>> ... Next Generation ...

problems in the community, but I don't have the time to
do it all. Life balance is a state of utopia I've heard about,
but I don't know what it looks like yet.
Q: Benji, you are clearly a spiritual person — born in
Tzfat (Safed). How do you think your connection to that
"small mystical town in Israel" has affected you?
B: I mention that I was born in Tzfat because there's a
dynamic of multiculturalism in my background that I like
to embrace, particularly since I've moved back to Detroit.
Most people I find in Detroit were born in Detroit and
have deep family roots in Detroit. (Certainly, there are
people who have moved here — but most people I know
have lived here their entire lives; they may have gone
away to college, but they have come back to stay.)
My own Detroit roots are complex because my
family lived in Windsor for six years, and I crossed the
bridge every day to go to school in Southfield. I wasn't
a "Detroiter." All told, I have lived in three countries,
two continents and 10 cities. Moving has forced me to
work on developing relationships and creating roots and
building a history of my own for my wife, my children and
myself.
Sarah: My mother was a first-generation American.
I grew up with deep roots in Oak Park and have friends
from childhood whose parents were best friends with my
parents. (And now our kids are friends, too.)
At 19, I left home to move to Phoenix — worked
and hung out in New Mexico where my Dad lived, then
moved on to Colorado. I returned to Detroit at the point
I decided to go back to school. My intention was to get
my education and move back out West. But then I met
Benji.
B: Without question, Detroit is now our home. My
brother and his family as well as my dad are here, and
anyone who knows anything about NEXTGen Detroit
knows my sister, Miryam Rosenzweig.
Q: Did you grow up with similar Jewish backgrounds?
B: Actually, we grew up with very different Jewish
backgrounds. My father is an Orthodox rabbi. My mother's
father was an Orthodox rabbi as well. I was in the Yeshiva
school system my entire education and attended Yeshiva
University in New York, so there may be an assumption of
continuation there, but that was not for me.
S: I grew up in the Reform Congregation Temple
Emanu-El though some of my family was Conservative.
B: Labels don't really define us, our religious or
spiritual beliefs. We are deeply affiliated with the Jewish
community and committed to Judaism. We are sending
our daughter to Hillel next year. The rest is commentary.

On Career Moves

Q: Benji, you've described yourself as "Jack of most trades,
master of few" How is that so?
B: I know a little about a lot of things, and I'm really
good at a few things. Arguably, I'm good at sales,
skilled in the real estate business — selling, leasing and
purchasing property. What makes me uncomfortable
about the designation of "salesman" is that my outlook
is not so much on selling people things per se, but on
solving problems for people. I see my role as a connector
and problem-solver.
S: Benji has a gift of selling people on community. He
has this uncanny ability to make connections with people
and to see where there are spaces to be filled in.
B: For me, it's about putting the right people in the right
room together, so ideas can come to life. I really don't care
if my name is on the end result.
Q: Sarah, what drew you to social work?
5: I was a speech and language pathology major

because I felt that the field was a little bit of everything I
enjoyed doing — working with people, teaching, focusing
on science. I needed an extra class to complete my credits
in my freshman year, and the one class that fit into my
schedule was a social problems course. It wasn't long
before I knew that social work was what I wanted to do,
particularly in light of my journey in my recovery and the
people who inspired me along the way.
Q: Mentors? Who inspires you?
5: There's Benji, of course. Those who also inspire me
are the moms I am blessed to have as friends; my kids
who teach me every day; my recovery community who
have been my guide to learning about integrity and love
now for over 18 years; and, of course, my parents. My
parents, both hard-working people who overcame a lot of
adversity, taught me about perseverance and integrity —
to be genuine, to be honest and to be empathic. I think
those are the qualities that make me a good social worker.

