jews d

2017

in
the

LEONARD N. SIMONS JEWISH COMMUNITY ARCHIVES

Building Dream Homes for Over 25 Years

2017 Parade of Homes
Winner

Twin Beach

WEST BLOOMFIELD

starting from the mid $500’s.
Walled Lake Schools

Pure Poetry

Daughter recalls her father’s
poem about long-ago fl ooding.

KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR

VISIT OUR MODEL AT TWIN BEACH

For more information call Cathi Waun

(248) 592-9292

cathiwaun@citylifemi.com

NOW OPEN FOR SALES!

Pinehurst Ranch

Forrest at Woodale

FARMINGTON HILLS

starting from the low $500’s.
Farmington Schools

Model hours: 2-6 Fri, Sat, Sun and by appointment.

Best Designed Home

www.windmillhomes.com
28 October 5 • 2017
jn

W

The grown-up Edward Rosenberg
hen Marlene Rosenberg of
has appeared many times in the JN. A
Bloomfield Hills was at a
lifelong Detroiter whose family started
dinner party a few weeks
Family Building Supply, he and
ago amid the height of
ABOVE:
his wife, Shirley, are perhaps
flooding in Houston during
Edward and
best known in the Jewish com-
Hurricane Harvey, the dis-
cussion turned to the natural Shirley Rosenberg munity for the recreation com-
in the JCC
plex at the Jewish Community
disaster.
recreation
Center in West Bloomfield that
Rosenberg surprised her
complex named
bears their names and was
friends by reciting a poem.
for them.
dedicated in1989.
The words to the poignant,
Here are the words of the
rhyming poem were writ-
young Edward Rosenberg (1919-2009):
ten by her father, Edward Rosenberg,
in reaction to the flooding of the
“The Flood”
Mississippi River when he was about
15 years old.
A swirling mass of water
“When I was in my 20s, he pulled
of yellow black and white
out a piece of paper with the poem
A house once pressed to Nature’s
written in pencil,” Marlene said. “He
breast
read it to me and I told him I would
Now floating out of sight
memorize it so I’d have it forever. It
People huddled on roof tops
was that profound.”
Their faces grim and bleak
She took the paper and copied the
Staring helplessly into the water
poem, which she then committed to
Which makes them feel so weak
memory.
Water once so peaceful, water once
“I’d never, ever recited the poem
so blue
before that night when we were talk-
Is now an agent of nature
ing about the flooding in Texas,” she
carrying death and disease to you
said. “Everyone loved it and wanted
Tons and tons of water in a mad
a copy. They were amazed I’d memo-
deluge
rized it.”
Thousands and thousands of people
Then came Hurricane Irma and
looking for refuge
the flooding in Florida. Rosenberg
Can man stop it?
recited it again at a dinner party to
At this I must reply
rave reviews. And she’s read it on
For to think that man can outwit
Jackie Kallen’s “The Voice of Reason”
radio show. She was urged to share the nature
Is something we must deny. •
poem with the JN.

