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COURAGEOUS POLES
WHO HELPED SAVE JEWS

A Bad Poem, Annotated

O

n the eve of the big-
gest day in the 15-year
history of Summer in
the City, a day before my thrice-
annual haircut, 72 hours prior to
starting with the fourth cohort
of Repair the World Fellows (the
first that’s all Metro Detroiters),
a week after the end of the pilot
Ben Falik
of a PeerCorps b’nai mitzvah
summer program, watching
Simone Biles show the world, “I’m not the
next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the
first Simone Biles,” I keep rereading this bad
poem I wrote in 2010, submitted humbly
with annotation:

Hey, little kids, you go away
When we’re done working, you
can play.
What if, beneath this sunny
weather,
We took some time to play
together? 4

Vacant lots get overgrown
And weeds bounce back like skip-
ping stones
This land would not just have to harden
If it were a veggie garden.

After each big week’s done brewing
Howzabout some barbecuing?
Detroit good times are oh so hardy
We demand an After Party.

In the Summer, In the City

Three friends hanging in ’02,
Wanted something good to do,
One of them observed, adroit:
“We love helping in Detroit.” 1

Enlist the teens and stave their slouching
Save them from potato couching?
But boring service can be chilling
Not fun, flexible or fulfilling.

Let’s march to the beat of our own drummer
Flock to the city in the summer.
Another said, “not so a-go-go”
First we’ll need a proper logo.

Detroit can seem so very far,
though it’s in our own backyard
Let’s buy ourselves a van of orange
The teens will scream, “Hooray …
Hablornge!” 2

Graffiti here arrives by night
So by the day, we’ll paint it white
That seems to be working fine
But what about a cool design? 3

Then something stops us in our tracks
Send campers off with new backpacks
It’s not a goodbye sounding tune
But “good luck — we’ll see you soon.” 5

Before the last hoorah harangue
We’ll end the season with a bang
Don’t take my word, ask Bob or Sally
Join Ralph at Friday’s Grand Finale!

Excuse a break from this hilarity
Consider that this isn’t charity
Not us for them, nor you from me.
But the powerful power empowered as
“we.” 6

1. 2002 is starting to seem like a long time
ago. One thing I have come to understand
and appreciate more and more over the
years is “help” that doesn’t amplify the
voices of the underserved is pity — and
it risks perpetuating the very injustice it
seeks to address.

2. The MDOT orange van, purchased at
auction from a fast-talkin’ auctioneer
more than 10 years ago, is still running. In

all that time, it hasn’t gotten any easier to
rhyme with “orange.”

3. This year, Summer in the City partnered
with the Red Wings on a hockey-themed
mural at the Adams Butzel Recreation
Center. Jack Adams was the only person to
have won the Stanley Cup as a player, coach
and general manager. Chief Justice Henry
Butzel was my grandma’s second husband’s
first wife’s father.

4. Thanks to a grant from Bookstock, every
Summer in the City “Play Program” had its
own library, and campers read for at least 20
minutes every day.

5. This year’s Backpacktacular has been
especially meaningful thanks to a part-
nership with Lyft. Elliot Darvick, one of
Summer in the City’s first volunteers, just
moved back from California to run the
ride-sharing service in Southeast Michigan.
In addition to buying the titular backpacks,
they donated $10 for everyone who took a
Lyft to Finale Friday.

6. “We” still feels aspirational in Detroit. The
playing field is so uneven and the rate of
change changing so rapidly, it’s hard to know
what kind of equity the future may hold
here. But each summer leaves me optimistic
for us.

AWARDS OFFERED TO
DAY SCHOOL TEACHERS

Confessions Of A Bigot

B

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nostalgia

arbara, the younger of
wanted to play Parcheesi. This
my two older sisters,
was not how Sundays usually
had a cold.
started at our house.
She was nested into her
The radio was on. We were
twin bed on the far side of the
hearing what seemed to be bad
room she shared with our sis-
news. Barbara was 11. I was
ter, Audrey. I’d brought her a
8. Audrey was 12. We didn’t
scoop of scrambled eggs from
understand what was being
Norman Prady
the bowlful our mother often
said. Nor did we understand
made for weekend breakfast.
why Dad had gone to the drug-
She just picked at it and then said she
store to get all three of the Detroit

The Isaac Agree
Downtown
Synagogue will
hold a special
viewing of the
Holocaust exhibit
“They Risked Their
Lives: Poles Who
Guy Stern
Saved Jews During
the Holocaust” on
Wednesday, Aug. 24,
at 5:30 p.m.
It will be fol-
lowed by a panel
discussion led by
Holocaust experts
at 6:30 p.m. Both
Joshua Genig
the display and
the speakers will
detail how people
in Poland put
themselves in peril
to rescue their
Jewish neighbors
from unfathomable
hatred and certain
Jamie Wraight
death.
The panel-
ists are Dr. Guy Stern, director of
the International Institute of the
Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial
Center in Farmington Hills; Dr. Jamie
Wraight, curator of the Voice/Vision
Holocaust Archive at the University
of Michigan-Dearborn; and Dr.
Joshua Genig, director of lay minis-
try and associate professor of church
history at the SS. Cyril & Methodius
Seminary in Orchard Lake.
The program is offered in partner-
ship with the Polish Mission of the
Orchard Lake Schools, the POLIN
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
(Warsaw, Poland).
The event is free and open to all.
Donations will be accepted.

Sunday newspapers. Again. We’d gotten
them the evening before when we went
for Sunday morning bagels.
Yesterday’s newspapers had a great
variety of stories. Today’s extra edi-
tions of the Sunday papers mostly had
stories of deaths caused by the “Yellow
Menace” that was said to have descend-
ed upon America.
It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. After
hours of radio broadcasts, we had din-

The Kohelet Foundation’s $36,000
Kohelet Prize will be awarded to six
educators, or teams of educators, who
currently work in Jewish day schools
nationwide and whose work skillfully
demonstrates a progressive approach
to education.
For information on the six awards,
visit www.koheletprize.org. To submit
an entry, upload it to the website from
Sept. 29-Nov. 29.

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continued on page 8

August 18 • 2016

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