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JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer
Pressure
Cooker
Detroit's Israelis
have discovered
that being Jewish
gets complicated
once you leave
the homeland.
Above: Ronit Gutkovitch with her
son, Ben, and neighbor, Edna Sable.
Right: Doron Lax fears Jewish "aya-
tollahs" are taking over his country.
one planned to leave Israel
for good.
But with each passing
year in the United States,
their jobs, children, American spous-
es, a more affluent lifestyle and sim-
ple inertia kept many Israelis from
going home.
Their community here is one
about which it is impossible to gen-
eralize. No data is available about
Detroit's Israelis, although
Michigan/Israel Connection Director
Yael Waxman estimates there are
about 6,000 of them. There is no
formal association of local Israelis
and no Israeli synagogue or school,
although some 15-20 people congre-
gate every two months for a Hebrew
book club. And many Israelis, per-
haps fearing the old stigma of being
a yored (a derogatory Hebrew term
that literally means "one who falls,"
used to designate someone who has
emigrated from Israel), were reluc-
tant to be interviewed.
Nationally, it's difficult to get
more than an anecdotal picture of
the Israeli community: Even the
Israeli Embassy in Washington keeps
no records or statistics on its citizens
living in the United States.
Nonetheless, conversations with
eight Israelis who have lived in
Detroit for varying periods of time
reveal some common themes. Once
here, they found themselves adjust-
ing to a very different culture even
within the Jewish community:
Almost every person interviewed said
that their biggest challenge, other
than being away from Israeli family,
was adjusting to the more formal
social habits of Americans.
"People are less spontaneous
here," says Ronit Gutkovitch.
"Everything has to be scheduled. At
first I took it personally,
but then I started to
live that way, too."
Israelis tend to main-
tain strong ties to home
§ — visiting regularly,
keeping up with news
via the Internet or week-
ly newspaper subscrip-
tions, reading Hebrew
literature and listening
to their country's music.
Yet, they say being away
from the "pressure cook-
er" (tensions caused by
terrorism, politics and
ongoing religious-secular
feuds) of home has
changed their outlook
and — for many —
their connection to
Judaism. With Jewish
identity no longer a
national designation,
and with their children
one generation removed,
secular Israelis who have
settled in Detroit face
the same spiritual soul-
searching confronting
their American Jewish
counterparts.
According to Daniel
Gilan, an Israeli who
has lived in the United
States since 1951,
intermarriage is as
prevalent among the
children of local Israelis
as among American-
born Jews.
5/1
1998
21