Former Detroiters Emily
Blake, Stuart Solomon
and Elina Reznik
Native Detroiters In N.Y.
Twenty-somethings reconnect with their hometown at Federation event.
Karen Schwartz
Special to the Jewish News
New York
T
hey buzzed about high school,
summer camp, B'nai B'rith
Youth Organization and people
they hadn't seen in years. The 350 young
Detroiters who filled the room ate, drank,
shmoozed and, at the end of the night,
returned to their New York apartments.
The Young Detroit New York cocktail
event, held at swanky French restaurant
Brasserie 81/2, was the first of its kind
in New York City but part of a series of
efforts to reconnect young Detroiters liv-
ing in major hubs with each other and
their hometown community.
It follows a similar program initiated
in Los Angeles last fall, which drew 275,
and is headed this summer to Chicago,
explained Robert Aronson, CEO of the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
The events are sponsored independently,
and do not tap into Federation's char-
ity funds, he said. The New York event
A10
April 16 - 2009
was a $50,000 investment, funded by
the Seligman family of Detroit. The goal:
encouraging young people to remember
their roots.
Though many young people have
moved away to places like New York, Los
Angeles and Chicago, "we want to continue
to convey a message that Detroit is home,"
Aronson said.
He said it wasn't about getting young
people to move home or necessarily even
open their wallets, but rather to imbue
them with a sense of responsibility for
their community.
"As you know, Detroit is in a tough place
and the fact our children can come togeth-
er and celebrate their Detroit roots is an
important message for those who remain
behind ... in that Detroit brings people
together, and we shouldn't forget where we
come from," he said.
It's clear that young adults leave Detroit
for cities such as L.A., New York, Chicago,
Boston and Washington, D.C."Our twenty-
somethings are gone," Aronson said.
And Federation's Detroit Jewish
Population Study from 2005 substanti-
ates the claim. The study found only 2.1
percent of the local Jewish community is
made up of people aged 24-34.
Though there is no known metric for
the number of young Detroiters cur-
rently living in New York, a call for e-mail
addresses back home led to the collection
of more than 600.
"I don't know how they found out I
moved," said Jane Romashov, 30, who lived
in Detroit from 1999 until 2005.
Romashov, whose friends from Detroit
largely left town for jobs and school, said
she misses the close community where
everybody knew each other. Now a finan-
cial analyst, she said she attended the
event to network and see who else was
there. "I didn't know so many Jewish peo-
ple had moved to New York from Detroit','
she said.
Participants snacked on hors d'oeuvres
and drank at the open bar during the non-
solicitation event, which featured com-
ments from Aronson and Adam Levinson,
who is from Detroit and now serves as
Fortress Investment Group's chief invest-
ment officer, as well as John Ruskay, CEO
of UJA-Federation of New York.
'A Lot In Common'
A committee of more than 10 young
people spearheaded the event's planning.
Elina Reznik, 25, said after seeing people
she grew up with involved in the L.A.
event, she wanted to be part of something
similar in New York.
Reznik, who has lived in New York
almost a year, tagged some of her buddies
from Hillel Day School in Farmington
Hills and helped set the plans in motion,
with most of the planning getting under
way in January. She said she plans to stay
involved with the initiative and play an
active role in upcoming events.
Now working as a publicist, Reznik said
while there's never a dull moment in New
York, she valued the opportunity to con-
nect with "people you have a lot in common
with based on where you grew up."
That's what she misses most, she said.
"There's nothing quite like home. The
familiarity and just knowing everything
without having to think twice'
She likened the event to a high school