Alvin Kushner, Former Detroit Jewish Leader, Dies

Alvin Kushner, the former executive director of what is now the JCRC of Metropolitan Detroit, died Monday at the age of 88.

Kushner led what was formerly known as the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit from 1974 to 1988, where he began his tenure in the 1960s.

His term 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.