Jewish Contributions to Humanity

#5 in a series

must raise.
The excitement over
Wendy’s work attracts
many supporters, includ-
ing former champions
who teach classes at the
foundation and idols who
speak to her students, like
Brian Siegel
Olympic gold medalist
Gaby Douglas, the first
African American gymnast,
who won her gold in London. “She’s
a huge role model for my students,”
Wendy says.
Billie Jean King, who attended
Wendy’s last fundraiser, is also a big
supporter, especially of her founda-
tion’s mission to give all young chil-
dren the opportunity to do sports.

BACK TO DETROIT

Several years after Wendy started
WHGF, she attracted the attention
of then-deputy mayor of New York
City and former Detroiter, Daniel
Doctoroff. Doctoroff, former CEO
and president of Bloomberg L.P.,
hired Wendy in 1999 to help bring
the Olympics to New York.
He, too, became a major supporter
of Wendy’s foundation and was
honored at her 2016 annual event,
where he helped her raise more than
$200,000. He also hosted a party
at Bloomberg Headquarters when
Wendy was inducted into the USA
Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
“Wendy is that rare person who
combines extraordinary empathy
with intense commitment, disci-
pline and ability to get things done,”
Doctoroff said in an email.
He also played a role in bring-
ing Wendy back for a Detroit
Homecoming event, an effort to
bring successful Detroiters home to
invest in the city’s rebound.
Wendy’s nephew first suggested
she attend the Detroit event, and
when she learned Doctoroff was the
keynote speaker, she got her ticket.
“It was a heady time,” Wendy says,
and she was convinced to expand
her program in Detroit — no small
feat.
Wendy launched her Detroit non-
profit that offers a low-cost gymnas-
tics program in 2016. It was daunt-
ing, she says. Besides raising money,
she had to recreate an infrastructure
for her Detroit gymnastics program.
Again, a former Detroit team-
mate helped out. Karyn Glover,
owner of Oakland Rhythmics,
introduced Wendy to Brian Siegel,
Jewish Community Center CEO and

a partner in Joe Dumars’
Fieldhouse on the old State
Fairgrounds in Detroit. When
Siegel met Wendy and learned
about her work, he not only
gave her “a great deal to use
the fieldhouse,” Wendy says,
but he became a major sup-
porter of her organization.
“Wendy meets every defi-
nition of a mensch,” Brian
wrote. “She is wholehearted in her
support for disadvantaged youth in
our larger community … Her pro-
gram makes our community, includ-
ing our Jewish community, better
by inspiring young people to dream
about building a better life. I am a
huge fan.”
Already serving more than 50
kids at the Fieldhouse, with little
advertising, Wendy and her teach-
ers are awed by the innate talent of
the young people she is meeting in
Detroit.
“There’s a different energy here,”
Wendy says. “I think that’s why
Detroiters are so successful in music
and in sports. It wasn’t that we had
a lot of money. Perhaps it’s because
Detroiters go through so much and
the kids are even more hungry for
success.”
Detroiters are already noticing the
foundation’s work. U.S. Rep. Brenda
Lawrence sent a Spirit of Detroit
Award to Wendy, congratulating her
for the “first affordable gymnastics
program in Detroit.” Not counting,
that is, the one that changed her life
40 years ago.
Then, Wendy and her Detroit
Metro team shocked the sports
world, becoming a top rhythmic
gymnastics team with the first
African American champion,
coached by Jewish refugees and sus-
tained by a city in trouble.
Now, Wendy is anxious to support
Detroit youth and give back to the
city that supported her.
And, not unlike the young Wendy,
her Detroit students, she says, are
moving fast. Six to eight of them will
do their first competition Feb. 10-11
at the 2018 Michigan State Meet in
Bloomfield Hills.
Stay tuned. The Winter Olympics
may be starting Feb. 9, but you never
know who you’ll see on the gym
floor during the Summer Olympics
in July 2020. •

For more information, visit wendyhilliard.org or
email Wendy at info@wendyhilliard.org.

From the
Big Bang to
Carl Sagan

The Big Bang, which is the leading cosmological explanation for how the universe came
into existence, seems to provide at least as many new questions as answers. Thankfully for us
laypeople, two Jewish scientists, Carl Sagan and Arno Penzias, did their very best to help
us understand the scientific explanation of the biggest question of them all: Why are we here?

ARNO PENZIAS (1933-) b . Munich, Germany. Lives in Menlo Park, California.

The Big Bang’s pioneer.
As happened with many of the scientists dis-
cussed in these columns, the unique circum-
stances Penzias found himself in were the precise
ones he needed to make major contributions to
humanity. After moving to the United States with his
family in 1940, Penzias later joined the U.S. Army,
which helped him get a position with Columbia’s
radiation laboratory, which at the time happened to
be focused heavily on microwave physics—Pen-
zias spent much of his time at Columbia and Bell
Labs researching radio waves. He eventually came
across radio noise (cosmic microwave background
radiation) that was leftover radiation from the Big
Bang. His discovery helped scientists and astrono-
mers deepen their understanding of the Big Bang
and the origins of our universe. In 1978, Penzias
won a Nobel Prize for his discovery along with his
colleague Robert Wilson. The two pioneers continued their search for scientific truth, discover-
ing unknown molecules throughout the universe. Penzias’s explanation of the molecule deute-
rium further strengthened the Big Bang theory, because deuterium is the only known molecule
whose origin can only be explained by the processes of the Big Bang.

CARL SAGAN (1934-1996) b. Brooklyn, New York. An insatiable curiosity.

Astronomer; cosmologist; astrophysicist; author—the list seems endless. He “led a fever-
ish existence, with multiple careers tumbling over one another” as one admiring writer said.
Sagan accomplished much, but nothing reached as wide
an audience as “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, a 13-part
PBS series broadcast in 1980 that was revolutionary at the
time, using special effects, science, and a charismatic host
(Sagan) to take the viewer on a journey of our existence,
from the Big Bang to the origins of life to humanity’s fu-
ture. Sagan was fascinated with the possibility of alien life,
creating the first messages (images and sounds) sent into
space—the Pioneer plaque and Voyager Golden Record
could theoretically be understood by extraterrestrial life. A
lifelong consultant for NASA, Sagan consulted the astro-
nauts on the Apollo before their voyage to the Moon, and
he also assisted with many robotic spacecraft missions.
His analysis of Venus as a dry and hot planet (as opposed
to the previously accepted balmy climate that many had
accepted) changed the popularly accepted view of the
planet. Furthermore, his insights into the moons of Saturn and Jupiter led to the discovery
that the reddish haze on Titan (Saturn’s moon) were organic molecules, a major discovery that
suggested the possibility of life outside Earth.

Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel

jn

February 8 • 2018

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