jews d

on the cover

in
the

Generosity
& Fortitude

PHOTOS COURTESY ARBOR INVESTMENTS GROUP

Eugene Applebaum
(1936-2017)

KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR

LEFT TO RIGHT: Eugene
Applebaum as a young
boy. He was a camper
at Fresh Air Society-
Tamarack Camps
(1947-1949). Central
High School graduation
photo. Applebaum as a
pharmacist in the early
1960s.

E

ugene Applebaum, a man known as much for his business
acumen and philanthropy as his positive attitude and per-
petual smile, died Dec. 15, 2017, at his home in Bloomfield
Hills. He was 81.
Born into a family of modest means, the native Detroiter was an
entrepreneur who grew his first drug store into Arbor Drugs Inc.,
the eighth largest drug store chain in the country. Along the way,
giving back to the community was always a tandem goal.
And, as he was mentored by such giants as businessmen and
philanthropists Max Fisher and Alfred Taubman, Applebaum, in
turn, mentored many future leaders of today’s Jewish community.
Though focused on business and philanthropy, he chose to leave
them behind to be present for his family at the end of a work day.

EARLY YEARS

Eugene Applebaum was born Nov. 16, 1936, the second son of
Joseph, an ardent Zionist, and Minnie Belkin Applebaum, who
maintained a traditional Jewish home. His father was from

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December 21 • 2017

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Zhitomir, a large city in Russia, and his mother came from
Horodok, a small village.
“They were loving parents. They talked about Judaism and they
talked about philanthropy, tzedakah, and they set proper goals
for me to reach,” Applebaum recalled in an oral history conducted
in 2004 for the Jewish Federation’s Leonard N. Simons Jewish
Community Archives. “Whatever I did that was right, they were
just a positive influence, a very positive influence.”
His daughters, Pamela and Lisa, said their father loved a good
story — and he loved a good story about himself: “When our
father was a boy, his mother held him up to the mirror and said,
‘You are the Great Eugene.’ That became a part of him, sustained
him and gave him great confidence. For his entire life, he never
passed a mirror without smiling.”
Motivated by his father’s interest in Yiddish, Applebaum and
good friend Eugene Driker set up the Applebaum Driker Theater
at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.
His father’s love of Israel sparked an incident Applebaum