Someone I admired left us recently. Joan Jampel passed away on May 21, at the age of 97.
I first met Joan at the launch of the Detroit Jewish News Foundation in 2012. I had a lovely time at the Foundation launch, where I was seated next to Joan. She made it a fun evening.
The foundation was created by then-publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, Arthur Horwitz, with a singular mission: to create a digital archive of all back issues of the JN. The quest to build this archive began in 2002, when the JN offices in Southfield suffered a devastating fire. By some miracle, all the back issues of the Jewish News survived.
To preserve them, however, we needed serious funding. Digitization of hundreds of thousands of newspaper pages is not a cheap endeavor.
Our community generously supported the project and, in October 2013, the online, free Jewish News Digital Archive debuted. The Detroit Jewish Chronicle was added to the archive in 2015.
I was the first JN archivist. This was due to the generosity of Joan and Bob Jampel (1926-2020), who funded my position. I had another lovely and extraordinary lunch with Joan when she announced that they would provide this initial funding for an archivist.
Joan and Bob Jampel were a team when it came to supporting the DJN Foundation. They were both very excited about the project itself — capturing and digitizing all the content of the Jewish News — but felt strongly that the content needed a professional to help.
The archive is now known as the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History after the Davidson Foundation provided $2 million in funding. And I am the Alene and Graham Landau Archivist, in honor of these fine folks after the Bloomberg Foundation provided a large, long-term gift to fund my position.
So, thank you, Joan and Bob, for laying the foundation for the JN archivist. I hope I have honored your contribution.
A search of the Archive for content on Joan raised some good stories. Many pages attest to the contributions of Joan and Bob to Detroit Jewish causes. In particular, I found stories about Joan’s participation in the JCC ‘s Annual Book Fair, the 75th anniversary of the Jewish Community Center itself, and her work with the Jewish Federation of Detroit and as a member of Temple Beth El Board of Trustees, to name just a few.
But her love of books and history really stands out in JN stories. See “Insider’s Tour,” that has a nice photo of her with a rare copy of the 13th amendment of the Constitution that her father, Henry Meyers, donated to the Detroit Public Library (April 10, 2014). Likewise, see “A Presidential Achievement” (Feb. 14, 2019).
Joan’s legacy was recognized by Jewish Detroit at-large. For example, she was one of Jewish Senior Life’s “Eight over Eighty” in 2013 (May 9, 2013).
Perhaps the greatest legacy for Joan’s work is the Joan Meyers Jampel Center for Michigan Jewish Heritage. This Jewish Detroit archival history center was established at Temple Beth El in 2023 (June 8, 2023).
Most of all, I’ll remember Joan as a friend, a really fine woman. She will be missed.
