Special Report

TIES TO DETROIT

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635 Miles From Home

Young Detroiters in New York look for ways to bolster their hometown.

Karen Schwartz
Special to the Jewish News

L

ast April, a Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit event in New
York drew a crowd of 350 native
Detroiters. Slightly more than a year and
a half later, a group of about 90 met at a
midtown Manhattan bar, where a table
stacked with Vernor's pop, Sanders hot
fudge and Leo's Coney Island salad dress-
ing served as a backdrop.
It was the second major gathering of
635 Mile, a new nonprofit group dedicated
to turning Detroiters' attention homeward.
Rachel Jacobs, 35, a Huntington Woods
native and one of the group's founders,
was on the steering committee for the
original Federation event. When she saw
the momentum it generated — and that
Federation wasn't actively pursuing fur-
ther action — she decided to harness the
energy with a grassroots effort out of New
York.
"I went back to them and said, `Can you
help me pull this off?' And they did;' she
said.
Detroit's Federation provided a list of

14 November 4 • 2010

names and helped the group put together
its first invitation.
Scott Kaufman, Federation CEO, said
while Federation's initial events were a cat-
alyst for bringing young people together,
now it's up to them to lead the way.
"The young people have to own it; we
need to support it, but it has to be their
idea or it's not going to stick:' he said of
the push by Detroiters in various locations
to focus on Detroit's future. "We want to
definitely be helpful in any way we can:'
Flash forward to today: 635 Mile
(named for the distance between Detroit
and New York) is looking at changing its
name and going national, with a kickoff
event in Chicago in the works within the
next few months, Jacobs said.
"Federation had clearly tapped this
nerve in the Jewish community and
people wanted a follow-up; they wanted
to convert that mass of people into doing
something that actually benefits Detroit:'
she said.
That's because where national press
sees economic strife and struggle,
Michiganders see family, friends and plac-
es that built them into who they are today.

"When we look at how we want to
spend our time and our money, the idea
of doing something that's close to home,
that helps people in the communities that
we know so well, is much more attractive
than Zimbabwe or Kyrgyzstan."
So over the summer, four founders —
which grew to a group of 12 harvested
from Federation's original list — got the

ball rolling.
Jordan Brackett, 31, a Huntington
Woods native, said it started with a con-
ference call and dinner at a "bad Korean
place" in New York's Koreatown. And
though the food was bad, the group's
intentions were good, he said.
"There are a lot of us who have left
Michigan; I'm not sure we have a desire to