OCTOBER 3 • 2024 | 29
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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

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