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. 

