6 | MAY 12 • 2022 1942 - 2022 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: Rachel Sweet rsweet@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, Keri Guten 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 PURELY COMMENTARY student’s corner A Poem for a Survivor I n honor of Yom HaShoah, I wrote a poem about a particular Holocaust survivor’s experience escaping a cattle car on the way to the death camps. This year’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial theme is Deportation to Extinction, and this poem aims to honor the theme and the overall message and meaning that can be taken away from it for all of us as both Jews and human beings. PROMISE TO PAPA Out of nowhere came the cattle cars and our place in them as vermin, All of our futures so unsure, yet death so blatantly determined. Once the sicknesses of man had come and slaughtered us a few, A new madness of kine had come to see the butchering through. Pained by the constant wringing of the rags that were their souls, Every minute on the railway, a plunge deeper into holes, But then something unexpected: a hand stretched towards the window frame, Its fingers clawing at barbed wire, painting it bloodily in shame, A sight that had to be remembered, but who possibly could live to tell the story? Perhaps myself, the little boy who could now fly out the window as a lorry; A creature of color and renewal, A hope for life that is not cruel. Lifting a pile of skin and bones, my father hoisted me, So that I could jump out of the train and grow up with this memory. I turned to my Papa with frantic eyes for one last look, one last embrace, But instead he left me with these words shut beside my soul forever in its case: היהת ןב םדא was the last thing I ever heard my father say, A precept of three simple words I’ve carried with me since then every day. My mother’s body who I left right then, met its end in plumes of smoke, But inside my old, cracking bones sits the gentle, loving way she spoke, And my אתבס and my אבס, how I wish they hadn’t met such a fate, But for our encounters in my dreams, at the very least, it’s not too late And for my beloved father, I now write and think only of you, I hope you know, in all these years I’ve kept the vow on which I flew. Rozie Aronov is sophomore at Frankel Jewish Academy and a graduate of Hillel Day School. Rozie Aronov