DÉJÀ VU X 4

One day, in late 1999, I was having dinner with some study group friends, and Arlene Gould told me that she was going to be trained by National Council of Jewish Women to be a Court Appointed Children’s Advocate, later named Children’s Advocate. She thought I might like to try this volunteer opportunity as well. Since I had recently retired as a teacher with the Detroit Public Schools, I was looking for new ways to use my skills, and so I attended the training. The work involved making home visits and court appearances, and gave me a better understanding of the need for appropriate, responsible and loving guardians to take care of minor children outside of the foster care system. I decided that any organization that would promote and carry out such a worthy project was one that I should join, so I did.
Sometime in 2000, I was getting dressed after water exercise at the Y, and met Bedonna Perrish for the first time. She had just become the Programming VP for our Section, and was telling everyone in our part of the locker room about her exciting news. I told her of my interest in programming, and that I had chaired the post with other organizations. She invited me to a meeting, and before I knew it, I was the co-chair of the Opening Meeting for Greater Detroit Section along with Gerry Pasternak and Sissi Lapidis. The date of the luncheon was———September 11, 2001.
Many months later, after much careful planning, the event was about to take place at Shaarey Zedek with Nina Totenberg, chief legal consultant for NPR, as the keynote speaker and Mildred Jeffries as the recipient of the Hannah G. Solomon Award, our National organization’s highest honor. As I was getting dressed for the occasion, my husband Bernie shouted to me to turn on the TV because a plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in NYC. I tuned in just as a second plane hit the south tower of the Center, followed by another plane crash into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and finally a plane crash in Pennsylvania. After a quick consultation, it was decided that we would try to have our event with increased security at the shul. When Ms. Totenberg landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, she had no idea of the attacks. Our Opening Meeting was the only event that was not cancelled in our community that day. Over 400 attended, and guests who hoped to be contacted by their loved ones in the affected areas were encouraged to keep their cell phones on. The luncheon turned out to be a wonderful support gathering for all of us as we awaited news, shared our concerns, and tried to deal with the shock. Since the airports were closed in most places in the U.S. for several days after this terrible day, Ms. Totenberg was very anxious to get back to work in D.C. Paul Cohen, the exemplary caterer at Shaarey Zedek, offered to have our speaker stay at his home that night, and said he would drive her back himself the next day. He was dealing with the disposal of food from an evening affair that had been cancelled, but showed what a mentsch he was by trying to help Nina. She turned down his kind proposal, and instead was hosted by our Section for several nights at the Townsend Hotel; then we hired a car and driver to take her to D.C. It is surprising that she thinks she was somewhere else during this critical time, but Nina was with us, and we have the phone calls, hotel bills and transportation costs to prove it.
Finally, when my beloved husband died on February 20, 2011, his funeral was scheduled for February 22, the date of our Section’s Board meeting. Marlene Goodman presided over the meeting in my place, and finished the meeting in record time so that Board members could attend the funeral. I will never forget how I felt upon seeing so many friends from the Section who came to support me and my family at such a sad time.
Memories are not memories unless they are shared.
Irma Glaser President, 2010-2012