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Living The

..egacy

Community leader Linda Z. Klein
will receive this year's Butzel Award.

Vivian Henoch I Special to the Jewish News

5

he grew up on Velvet peanut but-
ter and Krun-Chee potato chips.
Daughter of Velvet Peanut Butter
Company founder, Paul Zuckerman,
Linda Z. Klein proudly maintains the
Z in her name, signifying her family
legacy and her longtime role as a com-
munity leader, fundraiser and philan-
thropist.
Linda was 21 and newly wed to
Tom Klein when she attended her first
Federation Annual Meeting in 1961.
She recalls Irwin I. Cohn was named
that year as the recipient of Federation's
highest honor — the Butzel Award —
the award her father would receive in
1969.
This is her year. Recognized for more
than four decades of outstanding ser-
vice to Federation, greater Detroit and
to Israel, Klein is one of the rare few:
a second-generation Fred M. Butzel
Memorial Awardee.
"My father always was involved with
Israel and local Jewish causes," she says.
"It just seemed to be part of our life."
As a busy young mother, she took
an active part in Federation's Junior
Division. While in law school at Wayne
State University in the mid-1970s, she
jumped into her first Federation lead-
ership role as chair of a newly formed
Career Women's Group.
"I enjoyed that experience and giving
my time and energy, and I have been
involved ever since," she says.
Moving through the ranks of the
Women's Campaign and Education
Department (now Federation's Women's
Philanthropy), Klein served as its
Campaign chair and then president from
1995-1997. On the Federation Board
since 1991, she has served as co-chair of
the Annual Campaign, chair of the Israel

and Overseas Committee, Planning and
Allocations Committee and associate
chair of Miracle Mission II.
Linda also has served as JVS president
and has held many board positions,
including the Jewish Fund, JARC, Yad
Ezra, Friends of Modern Art, Music
Hall Center, the Detroit Artists' Market,
National Council of Jewish Women and
Children's Hospital of Michigan.
Living the legacy of giving, and
in memory of her parents, Paul and
Helen, and her brother, Norbert, Linda
and her family created the Zuckerman
Klein Global Unmet Needs Fund as
part of Federation's Centennial Fund
Endowment Campaign.
Celebrating 55 years of marriage,
Linda and Tom are the parents of Kathy
(Peter) Bresler and Elizabeth (Steve)
Brodsky, both of Chicago, and Jon and
Gretchen Klein of Los Angeles. They
have six grandchildren.
Here she shares about her family's
legacy, Detroit's Jewish community and
Israel.

What are your first memories of
your father's community involvement?

My father was always very involved
in everything Jewish, but Israel was his
passion. My first memories were of his
Sunday excursions. He was just starting
out in business and couldn't have had a
lot of resources to contribute, but I can
still picture him on those Sunday morn-
ings, heading out in a green Oldsmobile
to attend what I assume to be Federation
meetings. He was a very young man, and
Israel wasn't yet a state, but somehow
he just knew he needed to be a part of it
and give his support.
My father and my mother, Helen, were
a great pair. Together they spent many

times in Israel in a house they built in
Caesarea. My father's highest achieve-
ment in the Jewish world was to be the
National Chair of the United Jewish
Appeal (UJA) during the Yom Kippur
War in 1973. In his term that began in
1971, he logged hundreds of thousands
of miles to Israel to lead the greatest
fundraising effort in the history of the
UJA.
In the following years, my parents
became close friends with many found-
ers and builders of Israel, including
Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe
Dayan and Teddy Kollek. These were
my parents' real true friends, whom
they would invite to Shabbat dinners in
Caesarea. In fact, there's a room Tom

and I dedicated at JVS [containing] a
collection of historic and very personal
photos of my dad and mom pictured
with so many of these famous and icon-
ic Israelis.

What was it like as the daughter of
"Detroit's Peanut Butter King?"

It was always great fun knowing my
father's business was Velvet peanut but-
ter and later Krun-Chee potato chips.
When I was little, I spent a lot of time at
the peanut butter plant. I loved to watch
the machines pour the peanut butter
into the jars. When our kids were little,
they all had many birthday parties at the
Velvet plant. Velvet peanut butter was a
very big part of our family life and iden-

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16 September 22 2016