Eternal Light In The City

Jewish Detroiters pray together for 159th consecutive year.

Carol Weisfeld
Special to the Jewish News

I

n 1850, Sara Cozens persuaded her
husband to open their home at St.
Antoine and Congress for the first
High Holiday minyan ever to gather in
Detroit. That minyan led to the found-
ing of today's Temple Beth El in West
Bloomfield.
In 2008, Jews will gather about four
blocks away from where the Cozens
home stood to pray together for the High
Holidays and to mark the 159th consecu-
tive year the High Holidays have been
observed in Detroit.
The history of how that chain came to
be unbroken is as complex as the history
of the city itself.

Historic Backdrop
From 1850, Detroit's Jewish population
grew and so did the number of syna-
gogues. Housing patterns documented in
Sidney Bolkosky's Harmony and
Dissonance (WSU Press, 1991) show clus-
ters of synagogues in the midst of Jewish
population centers, first on the lower
east side of the city, then in what is now
the Midtown-Cultural Center area, then
Dexter-Davison, then the northwest side,
and then the (largely northwest) suburban
areas.
But even as most Jewish families moved
steadily northwest, other patterns persist-
ed. Some Jews always chose to stay in the
"old" neighborhoods or to move to other
city enclaves such as historic Corktown
and modernistic Lafayette Park.
Other Jews, immigrants from Chicago
and New York, chose to live in the city
when they arrived here. Still other Jews,
the children of suburban Jewish parents,
have reversed the choices of their parents
and moved back to Detroit.

Jewish Detroit
Where do these Jewish city residents find
a minyan when they want to pray?
There has always been a home for
Jewish prayer in Detroit. Even as many
synagogues moved away, the eternal light
burned in the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue on Griswold Street, where
everyone was welcomed for the High
Holiday services. Although the synagogue

now holds its High Holiday services
(still open to all) in Southfield, Shabbat
is observed on Griswold each Saturday
morning.
Another longtime home for Jewish
Detroit was Congregation T'chiyah, found-
ed in 1972, and offering services first in
Greektown, then in a variety of historic
buildings and now in Oak Park. The light
nearly went out in 1996, when the chain
of continuous services came very close to
being broken.
The Downtown Synagogue had moved
its High Holiday services to the sub-
urbs. The only other Detroit synagogue,
T'chiyah, decided to move Yom Kippur
services to Royal Oak. Some members of
T'chiyah — committed to "keeping the
light burning" — maintained a minyan in
the city for Yom Kippur.
Eventually that group, including
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and
his wife, Barbara, helped found the
Reconstructionist Congregation of Detroit
in 2000.

Modern Opportunity
Today RCD, one of four
Reconstructionist synagogues in southeast
Michigan, is the home for Jewish prayer
for the High Holidays within Detroit. RCD
has 25 families, is highly participatory
because there's no resident rabbi, and
open to all.
Most months, two events are led by
members — a Shabbat service and a
holiday or social get-together. Both days of
Rosh Hashanah, including tashlich at the
Detroit River, will be observed. Kol Nidre
will be an evening of music and prayer,
followed by the Yom Kippur day of fasting
and communal ritual.
Members of RCD have a commitment to
preserve and enliven Jewish history in the
city of Detroit. This mission is carried out
through efforts to preserve artifacts from
former Jewish synagogues in Michigan,
to offer lectures on Jewish history and
to participate in tours of historic Jewish
Detroit for adults and for children.
RCD also published the children's activ-
ity book Early Jewish Days in Michigan in
2004.

Emily Richardson, 5, of Keego Harbor, with Jared, 9, Ethan and Daniel Schenk, both

6, all of Grosse Pointe Park, take a break during last year's tashlich service at St.
Aubin Park on the Detroit River in Detroit.

❑

Carol Weisfeld is RCD president. For more

information about RCD, call her at (313) 393-
2403 or visit jrforg/recondetroit.

Members of the Reconstructionist Congregation of Detroit participated in a tashlich
service at the Detroit River last year.

September 25 • 2008

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