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PHOTOS BY ROBIN SCHWARTZ

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Passover Packs A Punch

Hillel students bring multicultural seder to the Downtown Boxing Gym.

ROBIN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

ABOVE: Rabbi Harold Loss
led the seder at the gym.
TOP LEFT: Detroit Boxing
Gym and Hillel Day School
friends enjoy a Passover
seder together at the gym.
TOP RIGHT: Kenedi Cain
shows off her personal-
ized seder plate.

hey had everything prepared from the
matzah to the charoset to the bitter
herbs. A group of eighth-graders from
Hillel Day School were all set to welcome
their friends from the Downtown Boxing
Gym Youth Program in Detroit to their
school in Farmington Hills for a multicul-
tural Passover celebration.
Then the lights went out. A power outage
at Hillel the morning of April 7 threatened to
derail the entire program. But the students
were not about to let that happen.
“These are 13- and 14-year-old kids
who had the day off and they immediately
wanted to be here [at the boxing gym],” said
Hillel principal Melissa Michaelson. “We
were going to have a Freedom Seder with
all kinds of activities. There was going to be
something in our Maker Space, there was
going to be basketball, there was going to be
drumming.”
Instead, the students sat together to break
(unleavened) bread in the library of the box-
ing gym, a free, after-school academic and
athletic program with the motto “books

before boxing.” Parents and school offi-
cials helped relocate the seder Downtown.
Temple Israel Rabbi Harold Loss got a last-
minute phone call to attend and dropped
what he was doing to be there.
“I’ve never been part of a seder at a boxing
gym,” he told the students seated all around
him. “I’ll tell you, it’s pretty darn cool.”
Loss went over the various holiday sym-
bols and traditions and highlighted the slav-
ery-to-freedom history the African American
and Jewish communities share.
“Anyone who has that history should be
most concerned about creating a world
where no one ever has to experience that
again,” he said.
Through it all, the teens discovered how
much they have in common. There were sev-
eral activities designed to get them talking
and working together. Instead of the tradi-
tional Four Questions children typically ask
in Hebrew during a seder, the students were
told to ask those seated next to them four
questions to get to know each other better.
“I love to meet new and different kinds of

people,” said Hillel student Julia Klein.
“I met one girl; we have the same birth-
day,” added 13-year-old Reynard. “I have
never been to a seder before. It’s always good
to learn new things.”
The boxing gym students also made
seder plates depicting their interests and
passions. Later, the kids worked together to
build pyramids by stacking red plastic cups.
The catch? They had to use a rubber band
contraption to make the pyramids without
touching the cups with their hands. The fun
challenge had everyone laughing and com-
ing up with creative solutions together.
“I think it’s important to bring kids
together and have them realize they have
more similarities than differences,” said
Jessica Hauser, the boxing gym’s executive
director. “I think it’s really just about break-
ing down those false barriers that we put
up for ourselves.” •

To learn more about Hillel Day School, visit hillelday.
org. For details about the Downtown Boxing Gym, to
donate or volunteer, visit downtownyouthboxing.org.

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April 20 • 2017

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