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From Israel To Detroit

Birthright couple dishes on love, marriage and family life.

I

t has been since last June that Amy
Ostroff moved from Israel to join her
husband, Adam, in Detroit. She’s been
handling the inevitable bumps in the road
(and Michigan U-turns) with relative ease.
For Adam, whose parents, brother and
sister all live in the Metro Detroit area, it’s
been a return home of sorts — after a hia-
tus of nearly nine years living in Israel.
“I’m kind of a Detroiter,” he concedes.
“I lived here until I was 5, but grew up in
a bunch of different places, came back to
Michigan for college and graduated from
Wayne State University.”
For Amy, born and raised in Nazareth
Illit in the Michigan Partnership2Gether
Region, the move has been a bold leap of
faith. “I keep telling Adam that he’s lucky
that I love him,” she says. “I’m a Sabra and
it’s hard to leave my country, family and
everything I know. Adam is the primary
reason we’re here.”
Married seven years, Adam and Amy
have two young sons; Ari, 6, in the first
grade at the school just across the street
from their home in West Bloomfield; and
Etai, 3, who is enrolled at the JCC in the
Early Childhood Education program. The
kids are thriving. Ari started last summer
in the Hebrew Immersion program at the
JCC.
“They would laugh with him, as he was
the one Israeli child who went through
the program to learn English, but he had a
great time,” Amy says. “We were surprised
how quickly he adjusted to the American
way of life, being that he started his young
life in a completely different setting.”
An industrial designer for high-tech
gear, Adam has a professional background
well suited to the job market here. “It’s
the right fit,” he observes.“I believe my
previous experience in Israel gave me an
advantage and the benefit of lots of travel
to Asia and Europe, working with interna-
tional companies.”
He works at Higher Ground Gear in
Ann Arbor.
Amy, a graduate in business and eco-
nomics from Haifa University, with her
master’s in economic law from Bar Ilan
University, has 10 years of experience in
banking working as an investment advis-
er. At present, she is spending time with
her family and adjusting to life in Detroit.
“I’m hoping to start working in the near
future and am currently checking my
options,” she says. “Being new to Detroit

20 February 25 • 2016

John Hardwick

Vivian Henoch | Special to the Jewish News

Adam and Amy Ostroff first met on a Birthright trip Adam made to Israel.

is a unique opportunity to possibly try
something new in my career.”

A BIRTHRIGHT OF PASSAGE
Adam, 35, and Amy, 36, first met in
the spring of 2001 on a Hillel of Metro
Detroit Birthright trip organized as an
additional student exchange between
HMD and the Partnership Region, spon-
sored by the Detroit Federation.
As Amy recalls, it was the second year

of the Birthright program where our two
communities came together. “In that
delegation from the region, there were
six college-age Israelis traveling around
with the Americans on their tour of Israel
including Yoav Raban, who has remained
a close friend of ours.”
Yoav, in fact, has become a familiar face
in Detroit, building friends and family in
the community in numerous capacities,
first as a counselor and supervisor for

“ My grandmother still
lives in India, and we visit
with a large extended
family.”

— Amy Ostroff

the Israeli Camper Program at Tamarack
Camps, then on staff for the Teen Mission
(2004), then back again in 2007 for a four-
year stint as community shaliach (emis-
sary). Now on staff as Federation’s out-
reach & engagement coordinator in Israel,
Yoav continues to be a strong ambassador
for Birthrighters and NEXTGeners moving
back and forth from Detroit to Israel.
Amy will never forget her first flight
to Detroit. “Three months after our
whirlwind tour of Israel with our new
American friends from Birthright,
we flew to the States for our Mifgash
(“homecoming” gathering) in Detroit. On
9/11/01! We were in the air on a flight
from Amsterdam to Detroit, scheduled to
land at 10 a.m., when suddenly, our plane
was rerouted to Toronto. And there, I
was in Canada, not knowing what to do
next.
“While I was being rerouted mid-
air, my parents were on the phone with
Hillel of Metro Detroit Executive Director
Miriam Starkman. By the time I landed
and called my parents, they had made all
the arrangements for me. ‘You’re OK,’ they
told me. ‘Call this number. It’s Miriam
Starkman’s brother. He lives in Toronto
and you can spend the night there. The
following day, he put me on a train to
Windsor, and I stayed with a few Wayne
State University students who lived there
until the U.S. border re-opened to Detroit.”
In the few years that followed that
transformative Birthright trip, Amy and
Adam would meet, spend time together,
then go their separate ways, finish their
education, start their careers. But the
emails and calls would continue as their
friendship blossomed.
Adam would return to Israel several
times before making aliyah in 2006. Amy
stayed connected with the Federation in
the region, briefly joined the staff there
and, just by happenstance late in 2005
when she was working as a flight atten-
dant for El Al, serviced the Federation
Family Mission charter flight back to
Detroit to visit Adam.
“I got on that flight and told Adam I
would be in Detroit for just a night. We
met and the next morning, we visited
Adam’s grandmother, a Holocaust survi-
vor and the matriarch of the family. I was
amazed that she remembered me from my
first visit in 2001 and even more surprised
when she asked us, ‘When are you two