Howard and

Michel Korman of

Southfield with

their sons, Jake, 16,

Jonny, 13, Andrew,

12, and Joseph, 7

Why so many
new families
are drawn to
Young Israel
of Southfield
neighborhoods.

Shelli Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer

group of Detroiters are so head-
strong and passionate about
growing their modern Orthodox
community they actually went to New
York to try to bring back new neighbors.
They spent June 14 sharing information
on Detroit's housing, Jewish resources and
employment with more than 1,000 attend-
ees of the Emerging Jewish Communities
Home and Job Relocation Fair sponsored
by the Orthodox Union (OU).
The fair is just the most recent step for a
contingency of Young Israel of Southfield

(YIS) members who have been striving to
expand the community around the syna-
gogue for the past three years.
The push began when Southfield native
Monica Fischman and her husband Ari,
who is from Brooklyn, moved back to her
hometown in 2006 after she lived in New
York and New Jersey for seven years.
The next summer, at Ari's suggestion,
the Fischmans teamed up with a group
of neighbors to work on bringing more
families to their community. They were
joined by Southfield residents Dr. Howard
and Michal Korman, who moved from
West Bloomfield; Rabbi Eric Grossman
and Karynne Naftolin from Toronto; and

the synagogue's Rabbi Yechiel Morris, who
came to the area from Boca Raton, Fla.
In 2007 and again in 2008, the commit-
tee hosted a Shabbaton (Shabbat-inclu-
sive weekend event) to introduce mostly
younger families to the neighborhood
around the modern Orthodox YIS, located
on Lahser between 11 and 12 Mile roads.
A total of 22 families attended the
Shabbatonim and 10 more came for
individualized weekend visits — all were
hosted in homes of YIS members.
Doing whatever it took to entice par-
ticipants, they offered travel subsidies, job

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