Looking Back
From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History
accessible at www.djnfoundation.org
62 | JULY 7 • 2022
A Passion
for the Arts
T
he editorial staff recently conducted
brief interviews with Mumford High
School’s 1960 Jewish graduates for
the JN’s 80th Anniversary Issue, which will
be published next week. I greatly enjoyed
interviewing four of them, all very genial and
all highly accomplished. One of my assigned
interviewees was Barbara
“Bunny” Kukes Kratchman.
First, let me let you in on
a little secret. At the outset of
my interview with Kratchman,
I learned that, although most
people know her as “Bunny,
”
she really doesn’t like her nick-
name. I will honor her wishes.
My interview with Bun ... ah, I mean,
Barbara, was a lot of fun. We had a few laughs
and I learned a bit about her career. Then,
when writing my “Looking Back” about the
new Top Gun movie a few days later, there
she was again, quoted in an article about
Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer
(Nov. 10, 2005, JN). So, I just had to see what
I could find about Barbara in the William
Davidson Archive of Digital Detroit History.
First, Barbara is mentioned on hundreds of
pages. She grew up in Northwest Detroit and
graduated from Mumford and the University
of Michigan. After sojourns in California,
Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, Barbara
returned to Detroit to stay. She is married to
Michael Kratchman, and they have four sons,
a daughter and six grandchildren.
Barbara’s work and interests are inter-
twined; that is, politics and the arts. There
are too many career highlights to name in
this column. I would need a few pages to
note them all, but perhaps Barbara’s greatest
impact upon our state began when Michigan
Gov. James Blanchard appointed her director
of the Michigan Council for the Arts.
Since that time, Barbara has been pro-
foundly engaged in supporting the arts in our
city and state. For example, in addition to the
Council, she was the founding president of
ArtServe,1997-2007. In 2008, Barbara
received the Governor’s Art Advocate
Award. Recently, Barbara was instru-
mental in establishing the Creative
Expressions Program with Kadima —
now known as Gesher after Kadima
merged with JVS (Sept. 25, 2021, JN).
To understand Barbara’s passion for
the arts, read her letter in the Aug. 15,
2013, JN. Its message that “Support for
Arts must be [a] Jewish Communal
Priority” in our modern society is still
relevant today.
The Archive also provides a vivid
portrait of Barbara as someone who
has made significant contributions
to various cultural endeavors beyond
art itself. For example, the Jewish
Ensemble Theater honored her work
in 2010 (Aug. 26, 2010, JN). Barbara
also served as a member of the advi-
sory board for the Detroit Public TV
and Sue Marx documentary Detroit
Remember When: The Jewish Community
(Nov. 20, 2008).
Barbara was also a “Cover Girl” for
the JN, appearing on the cover of the Nov. 9,
2017, issue of the JN with Mary Romaya. The
featured story of that issue was about the new
Chaldean Museum. Indeed, Barbara is men-
tioned in several JN stories regarding efforts
to build relationships between the Metro
Detroit Jewish and Chaldean communities.
The moral here is — Barbara doesn’t sit
still. She is still actively supporting the arts, as
well as local Jewish communal organizations,
the Federation
and Shaarey Zedek. I had a blast chatting
with her.
Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation
archives, available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.
Mike Smith
Alene and
Graham Landau
Archivist Chair