FEBRUARY 15 • 2024 | 47

SPOTLIGHT

On Nov. 14, 2023, hundreds 
of Metro Detroiters look-
ing to attend the March for 
Israel were left stranded at 
the D.C. airport when the 
busing company they con-
tracted with experienced a 
“sick-out” from drivers who 
didn’t want to take them to 
the rally. 
Recently, a lawsuit was 
filed in federal court in New 
York alleging that bus driv-
ers coordinated an antise-
mitic refusal of service to a 
group from Manhattan, who 
were also left stranded.
The Jewish Federation of 
Detroit is not a part of that 
lawsuit. 
According to Federation 

CEO Steven Ingber, “We 
remain in close contact 
with federal and state law 
enforcement authorities, 
including the U.S. Justice 
Department and the 
Attorney General’s Office 
for the District of Columbia, 
who are actively pursuing 
the matter and assessing 
next steps. We are also con-
sidering whether to take 
additional legal measures. 
“We will continue to seek 
justice for this incident with 
the utmost diligence as we 
work to combat antisem-
itism and acts of hatred 
against the Jewish people,” 
he added. 

Metro Detroiters who want 
to understand and use 
artificial intelligence for 
job hunting can join a free 
program on Feb. 26 from 
1- 2.30 p.m. at the head-
quarters of Gesher Human 
Services (29699 Southfield 
Road, Southfield). 
 The program will be an 
interactive demonstration 
designed to introduce 
beginners to the world of 
artificial intelligence (AI) 
and specifically Chat GPT, 
to show how it works and 
how it can be applied easily 
for job hunting. No registra-
tion is required.
Also on Feb. 26, for job 
seekers with limited com-
puter skills, Gesher will be 
starting a new computer 
training program, Office 
and Computer Essentials: 
Microsoft Word and Excel. 
The program will run on 
Mondays and Wednesdays, 

from Feb. 26 to Apr. 3, 1 
p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The fee for 
the program is $499 but full 
and partial scholarships are 
available. 
Course prerequisites 
include basic keyboarding, 
email and internet access, 
and access to a computer 
for practice. The program 
includes instruction on 
creating and editing Word 
and Excel files, formatting 
text in Word, creating basic 
Excel worksheets and using 
simple formulas, creating 
PDF files and moving files 
to a flash drive.
To download an enroll-
ment application form for 
the computer training, visit 
Enrollment_Application_
Gesher.pdf (geshermi.
org) and email it to drot-
ter@geshermi.org; or 
call Dave Rotter at (248) 
233-4243. 

Federation in Contact with DOJ

Artificial Intelligence for Job Hunting

Farber Head of School Leaving 

Dr. Josh Levisohn, head of 
Farber Hebrew Day School, 
will be leaving his position 
at the end of June to take a 
position as director of Boston 
for the Shalom Hartman 
Institute.
“The position allows me 
to return to Boston, where 
I grew up, and to be closer 
to my family and my wife’s 
family. It will also allow me 
an opportunity to do some 
creative and important work 
that goes back to my original 
roots as a Ph.D. student,
” 
Levisohn wrote in an email to 
parents. 
“However,
” he continued, “it 
also means leaving a place and 
people that I have come to love. 
The Farber-Akiva community 
is a special one — every school 
likes to bill itself as a family, but 
I have never seen it as close to a 
reality as at Farber. The school 
represents the best of a Modern 
Orthodox school and I have 

been proud to be associated 
with the school for the last four 
years.
”
Nathan Gonik, M.D., Farber 
Hebrew Day School Board 
president, wrote to parents: 
“With Dr. Levisohn’s guidance 
and the counsel of Farber’s 
strategic planning consultants, 
we are well on our way to 
realizing the next stage of our 
school’s history. Dr Levisohn, 
the school administration 
and our committed board are 
engaged in planning for not 
only this year’s successes, but 
for the future.
“I look forward to 
updating our community 
on the developments in 
our professional leadership 
that we will implement for 
next year and beyond. With 
every challenge comes an 
opportunity. I am saddened to 
lose a friend and colleague, but 
I am excited by the opportunity 
ahead of us.
” 

The Yiddish Book Center 
was awarded a grant of 
$147,000 from the National 
Endowment for the 
Humanities to support the 
next phase of its Yiddish 
optical character recognition 
initiative. This project 
processes Yiddish books 
with optical character 
recognition (OCR) software 
so that images of pages 
from Yiddish books become 
searchable text. 
 The Digital Humanities 
Advancement grant will 

fund an experimental system 
to detect errors in the OCR 
text. The Yiddish Book 
Center is working with 
partners at the Linguistic 
Data Consortium at the 
University of Pennsylvania 
to develop this software. 
 This multi-year project 
will result in a large set of 
corrected, searchable text 
that can be used for research 
in a wide range of areas. 

Yiddish Book Center Awarded Grant

