Disorders, will share “Tips for
be presented.
Helping Children and Teens
Silverman will show how
Manage Anxiety” at the con-
anxiety has been linked to
cluding program of National
academic struggles, speech
Jewish Disability Awareness
and language differences, peer
Wendy
and Inclusion Month at 7
interaction challenges and
Silverman
p.m. Monday, March 7, at the
other school and family life
Berman Center for Jewish
issues. She will also point out
Education at Congregation Shaarey
the latest research.
Zedek in Southfield.
The event is free and open to the
Designed for educators, families and
public. Register by March 4 at
mental health professionals, Silverman’s jewishdetroit.org/jdaim or call (248)
talk will offer practical strategies to
205-2549. There will be 1.5 CE clock
parents and educators on adapting their hours offered for social workers, and
own behaviors to reduce children’s and
NIRIM out-of-network credit is avail-
teens’ distress, which may be impacting able.

*

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(Inside the Orchard Mall)

248.737.2666

2080480

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Real Estate Forecast Breakfast

Tuesday, April 5, 2016
8-9:30 a.m.

The Townsend Hotel
100 Townsend, Birmingham MI 48009

SPEAKERS:

Eric B. Larson

Dan Elsea

President/CEO,
Larson Realty Group.
CEO,
Downtown Detroit
Partnership

President -
Brokerage Services,
Real Estate One

Moderated by: Paul Magy, Attorney, Clark Hill

SPONSORS:

Diamond: Clark Hill & Greanleaf Trust
Platinum: Bank of Birmingham, Comcast Business
Gold:
Fenner, Melstrom & Dooling, PLC &
Chris McLogan-Broker Max Broock Realtors
Silver:
Birmingham Principal Shopping District

Networking, Plated Breakfast, Program and Q&A
$40 Members, $50 Guests; $290 Corporate table of 8

Register at www.bbcc.com
or call (248) 644-1700

continued on page 26

February 25 • 2016

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