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Rosh Hashanah

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Community Embrace

May the coming year be filled
with health, happiness and prosperity
for all our family and friends.

Detroiters' warmth makes this
New Year very sweet for newcomers.

The Eisenbergs

Harry, Marsha, Emily & Jennifer

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Stacy and Craig Gittleman with their children, Jolie, 16, Toby, 9, and Nathan,
14, in front of their new home in West Bloomfield

May the coming year be filled
with health, happiness and prosperity
for all our family and friends.

Stacy Gittleman
Special to the Jewish News

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Dr. Jeffrey and Laurie Fischgrund
Michelle, Marcy, Mark
Andrew and Melanie

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Wishing You a Happy, Healthy
and Sweet New Year

(561) 487-5886
(561) 870-5886

Y•O•U•R

Tina J. Krinsky

Realtor°

vvww.bocaconnection.com
bocaconnectionaol.com

LANG REALTY

1856330

76 August 29 • 2013

ith the sound of the sho-
far, the High Holiday sea-
son signals the promise of
a New Year. We pray for a sweet year
of new blessings and opportunities.
For most Jewish Detroiters, all this
"newness" will happen in the same old,
familiar surroundings among family
and friends you've known for years.
For my family of five freshly minted
Michiganders, everything about 5774
is new.
Last year, as my family prepared
to celebrate Sukkot, General Motors
announced it would be closing the
Rochester, N.Y., research facility where
my husband worked and moving his
job to Pontiac. We lived in Rochester
for 14 years. It was the only home our
three children, ages 16, 14 and 10, had
ever known.
After the shock of the news settled
in — and after my three children real-
ized that no, their friends' families in
Rochester could not adopt them — it
was time for us to pull together as a
family. The year 5773 was a journey
filled with months of living apart from
my husband, long-distance house
hunting in a fiery-hot Detroit subur-
ban real estate market, researching
school districts and many long, emo-
tional goodbyes.
Moving can be a curse. In the Book

of Deuteronomy, however, the Torah
challenges Jews to find the blessing
within the curse.
Contrary to what many of my New
York friends think, moving to Detroit
is not a curse. Beyond the headlines of
Detroit's bankruptcy, we are enjoying
the brighter sides of Michigan culture.
In the short time we have lived here,
we traveled to take in the beauty "Up
North:' savored homegrown cher-
ries and blueberries, and climbed the
Sleeping Bear Dunes.
I am learning how to make a
"Michigan left:' which is scarier than a
New Jersey jughandle.
We even stood on the curb of
Woodward to witness the ultimate
show of car culture at the Woodward
Dream Cruise.
We found the blessing in the warm
reception we received throughout
Detroit's Jewish community. During
a house-hunting trip that fell smack
in the middle of Pesach, friends here
hosted us three times for meals. Our
children, also blessed with long-stand-
ing friendships forged at Camp Ramah
in Canada, were invited for Shabbat
meals and out to the movies to meet
other new kids. These friends have
acted quickly to enfold our children
into their social circles even before the
moving vans arrived.
While we unpacked and set up
our physical home with only one kid
in tow (my oldest left Rochester on