SOUTHFIELD:

AT RISK?

What is the final destination

for Detroit's Jewish community?

THE FUTURE

F

KIMBERLY LIFTON

Staff Writer

ounded in Detroit in
1944, Rose AZA's move-
ment into the suburbs
mirrors a curious trend.
In recent years, teen-age
boys affiliated with the
B'nai B'rith Youth Organ-
ization started leaving Rose,
based in Southfield, as their
parents began moving fur-
ther northwest — many to
Farmington Hills and West
Bloomfield.
In its history, Rose has
moved as often as the Jewish
community, beginning in
Detroit before heading to
Oak Park, north Oak Park,
Southfield and now Farm-
ington Hills. Today, 75 per-
cent of Rose members live in
Farmington Hills.
"It's strange," said Micky
Rosner, a Southfield resi-
dent who has been Rose's

SOUTHFIELD:

Rose AZA adviser
Micky Rosner holds
his son„ Jordan,
while meeting with
some teens from
the B'nai B'rith
Youth Organization.

ATRISN

This article concludes
our three-part series on
Southfield and the Jewish
community.

adviser for 17 years. "Where
will we be next?"
Just as they left Detroit,
Jews are moving further out
into the suburbs, and many
are leaving Southfield, a
vibrant community with af-
fordable housing stock, a
wealth of city services and
many Jewish organizations
and institutions.
No one — whether
historians, demographers,
community leaders or first-
time home buyers — is
predicting how long the
movement will continue, or
ultimately, where it will
lead. Yet members of the
community question
whether West Bloomfield
and Farmington Hills, each
becoming more populated by
young Jewish families, will
be the last stop.
"You don't know at what
level it will stabilize," said
Dr. Steven Cohen, a
sociologist from Queens Col-
lege who conducted a 1989
population study of the
Detroit Jewish community.
"You don't know whether
there will be re-migration
back into the community.
People can't predict the con-
stellation of forces that
make up the population.
"Maybe in five or 10 years,
Southfield housing will

become more desirable," he
said.
Meanwhile, Jews are not
vacating Southfield as
quickly as they left Detroit,
and their reasons are diff-
erent, Dr. Cohen said. He
added that Southfield's
changing Jewish community
should not be mistaken for
urban white flight.
After the Detroit riots of
1967, he said, Jews fled the
city within three to four
years. Yet Jews have been
slowly moving northwest of
Southfield since the early
1980s, and there are still an
estimated 26,600 Jews re-
maining there, Dr. Cohen
said.

"We know that the extent
of white flight from Detroit
was greater than any other
city," Dr. Cohen said. "This
is not because Detroit whites
and Jews were unusual.
They were responding to the
riots which were unusually
severe. Southfield is not the
same as Detroit
"Movement today doesn't
follow massive urban rioting.
You have a slower or smaller
increase in the social status of
Jews," Dr. Cohen said.
"Jews then were in the
midst of an economic move
upward. Today, it is a slower
progression."
Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, a
history professor at the Uni-
versity of Michigan in Dear-
born and author of Harmony

and Dissonance: Voices of
Jewish Identity of Detroit,
1914 - 1967, believes the

northwest movement "has to
stop someplace."
Dr. Bolkosky and Detroit
Jewish Federation officials
are hopeful that the move-
ment will slow down,
creating smaller, more di-
verse pockets of Jewish life
throughout metropolitan
Detroit.
"There is no such thing as
a static neighborhood," said
Phillip Applebaum, a Detroit
Jewish historian. "There is
no way anyone can say that
where we are now is the final
neighborhood, that this is
where Jews are going to re-
main."
Mr. Applebaum is certain
about one prediction gone
awry. Despite 20 years of

40

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1991

talk about the demise of Oak
Park, the community in
which he resides, the city is
thriving with Orthodox Jew-
ish life. He and others expect
it to remain strong.
Federation Planning Di-
rector Larry Ziffer, who also
lives in Oak Park, believes
strong Jewish presence will
remain in Oak Park, Hun-
tingtOn Woods and
Southfield, with additional
communities surrounding
the Maple-Drake Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield.
"It is impossible to predict
where we will be in 20
years," Mr. Ziffer said. "If
developers continue
building, Jews will continue
moving northwest.
"People will begin to
define Jewish neighborhood
differently," Mr. Ziffer said.
"As long as there are Jewish
businesses, organizations
and institutions, there will
always be a possibility of
maintaining a neighbor-
hood."
As plans are under way to
upgrade the Jimmy Prentis
Morris JCC in Oak Park, the
area will remain as strong as
newer areas, Mr. Ziffer said.
He added that the new Fed-
eration building is central,
located at Maple and Tele-
graph in Bloomfield
Township. The building, he
said, will allow the organiz-
ed Jewish community to
better serve those living to
the east and west.
In addition, Mr. Ziffer
lauded the Neighborhood
Project, which, through a
revolving fund from the Jew-
ish Federation, has provided
461 interest-free loans to
Jewish home buyers moving
into Oak Park and parts of
Southfield.
Still, today's metropolitan
Detroit Jewish community is
spread out over 100 square
miles — a much larger area
with many more options
than were available to
Detroit's original Jewish
settlers.
"The variables are diff-
erent these days," Mr. Ap-
plebaum said. "The original
Jewish Detroiters were
largely an immigrant com-
munity, which was more