26 | NOVEMBER 5 • 2020 

I

f JARC CEO Shaindle 
Braunstein were a 
baked good, she’
d be a 
French macaron: delicate, 
yet complicated. This is 
the answer the mother 
of four and grandmother 
of two gave during a 
2018 interview with the 
casting producers for the Great 
American Baking Show as she 
was also going for rounds of 

interviews for JARC’
s top 
position. 
Braunstein made it 
through the final rounds of 
a rigorous casting process 
and was considering leav-
ing town for a month of 
filming in England when 
she also got the news that 
JARC offered her the CEO 
position. Though she never 
went to compete on television, 

Braunstein still put her amateur 
baking prowess to good use. 
As the months of the pan-
demic wear on, her interactive 
Zoom baking classes have 
become one of JARC’
s most 
popular activities among the 
organization’
s clients living in 
dozens of adult homes across 
Metro Detroit. In her own right 
and in her students’
 eyes, she 
has become a baking star. 
“I made the best decision,
” 
Braunstein said, in skipping the 
trip to England to take the new 
job. “It was always my dream to 
have my own baking show, and 
when I am teaching over Zoom, 
the residents make me feel like 
I am a YouTube star. Our staff 
have been incredible providers 
in their roles of creating dynam-

ic programming like this that 
provide opportunities of social 
engagement even during the 
pandemic.
”
Since early childhood, 
Braunstein has been an avid 
baker. Her living room in Oak 
Park is stocked with cake and 
cookie boxes ready to be filled 
with the latest batches of cakes, 
cookies and challah. She sees 
baking as a way to nurture 
friends, family and colleagues 
and turns to baking shows for 
relaxation.

‘I COULD DO THAT’
“I would watch baking compe-
titions on the Food Network 
and thought, ‘
I could do that.
’
 
So, I applied in the spring to the 
Great American Baking Show, 

Shaindle Braunstein skipped out 
on the Great American Baking Show 
to lead JARC.

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Zoom Baker

IN 
THED
JEWS

LEFT: Screenshot from Shaindle’s Zoom Baking class for JARC residents. RIGHT: Jonathon Washington — Grosberg Home.

Chocolate cake, Colorful cookies and Shaindle’s Signature Marble cookies created for the Great American Baking Show.

Shaindle 
Braunstein

JOHN HARDWICK