28 | AUGUST 5 • 2021

OUR COMMUNITY

E

ugene Kowalsky has celebrated
important firsts in his life that reach
beyond family milestones.
Kowalsky was in the first graduating class
at Detroit’s Mumford High School, and his
marriage to Cherna Bodzin is noted among
the first wedding ceremonies performed at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield,
the city where he and his wife have resided
for most of their 58 years together.
Now, Kowalsky shares what he considers
some important artistic lasts in his life that
also reach beyond family milestones and
into religious observation.
The retired Detroit science teacher and
school administrator, who is 85 and battling
cancer and macular degeneration, has been
carving yads (pointers for Torah reading)
for one grandson and three great-grand-
sons to use and show during congregational

celebrations of each one’s bar mitzvah.
Anticipating possible times when he
might not be present as each is called to
read Torah, the couple soon will be travel-
ing to visit family in Israel so yads can be
presented in person to the boys descending
from his daughter, one of three Kowalsky
children raised in Michigan.
The youngest great-grandson about to
receive a yad is 5 years old so the ritual
object has been made smaller for practice
as the boy readies to recite the parshah
(Torah section) that will be his bar mitzvah
reading according to the youngster’s birth
date.
“My wife and I are both interested in
Judaic art,
” said Kowalsky, whose home-dis-
played collection includes a papercut of
Jerusalem, lithograph of a shofar and sever-
al versions of the Birkat HaBayit (Blessing

for the Home). “My wife has done beautiful
needlepoint, and she is the backbone for
making tallis and tefillin bags as well as
challah covers for our children.
”
Kowalsky’s interest in art began when he
was a student at Guest Elementary School
in Detroit. After modeling objects out of
clay, he turned to soap carvings and kept
up with that into attendance at Wayne State
University, where he met his wife at a gath-
ering hosted by the Hillel chapter.
While working part time at the Detroit
Institute of Arts, Kowalsky was asked to
display his carvings as a component in
a series showcasing imaginative projects
created by employees. In addition to his
miniature replicas of animals, he sculpted
hearts planned for his then wife-to-be.
“Ten years ago, we started spending win-
ters in Boca Raton, and I joined a wood-

Lasting Gifts

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Loving patriarch, 85, carves yads for great-grandsons’ future bar mitzvahs.

JERRY ZOLYNSKY

Cherna and
Eugene
Kowalsky.