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September 29 2011
avie Golenberg grew up in Farmington Hills. As a youngster, he
lived for four years in Haifa, hometown of his mother, Zipora.
He and his two sisters speak Hebrew, though he admits his
American-born father, Ed, speaks more fluently than he does.
Lavie attended Hillel Day School and graduated from North
Farmington High School before getting his undergraduate degree in
product design at Michigan State University. He followed this with a mas-
ter's degree in mechanical engineering and a doctorate in human factors
and ergonomics, both at Wayne State University.
He says he's always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He's currently work-
ing on a project to develop portable surgical equipment.
"I like a challenge — that's what drives me',' says Lavie, who turned 30
late last month. (For the record, he was selected while he still was 29.)
Professionally, his goal is product development and he's attracted
to anything high tech. He's been working for Chrysler for the past six
months managing product design for the Jeep Cherokee and Dodge
Durango lines. Anything a user touches or sees, he makes sure it's prop-
erly designed.
Lavie participated in a formative roundtable discussion of the
Southeastern Michigan Jewish Alliance. He serves on the Hillel of Metro
Detroit board of governors, and has met a lot of young Jewish adults this
way and through leagues for ComePlayDetroit. He says he's surprised how
many people his age live here.
Lavie wants to stay in Detroit. He has family here and a lot of profes-
sional business contacts, and he's energized by the
social programming for people his age.
My vision of a strong Jewish Detroit is one that has
both a vibrant social community and an economy
that keeps our college graduates here. To achieve this
goal we need an economy that provides students
with a variety of jobs and economic opportunities,
a vibrant city with a strong social scene, and an
engagement of young Jewish adults in the Jewish
community organizations.
Once young adults are here and view themselves as part of the commu-
nity by molding and contributing to it, their identity becomes the same
as the Jewish community
We have some of the best universities in the nation that attract Jewish
students from all over the U.S. The challenge is to get them involved.
I believe that Hillel of Metro Detroit is an integral part of strengthen-
ing our Jewish community in Detroit. I have the privilege of serving on
HMD's board of governors, where I have helped create direction for keep-
ing Jewish students engaged while still in college.I believe that Hillel acts
as an ambassador between Jewish college students and the Jewish com-
munities that they will be entering when they graduate.
One of Detroit's challenges in the past has been a lack of social pro-
grams uniting Jewish young adults in the Metro area. Recently, we
have seen a development of great new programs in our community
that are capturing and engaging young adults that are out of college.
Organizations like CommunityNEXT, ComePlayDetroit and social clusters
that bring people together through a variety of interests are creating a fun
social community and filling the void.
The challenges that remain are to maintain such programs and to tran-
sition the identity and energy of the young adults into involvement and
ownership of the community at large. Community agencies and boards,
synagogues and cultural institutions must actively recruit this generation
to be active committee members. In turn, our generation must take up
this challenge and responsibility and become full contributors, and shape
our Jewish Detroit.