GAZING INTO THE '90s
In Detroit, Stability
Amid Tensions
Jewish education, stabilizing neighborhoods,
Soviet Jewry resettlement and aiding the elderly
will be top priorities for the Detroit Jewish
community in the 1990s.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Features Editor
J
2
ewish life in Detroit in
the 1990s will no longer
be a question of survival
but a question of quality,
Jewish Welfare
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit Executive Vice President
Robert Aronson believes.
"I think the key issue in the
1990s will be how to help people
lead creative Jewish lives,"
Aronson said. "We're going to be
looking at quality, not strictly
survival?'
The one exception is Soviet
Jewry, he said. With more than
1,000 Soviet Jewish immigrants
expected to settle in the Detroit
area this fiscal year alone, the
Jewish Federation, along with its
constituent agencies, has made
resettling and acculturating the
new immigrants "a major item on
our agenda," Aronson said.
Soviet Jewry is just one of the
major issues the Jewish
community of Detroit will be
facing in the 1990s, local leaders
say. They also cited Jewish
education, continued support for
stabilizing neighborhoods,
Detroit Jews' relationship with
Israel and meeting the needs of
the Jewish disabled and the
elderly.
To address those issues, the
Federation will be ushering in
"an era of reality programming"
with the 1990s, Aaronson said.
This includes the creation of a
strategic planning committee
which will examine where
Federation dollars are coming
from and going, he said.
Stabilizing
Neighborhoods
In past decades the Jewish
community of Detroit has
consistently been on the move,
starting in Detroit and moving
northwest.
Beginning in the 1850s with
the establishment of the city's
first Jewish congregation, Beth
El, the hub of the Detroit Jewish
community was located in the
Hastings Street neighborhood.
This community continued to
flourish until the 1940s, with
concurrent Jewish neighborhoods
springing up in 1910 near
Oakland Avenue and in 1917 in
the 12th Street area, later
expanded to Linwood and Dexter.
In the 1930s, Jews also began
settling in the Palmer Park area,
making northwest Detroit the
Jewish center by the late 1950s
until the 1960s. Jews lived in the
Six-Eight Mile area from
Woodward to Evergreen.
Oak Park, which along with
West Bloomfield is considered
today a core Jewish
neighborhood, was developed in
large part by Jews after World
War II. Young Jewish men
returning from the service
discovered Detroit housing was
scarce and expensive. In Oak
Park, they could remain close to
the Jewish community and put a
down payment on an affordable
house — in the 1950s, a
three-bedroom home in Oak Park
cost about $9,000. Nine Mile and
Coolidge became the hub of the
Oak Park Jewish community.
By the late 1960s many of
those same families who had
settled Oak Park sought out
larger housing in Southfield. Ten
years later, Jews also moved to
the Farmington Hills area.
West Bloomfield was virtually
unknown territory until 1973,
with the establishment of the
Maple/Drake Jewish Community
Center. By the mid 1970s, Jewish
families began settling in the
area — a pattern that continues to
this day.
Jewish leaders express
confidence that both West
Bloomfield and Oak Park will
remain Jewish strongholds in the
coming decade.
Aronson said the Federation
will continue "renewed and
increased commitment to the
Huntington Woods-Oak
Park-Southfield area" in the
1990s. He said expanding
programs at the Jimmy Prentis
Morris Jewish Community
Center, continued support for the
Neighborhood Project and the
Federation's purchase last year of
B'nai Moshe would further
solidify the Jewish presence in
the area.
B'nai Moshe hopes to resettle
in West Bloomfield.
At the same time, Aronson
said he expects the Jewish
community to continue settling in
the West Bloomfield area and
anticipates increased
programming there.
Rabbi David Nelson of
Congregation Beth Shalom in
Oak Park said his synagogue
attracts members from
throughout the area. Like other
Oak Park-Southfield synagogues
and temples, Beth Shalom
maintains a school branch in
West Bloomfield. But Rabbi
Nelson said he sees "a
tremendous future in Oak Park."
Citing the numerous Jewish
businesses and institutions in the
Metropolitan Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau
Oak Park area, Rabbi Nelson said
the city will not follow the
footsteps of former Jewish hubs.
"This is really a different kind
of situation," he said. "It used to
be the 'law' that Jews had to run.
I live in Southfield and you could
make a minyan on many streets
in my subdivision.
"We are setting a beautiful
precedent here. This is a
community that's going to be
around."
How long the Jewish
community will be around is a
question Jewish leaders did not
care to address. The most often
cited figure is about 70,000 Jews
in the Detroit area, though some
observers believe 60,000 is closer
to the mark.
Orthodox leaders say their
movement continues to garner
support, including many ba'al
tshuva, newly religious Jews;
Conservative and Reform rabbis
also say their numbers are
remaining stable and often
increasing.
Yet few deny that the Jewish
community of Detroit seems to be
dwindling. Some of those leaving
are following the pattern set by
other Detroiters who are settling
in increasing numbers in the
Sunbelt. The Detroit Jewish
community also is part of a
national Jewish population
which, due in part to
intermarriage and a greater
number of couples choosing not to
have children, is shrinking.
Israel And Education
Relations between
Conservative, Orthodox and
Reform Jews nationwide were
marked in the last decade by
tensions over "Who Is A Jew" —
whether individuals who
underwent Reform and
Conservative conversions would
be granted automatic Israeli
citizenship — and the Reform
movement's decision to consider
Jewish those persons born of a
Jewish father and a non-Jewish
mother.
While Jewish leaders here
expressed little optimism the
three movements will ever see
eye-to-eye on such matters, they
said the issues are now part of the
past.
Temple Israel's Rabbi Paul
Yedwab said the Michigan Board
of Rabbis is exploring the
possibility of establishing in the
1990s chevrah that would include
representatives of all movements.
He said he hopes to see more
Jewish involvement in the 1990s
in social issue programs, such as
the local chapter of MAZON,
which is supported by Reform,
Conservative and Orthodox Jews.
Rabbis of all religious
perspectives agree a key issue in
the 1990s will be Jewish
education.
Rabbi Yedwab cited the need
for expanding Jewish
Experiences For Families
programs and increasing adult
Jewish education opportunities.
To meet the need for more Jewish
educational programs, the temple
will open a new building for
ongoing educational programs
and establish the Academy of
Adult Jewish Studies, he said.
Representatives of other local
synagogues and temples also said
their congregations plan to
expand their education programs.
At the same time, educators
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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