20 | JULY 6 • 2023 

OUR COMMUNITY

V

iewers of the popular 
game show Jeopardy! 
got a glance of 
one of the United States’ 
most distinctive synagogue 
buildings on June 20, after a 
clue showcased Congregation 
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield.
The Conservative 
synagogue had leaked the 
fact that it would appear as 
a trivia item on Jeopardy! for 
days before the game, and 
as luck would have it, one of 
the contestants that day lives 
just a 45-minute drive from 
Southfield, in Dexter.
Ben Goldstein told the 
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 
that his local expertise did 
influence his quick response 
to the clue — just not 
correctly.
Contestants were shown 
a picture of Shaarey Zedek’s 
soaring facade as they heard 
the clue, in the category 
“
Architects”: “
After World War 
II, these evolved Moorish to 
Modernists as in architect 
Percival Goodman’s Shaarey 
Zedek in suburban Detroit.”
Goldstein, who has a Jewish 
father but does not identify as 
Jewish and said he was last in 
a synagogue during “the bar/
bat mitzvah season of 1994,” 
buzzed in right away. “What 
are mosques?” he asked. 
A second contestant, Janie 
Sullivan, correctly guessed 
“What are temples?”
“When I read the clue, two 
phrases immediately jumped 
out: ‘Moorish’ and ‘suburban 
Detroit.’ Being a resident 

of Southeast Michigan, I’m 
familiar with Metro Detroit’s 
famously large Muslim 
community. Those two bits 
of information made me 
confident enough to ring in 
and say, ‘What are mosques?’” 
he told JTA via Twitter direct 
message. “I just didn’t pay 
enough attention to the 
name of the building and its 
architect.”
He added, “Obviously, I 
got a bunch of playful abuse 
from my Jewish friends over 
text messages.” But Goldstein 
— who grew up in suburban 
Chicago, attended the 
University of Michigan and 
works outside Ann Arbor as a 
marketing specialist at a tech 
company — said he found 
consolation from thinking 
about another set of Jewish 
loved ones.
“My father’s parents, Isaac 
and Rochelle Goldstein, were 
Holocaust survivors from 
Poland, and they were devoted 
viewers of Jeopardy!’” he said. 
“They both passed away years 
ago, but I know they’d be so 
proud of me for competing on 

the show that they’d forgive 
me for my wrong answer.”
While someone with an 
eagle eye might be able to 
discern that cutouts on the 
front of Shaarey Zedek’s 
towering building resemble 
Jewish stars, the name offered 
the only real indicator in the 
clue that that correct response 
was about synagogues.
Shaarey Zedek means “Gates 
of Righteousness” in Hebrew 
and is a relatively common 
name for synagogues. 
Shaarey Zedek is one 
of the largest and most 
architecturally significant 
synagogues in the United 
States, an outlier for 
Goodman, whose 50 
synagogues mostly function 
on a smaller scale.
“But even Goodman had his 
roadside attraction: Shaarey 
Zedek, capacity 3,500, parlays 
a skyscraping Ark and an 
erupting eternal flame into a 
concrete Sinai on the shoulder 
of Interstate 696 near Detroit,” 
the architect Philip Nobel 
wrote in the New York Times 
in 2001. 

What’s a Detroit synagogue once called ‘a 
concrete Sinai on the shoulder of Interstate 696?’
Jeopardy! Clue

PHILISSA CRAMER JTA.ORG

Program for 
Teachers Seeking
Career Change

Metro Detroit teachers ready 
for a career change but 
uncertain how to utilize their 
many skills in a new form of 
employment can take part in 
a program titled MyCoach for 
Teachers offered by Gesher 
Human Services. The non-
profit agency is offering this 
new, intensive two-week group 
career coaching program for 
just $50 this summer when 
teachers are out of school. 
 The program includes four 
masterclass group sessions 
plus one individual coaching 
session. Sessions are in-person 
and will meet at Gesher’s head-
quarters in Southfield (29699 
Southfield Road) on July 18, 
20, 25 and 27 from 10-11.30 
a.m. plus a one-on-one coach-
ing session on another date to 
be determined. Registration is 
required. 
“Many teachers are reeval-
uating their career decision 
and are looking to go in a 
different direction,” said career 
counselor Sherrie James. 
“They have many skills which 
are transferable into a new 
form of employment, but they 
might not have the confi-
dence, updated resume or even 
awareness of how to make that 
switch. We are here to provide 
that assistance, knowledge and 
show them their marketability.”
As the program is only open 
to teachers — both current 
and retired — participants will 
find camaraderie and support 
from others taking part. The 
program will provide resume 
assistance, career inventory, 
job search advice, opportuni-
ties for professional growth 
and meaningful identification 
of skills for a new career path.
To register, contact Phyllis 
Scripsick at pscripsick@
geshermi.org or call (248) 233-
4278. 

