jews d

PHOTOS BY JERRY ZOLYNSKY

in
the

Getting
Together

Discussion
Group has
been building
community for
15 years.

ABOVE: Irving Ginsberg of
Farmington Hills discusses
American covert operations.
RIGHT: Morry Silverman of
Bloomfield Hills and Leonard
Zucker of West Bloomfield
have a conversation.

28

November 2 • 2017

MAYA GOLDMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

W

hen Nison Sabin was nearing
the end of his medical career
16 years ago, he found himself
receiving the same advice from many of
his patients, who were retired physicians
themselves.
“All your life you’ve been either going to
school or working and now, all of a sud-
den, you’re retired and you’ve got all this
spare time,” Sabin said. “The advice that
kept coming to me over and over again was
people are going to call you and say would
you like to do this, would you like to do
that, and even if you think you’re going to
hate it, try it at least once. And that’s what
happened with the Discussion Group.”
The group that Sabin joined on a whim

jn

all those years ago is now 15 years old and
has become an important fixture in his and
many of his peers’ lives.
The Discussion Group, brainchild of
retired attorney Jerry Gropman, began as a
monthly gathering of a few friends as a way
to stay socially and intellectually stimu-
lated in their retirement. The men met in
each other’s living rooms to hear a speaker
and then discuss the topic.
After several years, Gropman moved to
Florida and handed over his leadership role
to Sabin. Since then, the group has grown
via word-of-mouth into a club with more
than 200 members (although usually 50-70
people attend any given meeting). And
though the group began as a men’s discus-

sion group, several women are now on the
email list and regularly attend meetings.
Gone are the days of meeting in living
rooms; the group now meets on the third
Tuesday of every month between May and
October in a room at the Jewish Family
Service building.
Although JFS allows the group to use
the meeting room free of charge, each
attendee — including Sabin and the month’s
speaker — makes a $5 donation to JFS at
every meeting. According to JFS, the dona-
tions generated by the Discussion Group go
into a medical care fund to benefit Project
Chessed Health and Wellness Program. The
group has donated thousands of dollars
over the years.
continued on page 30

