metro » o n the cover
Love
Livin’
In The
D
Jewish families find city
living satisfying.
Eli Natinsky | Special to the Jewish News
Rabbi Ariana Silverman, Rebecca and Justin Robert Long live in Woodbridge.
Dan, Alexander and
Rebecca Yowell live in
Brush Park.
W
ill there be Jewish children
growing up in the city of
Detroit in the 21st century?
That’s the question Rabbi Ariana Silverman
considers quite a bit.
Silverman, a Chicago native, lives in
the Woodbridge neighborhood with her
husband, Justin Robert Long, and their
18-month-old daughter, Rebecca. They
are expecting their second child in July.
Silverman is the rabbi at Temple Beth Israel
in Jackson, and Long is an associate professor
at Wayne State University’s School of Law.
They moved from Manhattan in 2010.
Silverman jokes that when they arrived,
she and Long were “Jews two and three” in
Woodbridge, accross the Lodge Freeway
from Wayne State. Now, 20 Jewish residents
live there. Silverman said she loves living in
the neighborhood.
“Many young Jews rave about living in
Detroit and I would, too!” she said. “Our
daughter is hugged by neighbors on our
block whose race, religion, family structure,
politics, socioeconomic status and/or sexual
orientation are different from those of her
parents. We have never had a problem with
safety. And there was a welcome basket of
Michigan foods from our neighbors when
we moved in!”
Silverman estimates about 300 Jews live
in the city and, out of that number, there
are “about 20” Jewish families. Her defini-
tion of a Jewish family is “at least one Jew
living with children in Detroit.”
Despite the sizable increase in the num-
ber of Jews living within the city limits over
the last five years, it is still a small percent-
age of the total number of Jews living in
Metro Detroit. A 2010 update to the Detroit
Area Jewish Population Study of 2005
determined there were 66,500 Jews living in
the region.
Vadim Avshalumov, program manager at
the Downtown Detroit Partnership, said he
knows of no data that confirms the number
of Jews and Jewish families living within the
city limits.
Avshalumov has a good understanding of
the Jewish population trends in the city —
he’s an urban planner; he lives in Midtown
and he is active in the Jewish community.
Anecdotally, his impression is the number
of post-college single professionals living
in Detroit has significantly increased while
the number of Jewish families has not
increased at the same rate.
“I don’t think the needle has moved on
the number of Jewish families yet, to be
honest,” he said.
He does, however, see a lot of value in
organizing a study to determine the num-
continued on page 12
10 February 11 • 2016