OCTOBER 3 • 2024 | 29
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N
incredible discovery.
The city’s mayor held a
reception in their honor. Even
pastors came to greet them
and said it was a collective
responsibility to ensure Israel
continues to thrive, Levine, 63,
of Farmington Hills, explains.
Of course, the sisters also paid
a visit to the 600-plus-year-old
gravestones.
“I get chills thinking about it,”
Levine says. “These stones are
what you look at as somebody is
speaking in the chapel, like you
might experience at Ira Kaufman
or Hebrew Memorial Chapel.”
Yet the late Allan Blustein,
who passed away in 1992, never
wanted to take credit for the
discovery, Levine explains.
Blustein, who wrote an article for
Detroit Jewish News on the subject
in 1970, never mentioned that
he was the one responsible for
finding the gravestones.
Today, however, Levine hopes
her father’s discovery will live on
for many years to come.
“You were literally stepping
on the memory of Jews,” she
says of the gravestones. Their
rededication and return to the
Jewish community, however, was
the “ultimate triumph.”
The staircase in
the St. Lorenz
Church where the
gravestones were
originally found
Allan
Blustein
C
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k. C
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