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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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