OCTOBER 22 • 2020 | 21
campuses, have received tre-
mendous support from their
building administrators when
it comes to safe and timely
voting. “We have a lot of civ-
ic-minded residents, and we
send a lot of letters,
” says Tracey
Proghovnick, director of res-
idential marketing for Jewish
Senior Life.
The letters remind residents
they should have received their
absentee ballot by Oct. 16, that
there are strict rules to adhere
to about who can handle their
ballot, that no postage is nec-
essary to mail your ballot back,
and that shuttles will be made
available for those residents
who want to deliver their bal-
lots in person.
“We also have something
called ‘
Voice Friend,
’
” said
Tracey, “a phone call system
where we can inform residents
and families via voicemail
about things going on at JSL,
and voting is a topic.
” Residents
are always encouraged to call
their building’
s administrators
or their clerk’
s office with any
election-related questions.
JFS OFFERS RIDES
Jewish Family Service (JFS) is
also offering support. To that
end, JFS is offering free rides to
Oakland County residents to
drop off their absentee ballots
at designated drop-off points
prior to Election Day. Rides are
subject to availability. Call JFS
at (248) 592-2266 for further
details.
Helping their residents
legally vote is, of course, only
one of many challenges senior
communities have had to face
during the coronavirus crisis.
There’
s also the ever-evolving
effort needed to maneuver
around recent Michigan
Supreme Court rulings invali-
dating Gov. Whitmer’
s COVID-
19 executive orders protecting
residents and staff. On the
heels of that, there are new,
recently issued regulations by
the Michigan Department of
Health and Human Services
to help shore up the holes in
regulations left by those rulings.
Understanding all of that in
this tumultuous election year
has to be like trying to navigate
around bumper cars in a carni-
val ride — absent the same level
of fun.
Rachel Fox is fully aware of
the drama surrounding this
year’
s election. “People are so
confused,
” she told me. “They
don’
t know where to turn.
”
Fortunately, at 105 years old
she has remained patriotic and
not apathetic as evidenced by
her casting a vote in her 23rd
presidential election, an effort
West Bloomfield Township
Clerk Debbie Binder never
takes for granted. “Our seniors
are critical in modeling the
importance of voting to the
next generations,
” said Debbie.
“They truly understand the
value of their voice.
”
That sentiment was fur-
ther reinforced just prior to
my submitting this column.
That’
s when I received confir-
mation that Rachel’
s 100-year
old brother Max Elkin, of
Minneapolis, who still drives,
had mailed in his absentee bal-
lot, too.
Need any further incentive
to do your civic duty? Vote.
Now.
“WE HAVE A LOT OF
CIVIC-MINDED RESIDENTS.”
— TRACEY PROGHOVNICK OF JEWISH SENIOR LIFE
P
aul Milgrom, a Jewish
economist born and
raised in Detroit, is
one of two men to win the
2020 Nobel Prize in Economic
Sciences for “improvements to
auction theory and inventions
of new auction formats.”
Milgrom, who has been the
Shirley and Leonard Ely Jr.
Professor of Humanities and
Sciences at Stanford University
since 1987, jointly received the
honor along with Robert B.
Wilson, an emeritus professor
at Stanford. Wilson was origi-
nally Milgrom’
s thesis adviser
and eventually became his col-
laborator.
Milgrom’
s primary research
has consisted of studying how
auctions work and using that
to design new auction for-
mats for goods and services
that are “difficult to sell in a
traditional way,” such as radio
frequencies, according to the
Prize Committee. Milgrom and
Wilson famously designed the
auction protocol the Federal
Communications Commission
uses to determine which phone
company gets what cellular
frequencies.
“Milgrom formulated a more
general theory of auctions
that not only allows common
values, but also private values
that vary from bidder to bid-
der,” the Nobel committee said
in the release, “demonstrating
that a format will give the seller
higher expected revenue when
bidders learn more about each
other’
s estimated values during
bidding.”
Milgrom was born in Detroit
in April 1948, had his bar
mitzvah in March 1961 at
Congregation Beth Yehudah
and graduated from Oak Park
High School.
The Jewish News archives
indicate that in 1965, Milgrom
graduated from United
Hebrew Schools High School
in Detroit. That same year,
he received a youth award
from the Women’
s Auxiliary
of United Hebrew Schools.
Milgrom was also a United
Synagogue Youth (USY) fresh-
man adviser at B’
nai Moshe in
1966.
In 1970, Milgrom grad-
uated from the University
of Michigan with an A.B. in
mathematics, and received
both his M.S. in statistics in
1978 and his Ph.D. in busi-
ness in 1979 from Stanford
University.
The prize amount is 10 mil-
lion Swedish Kronor (about
$1.1 million) and will be
shared equally between the
laureates.
Jewish economist with Detroit roots
wins for his work on auction theory.
DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
Nobel Prize Winner
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Paul
Milgrom
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