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30 FASHIONABLE SHOPS & SERVICES
Orchard Lake at 14 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills • 573 8050
-
26
FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1990
Soviet Jews to Southfield.
Southfield school officials
say 40 Soviet students
enrolled this year in the
public school system.
"Hopefully, we will con-
tinue to be a Jewish base,"
Zelda Robinson says. "We in
the leadership roles are try-
ing to do all we can to con-
vince people to stay."
City Council member
Denise Alexander has no
plans to leave Southfield.
She found an old ranch home
on a street between Tele-
graph and Lahser, gutted it
and remodeled it to her lik-
ing.
It overlooks a ravine. Now,
Alexander says, she is living
in the house she always
wanted. And, instead of pay-
ing hundreds of thousands of
dollars for the house in one
of the more northwest
suburbs, she paid $90,000
and brought the value up to
$140,000 through renova-
tions.
Southfield, she says, is
convenient to her office in
Birmingham and to her
husband's office in downtown
Detroit.
Talk about schools eroding
is nonsense, she adds.
"People think the schools
aren't what they used to be
because of the Detroit expe-
rience. They transfer that
perception."
Adds a professional black
woman, who recently moved
from northwest Detroit to
Southfield with her young
daughter for the schools:
"People are scared that their
property values will go down
because they think blacks
and Chaldeans don't keep
property up since Detroit is
one big slum.
"They think Southfield
will become a slum," she
says. "I would have gone
straight to Farmington Hills
if I were afraid of that.
Blacks want to get away
from slums, too."
Marla and Joel Gartner
have lived for seven years on
Bradford Lane in Beacon
Square. They have two chil-
dren, Michael, 8, and Renay,
5.
When they moved there,
one-half of the street was
Jewish, one-quarter was
Chaldean and one-quarter
was black. Now, Marla
Gartner says, there are
three Jewish families.
Three-fourths of the
neighbors are black and the
remainder are Chaldean.
Marla Gartner is confused.
She likes the diverse popula-
tion on her street, but would
like more of a Jewish
presence in the schools. She
doesn't want her children to
be in the minority at school.
Yet she says she doesn't like
West Bloomfield, the place
where everyone seems to be
going.
"This all upsets me," she
says. "I have mixed feelings.
I am happy here. This is not
a racial issue. But I am torn
between what you do for
yourself and what you do for
your kids who are in the
schools.
"You don't want to be the
last Jewish person on your
block. It is hard," she says.
"This is how it is if you talk
to anyone. People who are
moving to West Bloomfield
and Farmington Hills be-
cause they either need
bigger houses or they are
concerned with the edu-
cation of their kids."
Andrea Steingold, who
moved to Beacon Square
seven years ago with her
husband, David, wonders
whether they should start
looking to move. She and
David have three children.
"I have friends here, but
most of my friends are leav-
ing or talking about leaving.
It seems like the Jewish ones
are moving away," she says.
"It is like a chain. A few
"You don't want to
be the last Jewish
person on your
block."
Southfield
resident
Marla Gartner
people move and everyone
gets scared. Maybe I should
start looking. I love my
house. I would like to stay. I
feel like I am being forced to
move. I wish people would
just stay put instead of runn-
ing.
"I don't want to be the last
Jewish person here," she
says. "My oldest daughter
says there is no one to play
with her."
Although the northwest
migration of the Jewish
community appears to be
continuing into the 1990s,
some Jewish families prefer
Southfield.
Susan and Ron Taracoff
two years ago left a home
they built in West Bloom-
field for a house in
Southfield. Their children
attend Hillel.
"My husband hated the
traffic," Susan Taracoff
says. "He would stay at his
office at Eight Mile and
Greenfield late each night
just to avoid traffic."
In West Bloomfield, house
payments were nearly
$1,000 more each month for
a house at 15 Mile and
Drake.
"It was a big house and a
healthy payment," he says.
"My capital was in a house.
The biggest thing was that I
was working long hours and
driving all of the time. I
work in Southfield. Now I
live in Southfield."
The Taracoffs attend Con-
gregation Shaarey Zedek.
Their parents live in
Southfield.
"We have no reason to
move," Susan Taracoff says.
"Our block is wonderful.
You get more for your money
here."
"Now we are centrally
located," Ron Taracoff says.
"If everybody would stay, it
would be okay. What is
everyone running for?"
❑
N EWS
Holocaust
Memorial
For Germany?
Bonn (JTA) — A group of
prominent Germans, in-
cluding scholars and in-
dustrialists, have proposed
erecting the first monument
in Germany to the memory
of Jews who perished in the
Holocaust.
It would be located in the
rebuilt heart of a united
Berlin, on the site of the
chancery from which Hitler
ruled the Third Reich, ac-
cording to the promoters,
who outlined their plans in
advertisements published
last week in leading news-
papers of West and East
Berlin.
The governing board of the
group that sponsored the
advertisements consists of
Marcus Bierich of the Bosch
Co.; Edzard Reuter, chief ex-
ecutive officer of Daimler-
Benz; Professor Eberhard
Jackel of Stuttgart, a
historian; Peter Kirchner,
leader of the East Berlin
Jewish community; author
Siegfried Lenz; and conduc-
tor Kurt Masur, who has
been named to lead the New
York Philharmonic Or-
chestra.
The advertisement notes
that nearly 50 years after
more than 5 million Jews
perished at the hands of the
Nazis, no memorial to them
has been erected to remind
Germans of the most awful
crime in their history.
The promoters propose
that the memorial's design
be included in a contest now
under way among architects
for the best plan to rebuild
the area. The site is in the
very heart of Berlin.