-401101110000,

Cover Story

for Outstanding Professional Service

HOT PROPERTY

from page 15

created by Mandell and Madeleine Berman

Ruth Levi
specializes in
selling real
estate in her
own neigh-
borhood of
Oak Park.

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Deadline for
Nominations:

July 2, 2001

Presentation Date:
August 2001, at a
reception of the
Jewish Federation
Board of Governors

Visit us on the Web: www.thisisfederation.org

Invites All His
Family of Customers
and Friends
To Visit Him At

6/8
2001

10

29585 Telegraph, South of 12 Mile • Southfield

248-353-1300

the Oak Park school district.
Levi's clients, ranging between ages
20 and 40, are buying the homes of
older individuals, who are downsizing
or selling investment houses.
"[The new owners] are staying for a
while. I haven't seen a rapid turnover,"
she said.
An Orthodox Jew, Levi has lived in
the neighborhood since 1967. On her
block, five families belong to Beth
Shalom. She says the Orthodox pres-
ence is actually a comfort to Reform
and Conservative residents.
"They know [we're] not going to
move out, [we're] going to be here,
and the neighborhood's going to be
stable," she says.
Also, 10-12 families recently razed
small houses to build large ones, a fac-
tor that contributes to rising property
values, says Levi.
It's surprisingly difficult to buy a
house in the neighborhood, according
to Stacy and Jason Vieder,
Conservative Jews who recently relo-
cated from Philadelphia. They put
offers in for three houses and didn't
get any of them.
"We didn't want to be out in the
West Bloomfield-Farmington Hills
area," says Jason, a resident at Botsford
General Hospital in Farmington Hills.
"A lot of young Jewish couples were
moving [to Oak Park]. We thought
the houses would be less expensive,
but they're not."
The Vieders wanted to be near
their friends, plain and simple. The
houses may be cute, but they're
"older, more repairs have to be done.
For us, it was the people."
They were surprised when they
couldn't find a house. They were out-
bid on the first one, on Sherwood,
and the second one, on Hart, had a
huge tree on the front lawn that
obstructed drains. Repairs would have
amounted to $20,000. The owners of
the third house, on Nadine, never

responded to their offer. After a week,
the Vieders increased their bid by
$8,000 and still received no answer.
Finally, they gave up and signed a
yearlong apartment lease.

A Community United

Rabbi Joseph Klein, spiritual leader of
Temple Emanu-El, has not seen a rise
in membership from the home-buying
craze. But he says that since Reform
Judaism doesn't require its members to
refrain from driving on Shabbat, they
don't need to be within walking dis-
tance of the temple on 10 Mile.
Emanu-El has 625 member families,
some of whom do live nearby and, in
fact, often walk to services, Rabbi Klein
says. The neighborhood is booming, he
says, in no small part because of its reli-
gious diversity and growth.
The three biggest synagogues —
Beth Shalom, Emanu-El and Young
Israel of Oak Park — recently did
extensive renovations. Emanu-El
tripled the space in its foyer, doubled
its office, expanded the social hall and
transformed the kitchen. Beth Shalom
enhanced its social hall and doubled
its lobby, and Young Israel is now fur-
nishing a new 15,000-square-foot
addition attached to its old 5,000-
square-foot building.
Rabbi Klein of Emanu-El says such
efforts are a statement about stability,
"our commitment'to Oak Park and
the future of a Jewish presence here."
Clearly, a growing Orthodox com-
munity has not edged out Jews of
other affiliations. Beth Shalom recent-
ly built a 14-classroom addition to its
renovated building, which is used dur-
ing the day by the Lubavitch yeshiva,
Bais Menachem, creating a cross-
denominational rapport of which
Rabbi David Nelson is proud.
Although Rabbi Nelson has not report-
ed a rise in his 700-family synagogue
membership, he believes his Conservative.
shul is an anchor in Oak Park.