Alvin Kushner, Detroit Leader, Dies at 87
Alvin Kushner, the former executive director of what is now the the JCRC of Metropolitan Detroit, has died.
Kushner, who led what was formerly known as the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit from 1974 to 1988, died Monday. He was 87.
His tenure with the Jewish Community Council, where he started in the 1960s, was marked by the Soviet Jewry struggle, the persecution of Jews in countries such as Syria and Ethiopia, and wars in the Middle East, as well as the explosion of Holocaust education initiatives starting in the late 1970s.
Kushner had come to Michigan with his wife, Ruth, from New York in the 1950s to work for the USO at the Selfridge Air Base.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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