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There For The Community
Four generations at Ira Kaufman Chapel
are there when you need them.
By Barbara Lewis
David Techner, Herb Kaufman, Chad Techner and Josh Tobias outside the Ira Kaufman Chapel.
I
ra Kaufman was running a hard-
ware store in the late 1930s when a
Christian undertaker down the street
convinced him that funeral manage-
ment was a good business. In 1941, at age
45, Kaufman bought a two-family house at
9419 Dexter Blvd. in Detroit, remodeled it
and opened the funeral home that bears
his name.
The Ira Kaufman Chapel has been a
family business ever since.
Ira’s son, Herb, 93, always knew he’d be a
funeral director. He joined the business in
the late 1950s and helped Ira build a new
chapel in Southfield, where they moved
in 1961.
“It’s as modern now as it was then,” he
said, noting the geothermal heating and
cooling system the chapel installed in
2010.
Herb and Babs Kaufman helped
honor Ira Kaufman at an
Israel Bonds dinner.
Herb’s son-in-law, David Techner, 65,
was only 15 when Herb brought him into
the fold. David was dating Kaufman’s
daughter, Ilene, now his wife of 44 years.
It was the Saturday after the start of
Passover, which fell on Thursday and
Friday. With no funerals on the holiday
or the Sabbath, Kaufman knew they’d
be busy all day Sunday. He told Techner
to show up at the chapel the next day in
black pants and a black jacket.
Techner spent the day directing cars
in the parking lot. He continued working
at the chapel through his college years
and started full time after graduating
from Wayne State University’s School of
Mortuary Science.
Techner’s son, Chad, 36, joined the com-
pany in 2010.
Funeral director Josh Tobias is not offi-
cially a member of the family, but Herb
calls him “my son.”
Tobias was looking for a career change
from mortgage banking.
“I warned Josh that he might encoun-
ter some very tough emotional situa-
tions,” said David Techner, “and he said
it couldn’t be any tougher than telling a
family their house was about to be repos-
sessed.”
The family is proud of their connec-
tions and commitment to the community.
Kaufman and his late wife, Babs, belonged
to a half-dozen congregations where he
still maintains membership. Techner is a
longtime member of Temple Israel, where
he and his wife underwrite the annual
Alicia Joy Techner Parenting Conference
in memory of their daughter, who was 8
months old when she died in 1978.
Personalized attention is important.
You’ll never get an answering service
when you call Kaufman’s; a funeral direc-
tor is on call at all times.
Families rarely come to the chapel
except for funerals; the directors prefer
to discuss arrangements in clients’ own
homes, where they’re more comfortable.
David Techner has made a specialty of
helping children understand death and
dying. He doesn’t want others to experi-
ence what he did at age 9, when he came
home from school to find his house full of
people for his grandfather’s shivah; he and
his brothers hadn’t been told about the
death or the funeral.
He co-authored A Candle for Grandpa:
A Guide to the Jewish Funeral for Children
and Parents. A short film he made
with local producer Sue Marx in 1999,
Generation to Generation: Jewish Families
Talk About Death, won several awards,
including an Emmy.
Chad Techner is the chapel’s tech
guru. He created a system that enables
Kaufman’s to live-stream most of the 350
to 400 funerals they handle over the inter-
net. Kaufman’s is the only Detroit Jewish
funeral home that can stream from any-
where, including a cemetery.
“It takes knowledge and staff,’ Chad
said. “We are committed to technology
and will offer resources to maximize the
opportunity to enhance the experience for
our families.”
David Techner recalls the service for a
prominent psychiatrist who had been liv-
ing in Florida. His wife wasn’t well enough
to return to Detroit for the funeral, and
she expected only a handful of people to
attend.
Techner called the Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute, which the man
had co-founded, and dozens of his former
colleagues came to the funeral. Kaufman’s
not only streamed the service and burial
for his wife, but also had the psychiatrists
speak about how they knew her husband
and how important he had been to them.
Recently, Kaufman’s started using the
DJN Foundation’s archives to find Jewish
News stories that mentioned the deceased.
They print the stories and create a keep-
sake book for the family.
Techner notes some big changes in the
business since he started in the 1970s.
For one thing, people live much longer.
Then, few made it into their 80s. Last year,
Kaufman’s handled 14 funerals for people
over 100.
“When I started, almost no one died at
home, and if they did, EMS would come
and try to resuscitate them and then take
them by ambulance to the hospital where
they would be pronounced dead,” he said.
That changed with the advent of hos-
Herb Kaufman.
David Techner and then 11-year-old Chad Techner.
pice, which worked to change the laws
requiring resuscitation attempts and
hospital visits. Now most people die in
their own homes or in a care facility,
said Techner, who is president of Jewish
Hospice and Chaplaincy Network.
Hospice also changed Jewish mourning
practices, he said.
Until maybe 20 years ago, almost all
families sat shivah for the full seven days,
he said. Now, because many families work
through some of their grieving while their
loved one is in hospice care, many non-
Orthodox families sit for shorter periods.
Herb Kaufman is proud that the funeral
chapel his father began is among the
dwindling number that are still family-
owned and operated. And the fifth genera-
tion may have begun with Chad Techner’s
1-year-old twins, Eli and Miriam. Y
The Ira Kaufman Chapel
18325 W Nine Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48075
(248) 569-0020
www.irakaufman.com
jn
July 18 • 2017
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