1942 - 2024 Covering and Connecting Jewish Detroit Every Week To make a donation to the DETROIT JEWISH NEWS FOUNDATION go to the website www.thejewishnews.com 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: Michael J. Eizelman Larry Jackier, Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer Executive Director: Marni Raitt 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 Contributing Editors: David Sachs, Keri Guten Cohen Senior Staff Reporter: Danny Schwartz dschwartz@thejewishnews.com Editorial Assistant: Sy Manello smanello@thejewishnews.com Digital Manager: Elizabeth King eking@thejewishnews.com Contributing Writers: Nate Bloom, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne Chessler, Shari S. Cohen, Louis Finkelman, Samantha Foon, Yevgeniya Gazman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther Allweiss Ingber, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz, Steve Stein, Nathaniel Warshay, 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 Assistant: Ashlee Szabo Circulation: Danielle Smith Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner | Production By Farago & Associates Manager: Scott Drzewiecki Designers: Kaitlyn Iezzi, Kelly Kosek, Michelle Sheridan 6 | MAY 9 • 2024 J N T he text messages were short, but clear. “How r u?, ” I asked. “Processing, ” came the response. “How r u?” she asked back; “same, ” I said. “It’s a lot. ” That was both of us, to each other. I stood on the Tel Aviv board- walk, overlooking the Mediterranean, with Bring Them Home Now! ban- ners and placards flapping in the breeze behind me. My 22-year-old daughter Noa stood in Krakow, having spent the week traveling to some of the darkest parts of our collective Jewish history. Majdanak. The Warsaw Ghetto. Auschwitz- Birkenau. Both of us preparing for Shabbat, she at the end of her weeklong journey, and me, at the beginning. My late father, Emery Grosinger, was a Holocaust survi- vor, having been imprisoned as a 12-year-old in Auschwitz, and lib- erated from Mauthausen miracu- lously on his 13th birthday, May 8, 1945. I am blessed to speak a handful of times each month at the Zekelman Holocaust Center, telling my dad’s story to visitors of all ages and backgrounds. My daughters and my brother’s children are all well-versed in his story, having traveled with him to his hometown in Hungary as well as to Mauthausen to partic- ipate in WWII commemoration ceremonies twice over the past decade plus. I love telling his story. I get to keep his memory alive, even playing a short video of him retelling his memories of first arriving at Auschwitz. It is diffi- cult to hear, but I love his voice. I look forward to the Q&A with my audience, a given once I finish the narrative arc that ends with a few slides and a one-minute talk about his amazing life from 1948 until his death in 2022. I have the privilege of time, knowing how he courageously came to America as a 15-year-old orphan and built a life with hard work, a family. How each spring, he would grow quiet and reflec- tive, remembering dates, people and experiences that seemed to crowd the calendar, especially over his younger years. About friendship, and a thirst for knowl- edge and much more. I get to share his philosophies, painting a picture long beyond the horrors of the Holocaust. MODERN-DAY HORRORS But here I was in Israel, to attend a conference — and to see with my own eyes what happened on Oct. 7, 2023, and every day since. To witness the horrors, the pain, to share in the grief of Israelis, to reiterate the anguish and despair held by us in the diaspora, to cry out for the death and destruction, and to pray for the swift and safe return of those held deep under Gaza, in unknown conditions, prisoners once again for the sim- ple “crime” of being Jewish. I was hesitant to travel to the sites of the atrocities in Southern Israel. Not out of fear for my safe- ty, but out of respect. Listening to survivors of the horrors of Oct. 7, seeing the destruction, all of it felt like I would be a disaster tourist, taking advantage of people as they continue to live in a night- mare of recall and not knowing when the nightmare ends. I imagined it akin to talking to a Warsaw Ghetto survivor while the war continued to rage. I was wrong. As Rafaela, a 23-year-old Brazilian Israeli and a PURELY COMMENTARY guest column Bearing Witness, Across Time and Space Kari Alterman