22 | MARCH 9 • 2023
O
n Tuesday, Feb. 7, a
team of Jewish high
school students pre-
sented at a history class taught
by Mark Catani at Pershing
High School in Detroit to
explain what Jewishness means
to them.
This was the first presenta-
tion by Metro Detroit Student
to Student, a program coordi-
nated by Sam Dubin (assistant
director/director of media
relations of the JCRC/AJC in
Detroit), along with Sam Kole
(AJC Young Leadership associ-
ate) and Tamara Lopes (JCRC/
AJC community associate).
Pastor Sterling Brewer of King
David Baptist Church and
Executive Committee member
of the Coalition for Black and
Jewish Unity also attended
this presentation.
One of the Student to
Student team members,
Meredith Shapiro, a junior
at Cranbrook/
Kingswood
Upper School,
described her
visit to Pershing
High School. “
At
the beginning of
the day, my fellow
Student to Student representa-
tives and I met at a Starbucks
— a convenient place to talk
about what we were going to
discuss. We talked about the
different points we want to
highlight and what we should
really expect.
”
The students then carpooled
with the adult facilitators
to Pershing High School in
Detroit, at which point they
were signed in at the office and
led to the classroom. The stu-
dents spoke for about an hour
to a group of 20-30 students
about various facets of Judaism.
Another member of the
Student to Student team,
Julia Feber, also a high school
junior, did the introduction
to Judaism, and then, Feber
explains, “We each took turns
presenting the material —
alternating who did the speak-
ing.
”
In addition to discussing
their personal backgrounds,
the presenters covered a range
of topics including, according
to Shapiro, “holidays, differ-
ent traditions, what it means
to keep Shabbat, the differ-
ent branches of Judaism, the
Holocaust and even the Jewish
impact on the civil rights
movement.
”
Feber felt surprised by what
her audience did not already
know about Jewishness.
“I was raised in a majority
Jewish environment: I went to
a Jewish day school and I go to
shul. I was surprised by what
the students did not know,
”
Feber said.
When she said, “Raise your
hand if you have heard of
the Holocaust,
” she got some
response, but not much. “Raise
your hand if you have heard
of Chanukah” got a better
response; lots of students know
something about Chanukah.
“Raise your hand if you have
heard of Rosh Hashanah,
” not
so much.
“Pretty much no one knew
about Rosh Hashanah,
” Feber
said. “We asked them what per-
centage of America is Jewish,
and we got answers like ‘40%’
and ‘50%.
’ They were shocked
when we told them that the
right answer is less than 2%.
”
Feber and Shapiro agree
that hands-on segments of the
presentations drew the most
engagement from their audi-
ence.
“The students perked up
when we passed around a prop,
no more sitting on their hands.
The props worked,
” Feber said.
One of the presenters
brought a shofar, which
Shapiro sounded. Many of the
Pershing students also tried to
sound the shofar. Another pre-
senter brought sugar cookies
with sprinkles from a kosher
bakery. The Pershing students
enjoyed that treat, which
Shapiro describes as what she
used to get in day care and
would expect to see at a post-
OUR COMMUNITY
Meredith
Shapiro
Metro Detroit Student
to Student does its
first presentation at
Pershing High School.
Sharing the
Faith
LOUIS FINKELMAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Julia Feber