22 | APRIL 8 • 2021
the Sunday class to make
their dough alongside
Turkin. An educator from
Partners Detroit will also
join the class to share details
on the many positive influ-
ences that challah can instill
in a woman’s life.
“Pam is an experienced
baking teacher,” Fink says.
“She has a successful busi-
ness of teaching people to
bake all kinds of things over
Zoom, but challah is really
her passion.”
Fink and Turkin, who
are longtime friends, have
recently been studying the
mitzvah of challah and the
blessings it can bring to
those who are involved in it.
When Turkin had the idea
of sharing this knowledge
with others and turning the
art of challah into a class
people can participate in,
Fink says Partners Detroit
was all for it. They collabo-
rated with nonprofit Jewish
engagement and literacy
organization PJ Library, plus
JFamily Detroit, to get the
idea off the ground. They
developed advertising, what
the program would look like
and how to get it out into
the local community.
‘A HUGE SUCCESS’
Generating excitement
wasn’t difficult. “It’s really
been a huge success,” Fink
says. Flour Power has even
seen three generations of
women in a family sign up
for the program together,
connecting while fulfilling
a timeless Jewish tradition.
They practice different types
of funky braids, ranging all
the way from a heart shaped
challah to a nine-braid loaf.
In each class, women get
a chance to reminisce on
their memories of making
challah or other meaningful
Jewish memories, something
Turkin often asks partic-
ipants to share with the
group. It’s part of the reason
why Flour Power limits
classes to small sizes, despite
demand. “Once 12 people
register for any given class,
we’ll close registration for
that class,” Fink says. “We
don’t want to give up the
intimacy of it.”
Fink and Turkin plan to
continue the program up to
the summer, when they’ll
take a short break from
classes, and then resume
later. “We’re definitely happy
to go forward with it for as
long as we can,” Fink says
from a Partners Detroit per-
spective. “We’ve found that
people, even people who’ve
never made challah before,
love the experience.”
Fink explains there is
something “deeply satisfy-
ing” about baking, especially
when baking is connected
to a spiritual element. Flour
Power gives participants
a chance to learn to make
challah from the comfort of
their own homes, creating
a variety of new challah
breads for Shabbat and
beyond.
“Challah taps into our
feminine energy,” Fink says.
“It’s really been a special
class.”
To register for Flour Power, visit
partnersdetroit.org/flour-power.
“CHALLAH TAPS
INTO OUR
FEMININE ENERGY.”
— PARTNERS DETROIT’S SHAINDEL FINK
FLOUR POWER continued from page 21
OUR COMMUNITY
F
or Seema Selmar, her
chosen career path to
become a lawyer hit a
speed bump early on. She was
living in Israel where she had
just started her undergraduate
law degree, when her family
decided to move back to the
U.S. With law being a postgrad-
uate subject in the U.S., Selmar
had to choose another profes-
sion to study, landing on busi-
ness and ultimately becoming a
credit analyst in New York.
Then came marriage to
David and seven children,
including one with special
needs, so Selmar’s career was
put on hold while she brought
up her family.
Selmar of Oak Park, a mem-
ber of Dovid Ben Nachum
Synagogue and affiliated with
Yeshivah Gedolah, eventually
worked part time as a teacher.
However, she “kept going back
to my initial career idea, some-
thing in the legal field, but I
didn’t know how to make that
work,
” she said.
Six years ago, Selmar heard
about Women to Work, a
four-week course run by JVS
Human Services that provides
critical skills to women who
have been out of the workforce.
Participants are given a myriad
of resoucres vital to securing a
job. The program has helped
approximately 2,000 find a new
direction for their working lives
since its launch in the 1980.
For Selmar, now 63, the pro-
gram led training in civil and
domestic mediation, and she
now works as a volunteer for
the Oakland Mediation Center
and is considering opening her
own mediation business.
Judy Richmond, Women to
Work coordinator, says there
has never been a more import-
ant time for her program. “The
pandemic has hit women in
the workforce especially hard.
Some have had to stay home
with children when schools
were closed, others were in jobs
which simply dried up as busi-
nesses closed,
” Richmond said.
“Learning new and vital skills
can make all the difference to
finding work quickly.
”
The next virtual session of
Women to Work runs from
April 20-May 13 and includes
eight sessions on Tuesdays and
Thursdays from 9-11 a.m. For
more information and to regis-
ter, contact Richmond at (248)
233-4232 or jrichmond@
jvshumanservices.org.
DAVID SELMAR
JVS Human Services’ Women to Work
program changes lives.
Forging a New Path
ALISON SCHWARTZ SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Seema
Selmar