16 | NOVEMBER 21 • 2019
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educators through on-the-bus lessons. “We
want students to take pride in learning
how the Jewish community in Michigan
came to be, and how Jewish values brought
from the Old World shaped our history
and the identity we still carry today.”
During the tour, teachers met with
actors dressed in period costumes. At
his campsite along the Detroit River
at William G. Milliken State Park,
pioneer Ezekiel Solomon spoke about
his adventures delivering supplies to the
British during the French and Indian Wars
in the 1700s. At the Eastern Market, Sylvia,
a young teen from the early 20th century,
was the first of her family to be sent to
America from her shtetl in Russia in hopes
to earn enough for the rest of her family
to make the passage. There, she sold the
teachers apples for a penny.
Teachers were then treated to a kosher
hot dog lunch at the site of the old
Tiger Stadium, where they ran the bases
now used by the Police Athletic League
and were told stories by a young Hank
Greenberg who had to choose between
playing in the World Series in 1934 or
observing Yom Kippur.
Sitting side by side at an outdoor picnic
table making beeswax Shabbat candles
were Robbie Terman, archivist for the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit,
and Jeanne Weiner, JHSM volunteer and a
project adviser for the trip and workbook.
“It’
s unusual for kids to be interested
in history,” Weiner said. “But when they
get older, they wish they had talked
and interviewed their grandparents and
parents about what life was like for them.
We hope this trip will inspire our Jewish
students to engage and go back to discover
their family history.”
At their last stop, educators learned
about the history of the community’
s
Jewish congregations — from the first
founded in 1850 to their migration to
the suburbs in recent times — as they
examined the decaying architecture of the
sanctuary of the Beth El Transformation
Center on Woodward Avenue. Educator
Linda Shapiro marveled at the ornate
ceiling full of Jewish symbolism, Hebrew
texts from the Torah and murals depicting
moments in Jewish history, just as she
did when she attended pre-confirmation
classes there.Rabbi Arianna Gordon,
director of the Tyner Religious school at
Temple Israel, said about 100 sixth-graders
will participate in the trip this year.
“We appreciate the enhancements
JHSM has made to build family and
multigenerational connections into
the curriculum,” she said. “Now, when
kids come to Detroit with parents and
grandparents, they can better appreciate
its vibrant past and how, as Jews, we are
connected to that past as well as the city’
s
future.”
The program, supported by grant seed money the
first three years, has been free to area synagogues.
With the seed money gone, JHSM is seeking sup-
porters to sustain the program. The JHSM board
decided the program can no longer be offered free
starting Jan. 1. To help fund Traveling Trunk, contact
JHSM Executive Director Catherine Cangany at
(248) 432-5403 or ccangany@michjewishhistory.org.
Jews in the D
LEFT: JHSM supporters Michael
and Donna Maddin, JHSM
Executive Director Catherine
Cangany, JHSM educator Tova
Schreiber who played a 1910s
Eastern Market peddler during
the tour, JHSM supporters Shari
and Stan Finsilver, and JHSM
Traveling Trunk curriculum
designer and docent Cheryl Blau.
BOTTOM: “Sylvia” selling apples
at the Eastern Market.