10 | JANUARY 14 • 2021 

Jewish seniors, frontline 
workers among fi
 rst to get 
COVID vaccine.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

of
A

s 2021 begins, many 
hope the year will 
bring a return to nor-
malcy with the rollout of the 
COVID-19 vaccine. And mem-
bers of the Detroit Jewish com-
munity are playing pivotal roles 
in distributing the lifesaving 
injection throughout the area. 
From frontline and health-
care workers being the first 
ones to receive the vaccine, to 
those who worked on the vac-
cine trials, to ordinary citizens 
participating in the trials, here 
are some of their stories. 

‘A MIRACLE’
Dr. Bruce Adelman, who 
specializes in anesthesiology 
for Henry Ford Health System 
(HFHS), received the Pfizer 
vaccine on Dec. 17, one of the 
first five people at the West 
Bloomfield hospital to get it. 

“I think it’s nothing short 
of a miracle that the vaccine 
is finally here, because it feels 
like we’ve been talking about it 
for so long, but in the vaccine 
world, it’s been a remark-
ably short amount of time,
” 
Adelman said. “It decreases the 
risks significantly for us in the 
health care setting, and it shows 
the population at large that it’s a 
good thing to do.
” 
The logistics of receiving and 
organizing the vaccine distri-
bution have been a herculean 
effort, Adelman said.
Initially, employees were 
surveyed about who was will-
ing to get the vaccine, who 
had already tested positive and 
the department in which they 
work, all factors which helped 
determine eligibility. 
Employees went through 
MyChart, the electronic pro-

TOP: Residents of Oak Park’s JSL Coville Apartments and Prentis Apartments 1 

received their first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 4.

Hypodermic
Hope

JEFF KOWALSKY

IN 
THE
JEWS D
ON THE COVER