On Detroit, Menorah In The D
And A Diversity Of Circles

Q: You both have many community connections. Name
your favorites and why.
B: Menorah in the D ... started when The Shul asked
me to help put together a program for Chanukah. And I
said unless you're going to do something buck wild and a
must-attend event, I'm not interested. To compete during
the holidays for those few nights that get filled with family
functions, our event had to be something special and
different, a celebration people just had to attend.
So they asked me what I would do, and right off the
bat I answered, "Build a 10-foot ice sculpture in Campus
Martius; that will get people's attention." And they said
great. Here's a budget; let's do that.
That was four years ago. Rabbi Yisrael Pinson of
Chabad of Greater Downtown Detroit, Yakova Stein and I
worked together with Rabbi Kasriel and fay Shemtov and
leadership at The Shul in partnership with Federation's
NEXTGen Detroit. Our goal was to have 300 people
at the first event. We had 650. After that, we hired the
Nordin brothers from the Detroit Design Center to build a
permanent 25-foot steel and glass menorah. Last year the
event drew more than 2,500 people.
NEXTWork — a partnership of JVS and Federation's
NEXTGen — is another project I've been involved
with from the start. I had been involved with JVS since
moving back to Detroit and, even though I had tapered
off some of my work on the board, I still served on their
Strictly Business Committee where I was part of the
team that initiated the Rising Entrepreneur of the Year
Award with the goal to get more young people through
the JVS doors.
That evolved into the series of business networking
events we call NEXTWork — which puts JVS and
Federation's NEXTGen Business Hub on the same page to
bring young professionals and business people together.
So far, we've held five rock-star NEXTWork events.
Friendship Circle and all of their amazing programs for
the recovery community and for kids like Ellah.
The Farber Soul Center is a new studio facility of
Friendship Circle geared to young adults with special
needs. The Center is scheduled to open in its permanent
home by the end of the year, but currently there's a "mini"
Soul Center open and operating.
The Soul Center is precisely the kind of development
in our community that makes us say, "Why ever leave?"
because it's going to be everything our daughter will need
in her future — which we see as getting brighter every
day.

On Parenting And
The Law Of Attraction

Q: Benji, You've written a vision statement for your
daughter Ellah, who has special needs. Please share.
B: Last year, Sarah and I started a blog to contribute
to the platform of the Friendship Circle Special Needs
Resource Blog, and we shared this vision statement for
our daughter: "We work to ensure that Ellah has every
opportunity to learn and grow so that she can have
good communication skills with the people around her,
meaningful relationships with people in her life and feel
satisfied in her life."
Our daughter Ellah was born with an extremely rare
neurological condition called Agenesis of the Corpus
Callosum (ACC) — a disorder characterized by a partial
or complete absence of the bridge inside your brain that
connects the two cerebral hemispheres.
Sarah was 20 weeks pregnant when we first got that
diagnosis. At that time, our doctor advised us to stay
away from Google because we'd just "read the horror
stories." Naturally, as any parent would, the first thing I
did was to Google "Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum"
and, by the time I got to the third article, I said, "OK,
good advice. I'll stop reading."
In retrospect, it was absolutely terrible advice because
we missed a lot of good information about supportive
families and organizations and research that we didn't
know until Ellah was almost 3 years old.
Thanks to a conversation my sister Miryam had
with a colleague who had a daughter with the same
condition, we discovered a wealth of resources, including
the National Organization of Disorders of the Corpus
Callosum (NODCC). We then attended a conference in
Boston where we were reminded of the inspirational
story of Napoleon Hill, one of the earliest proponents
of positive thinking and author of the classic Think and
Grow Rich (first published in 1937).
In a nutshell, Hill's premise was that a positive mental
outlook could change the course of your life. To make
something happen, you have to believe it and wake up
every morning and say this is what I want and this is
what I'm willing to do to make it happen, and then put it
out there for the world to know.
S: We started the blog to share our story and focus
on ACC for two reasons. First, because no family should
go through what we did only to find horror stories
when they search online. We want them to easily find
relevant information when Googling ACC. Second,
because we believe everyone around Ellah needs to
know about her challenges — and her abilities. It's
called social scaffolding — and it means those around
her understand how to keep her safe and connected —
helping her reach her full potential.
Q: What's the best parenting advice you've ever
received or given?
B: I think the best advice I ever got about marriage
and raising kids is to remember that Sarah and I are a
team. No matter what happens, it's us vs. them. And
today, more than ever, it's me and Sarah, Na'amah and
Ellah — one team, ready to face whatever challenge life
throws at us.
S: Best advice for raising kids — and life in general?
Never lose your sense of humor. And teach your children
well — that they should never do to others what they
don't want done to them. That is our mantra in our
home. ❑

Vivian Henoch is editor of myjewishdetroit.org , where this

story first appeared.

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