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8 | APRIL 2 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week
jn

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How to reach us, see page 10

T

his is an extraordinarily 
difficult and unprece-
dented time for Jewish 
Detroit. 
In the wake of the COVID-19 
outbreak, we are all thinking of 
the health and wellbeing of our 
loved ones — our children and 
spouses, parents and grandpar-
ents and many others. We are 
also deeply concerned for the 
welfare of our Jewish commu-
nity, whose schools and congre-
gations, agencies and organiza-
tions are all facing enormous 
pressure, even as the demand 
for services increases. 
Our most immediate concern 
is for the thousands of vulner-
able individuals for whom this 
outbreak presents a grave threat, 
including our large population 
of older adults, families with 
financial needs, individuals with 
disabilities and others.
As the steward of our com-
munity, the Jewish Federation of 
Metropolitan Detroit has been 
leading an urgent and coor-
dinated response. Federation 
and its network of agencies and 

partners across the community 
are working in close collabora-
tion to ensure that support is 
available to those in need, and 
to anticipate future needs that 
may arise — whether it be food 
and shelter, medicine and health 
supplies, mental health services 
or anything else of critical con-
cern. 
We wanted to share some 
of the specific actions we have 
taken to date:
• We have appointed Matt 
Lester, incoming Federation 
president, and Dennis Bernard, 
incoming United Jewish 
Foundation president, to lead 
a Task Force. The Task Force 
will oversee the COVID-19 
Emergency Campaign, manage 
the allocation of resources and 
strategically address related con-

cerns confronting our commu-
nity agencies and organizations. 
The Emergency Campaign will 
secure the funds necessary to 
ensure that our agencies are able 
to continue providing essential 
services to our most vulnerable 
individuals.
• Thanks to a strong 
Annual Campaign, the Jewish 
Federation and its fiduciary 
partner, the United Jewish 
Foundation, will be providing a 
contribution of $1.5 million in 
emergency funding to the effort.
• From the very start of the 
crisis, Federation convened its 
leadership team and agency 
executives to identify critical 
needs and coordinate response 
efforts. Federation has also 
been assessing needs across the 
community to understand and 
anticipate the resources that 
may be required to preserve the 
immediate and long-term well-
being of the community. 
• Federation has been pro-
viding regular community-wide 
communications via email and 
social media to share informa-

tion and identify important 
resources. We also deployed a 
community-wide Coronavirus 
Resource page at jewishdetroit.
org/covid19resources with links 
to help, connection, online con-
gregational services and other 
information. More information 
can be found on our Facebook 
page. 
• Our community engage-
ment teams, including 
NEXTGen Detroit, Women’
s 
Philanthropy, Affinities and 
Israel and Overseas, have been 
moving programs online and 
developing new content that 
specifically address the emo-
tional wellbeing of community 
members in light of the pro-
found changes in our daily lives 
and interactions. You can find 
this and other programming on 
the resource page.
Looking ahead, we recognize 
there is no roadmap for dealing 
with this crisis, no instruction 
manual to follow. Despite this, 
we know that together we will 
weather this storm, just as we 
have during times of crisis in 

Beverly Liss

guest column
Federation’s Message to Our Jewish Community

Views

Alan Jay 
Kaufman

continued on page 10

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