6 | NOVEMBER 18 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

1942 - 2021

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week

To make a donation to the 
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 
FOUNDATION
go to the website
www.djnfoundation.org

The Detroit Jewish News (USPS 275-520) 

is published every Thursday at 

32255 Northwestern Highway, #205, 

Farmington Hills, Michigan. Periodical 

postage paid at Southfield, Michigan, and 

additional mailing offices. 

Postmaster: send changes to: 

Detroit Jewish News, 

32255 Northwestern Highway, #205, 

Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334

MISSION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will be of service to the Jewish community. The Detroit Jewish 
News will inform and educate the Jewish and general community to preserve, protect and sustain the Jewish 
people of greater Detroit and beyond, and the State of Israel.

VISION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will operate to appeal to the broadest segments of the greater 
Detroit Jewish community, reflecting the diverse views and interests of the Jewish community while advancing the 
morale and spirit of the community and advocating Jewish unity, identity and continuity.

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
32255 Northwestern Hwy. Suite 205,
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
248-354-6060
thejewishnews.com

 
 
Publisher
The Detroit Jewish 
News Foundation

| Board of Directors:
 Chair: Gary Torgow
 Vice President: David Kramer 
 Secretary: Robin Axelrod
 Treasurer: Max Berlin
 Board members: Larry Jackier, 
 Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer
 
 
 Senior Advisor to the Board: 
 Mark Davidoff
 Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair: 
 Mike Smith
 Founding President & Publisher Emeritus: 
 Arthur Horwitz
 Founding Publisher 
 Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory

 
 
 

| Editorial 
 DIrector of Editorial: 
 Jackie Headapohl
jheadapohl@thejewishnews.com
Associate Editor: 
David Sachs
dsachs@thejewishnews.com
Social Media and Digital Producer:
Nathan Vicar
nvicar@thejewishnews.com
Staff Reporter: Danny Schwartz 
dschwartz@thejewishnews.com
Editorial Assistant: Sy Manello
smanello@thejewishnews.com

Contributing Writers:
Nate Bloom, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne 
Chessler, Annabel Cohen, Shari S. 
Cohen, Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Louis 
Finkelman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther 
Allweiss Ingber, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer 
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz, 
Robin Schwartz, Mike Smith, Steve Stein, 
Julie Smith Yolles, Ashley Zlatopolsky

| Advertising Sales 
Director of Advertising: Keith Farber
kfarber@thejewishnews.com
Senior Account Executive: 
Kathy Harvey-Mitton
kmitton@thejewishnews.com 

| Business Office
 Director of Operations: Amy Gill
 agill@thejewishnews.com
 Operations Manager: Andrea Gusho 
 agusho@thejewishnews.com
 Operations Assistant: Ashlee Szabo 
 Circulation: Danielle Smith
 Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner

| Production By 
 Farago & Associates
 Manager: Scott Drzewiecki 
 Designers: Kelly Kosek, Kaitlyn Schoen, 
 Deborah Schultz, Michelle Sheridan 
 

continued on page 8

essay
Grandmother’s Warning
W

hen can I come on 
one of your tours 
at the Holocaust 
Center?” my then 10-year-old 
granddaughter Annie asked 
after she heard 
me talk to her 
older brother 
about what I do 
as a docent there. 
“I hope soon,
” 
I said, evading 
a direct answer 
because Annie is 
the girl who cries at movies even 
when there’s a happy ending. I 
didn’t think she was emotionally 
ready to hear the story of the 
Holocaust.
Annie reminds me of a young 
visitor, a girl, who once asked 
me where Anne Frank is buried. 
I was lost for words then, too. I 
knew the likely answer, but, as 
a mother and grandmother, I 

hesitated. “I’m not quite sure,
” I 
hedged, as I looked at the freck-
le-faced questioner. Wearing a 
Girl Scout uniform with double 
rows of badges, she couldn’t 
have been older than 11. She 
looked back and smiled. Should 
I have spared her from the 
reality? I am still not sure of the 
correct answer.
Before COVID-19 put a 
stop to in-person visits at the 
Holocaust Memorial Center 
Zekelman Family Campus in 
Farmington Hills, Michigan, my 
docent colleagues and I were 
giving several tours a week to 
groups of school kids, college 
students, and adults of all ages 
and backgrounds.
Becoming a docent was never 
part of my plan. Yet, I realize 
now that the seeds were plant-
ed early by my grandmother, 
Esther Civins Wittenberg, who 

was born in Lithuania. One day, 
while watching the news on our 
new black-and-white RCA tele-
vision, my grandmother, whom 
I called Nanny, said to me, 
“Don’t ever think it can’t happen 
here.
” I was 8, too young to fully 
grasp what she meant, but I had 
a child’s instinct to understand 
that her words were something I 
should remember.
Nanny was born in 1886, just 
as a fresh wave of pogroms tore 
through Lithuania’s Jewish com-
munities. As a young woman, 
she and her husband sought 
religious freedom in America. 
While she loved her adopted 
country, she never forgot where 
she came from, and she never 
failed to remind me that the 
liberties she found in the United 
States were not to be taken for 
granted.
In many respects her 

America was like my America 
— imperfect but buoyed by its 
underlying ideals of freedom, 
equality and dignity. Esther 
Civins Wittenberg believed in 
the promise of those ideals. 
After all, in the midst of the 
Great Depression, one son 
made it through medical school. 
Another became a successful 
politician in the Midwest when 
Jews were rarely elected to 
public office. And, in 1935, her 
youngest, my mother, married 
an attorney — arguably not an 
achievement in 2021 when half 
of all law students are women, 
but that was 1935.
By the time World War I 
began, Nanny was a young 
mother with three children 
under the age of 10. She and 
her husband had established 
a successful produce business 
in Ohio. But with the onset 

Linda 
Laderman

