jews d
PHOTOS BY JESSICA POLK
in
the
Meet The
Neighbors
Franklin sukkah
party launches
grassroots effort
to help Jews
meet each other
in their ’hoods.
ABOVE LEFT: Jews who live
in Franklin gathered at the
sukkah of Roz and Stanford
Blanck to meet one another
and share the holiday.
ABOVE RIGHT: The Saulsons:
Michele, Fara, 3, Laela, 15,
Eli and Isaac, 12.
Ariana Colton works to stuff her Torah.
18
October 19 • 2017
Aden Cetner, 6, intently works on his stuffed Torah.
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
ho are the Jews in your neigh-
borhood?
It might sound like a variation
on a classic song from Sesame Street, but Eli
Saulson of Franklin, who sits on the board of
directors for the Davidson Foundation and
for the Jewish Federation’s Alliance for Jewish
Education, wanted to find out.
Are there pockets of unaffiliated Jewish
families in places like Franklin or Farmington
Hill’s Rolling Oaks neighborhood? If they
received a personal invitation, would they
come out and celebrate a Jewish holiday on a
cultural level at the home of another Jewish
neighbor?
It turns out, there are. And they do.
“William Davidson had a simple yet wise
piece of advice that, in part, inspired me to
embark on this project: ‘Just start. It’s a good
beginning’,” Saulson said.
So Saulson started. He created a $25,000
grant from his director’s discretionary fund
to hire a staff person to coordinate what will
be a series of “Jewish block parties” — social
gatherings not affiliated with any synagogue
or branch of Judaism but connected to
socializing around Jewish holidays to have
Jews meet other Jewish families. He began
with last week’s Sukkot gathering in Franklin.
And indeed, it was a good beginning.
Nearly 100 multigenerational Jewish neigh-
bors who received carefully designed and
mailed invitations sent out to 450 families
gathered in the sukkah of Roz and Stanford
jn
Blanck. Chef Kari provided refreshments and
the grant also helped pay for decorations and
Jewish holiday crafts for the young children.
And the neighbors provided the warm feeling
of community.
“I honestly did not think many people
would show up, but I was so pleasantly
surprised,” said Roz, who has been active
in Federation for many years and was
approached by Saulson to host the sukkah
party. For five years, she and her husband
have been putting up a sukkah designed by
Israeli artist Eliyahu Alpern, with its walls
covered with a panoramic photograph of
Jerusalem’s Machane Yehudah market, but
they had never hosted a large gathering dur-
ing the holiday. “But so many people filled
our sukkah with a feeling of warmth and
community. We met so many Jewish neigh-
bors we otherwise would have never known
lived so close to us.”
Though Franklin has a few common meet-
ing areas, its houses are far apart and, like
most suburban towns, neighbors do not
know each other. But through gatherings
such as this, as well as social media groups
that are cropping up on Facebook such as
Jewish Ferndale and Jewish Franklin, there
are several efforts to strengthen Jewish com-
munal living.
“In shomer Shabbat (Sabbath-observant)
neighborhoods like Oak Park or Huntington
Woods, houses are closer together, lots of
people walk around and neighbors, especial-
ly the Jewish ones, know each other,” Saulson
said.
“We know that these days half of the non-
Orthodox Jewish population is not affiliating
with a synagogue or a temple and the other
half does not go that much to the synagogue
to which they belong. We want these Jewish
block parties to build connection and com-
munity and are intended to complement —
not compete — with outreach efforts of our
area synagogues. We welcome input from
our community’s rabbis from across all affili-
ations for our future events.”
Dona Stillman, who works at the Jewish
Community Center in many roles, including
with J-Serve, is the logistical backbone to the
initiative: planning events, designing invita-
tions and providing other organizational
support.
Future events will be centered around fes-
tive holidays such as Chanukah or Purim.
Some may be geared toward adults while
others may be more kid- and family-friendly.
Whatever the event, Saulson is hoping that
Jewish events with more of a social and less
of a religious bent will attract Jewish neigh-
bors to find each other and become more
involved with Jewish life at the neighborhood
level. •
For more details or to participate, contact Stillman at
(248) 883-2527 or stillman@jfmd.org.
To see a video of the event, go to thejewishnews.
com/2017/10/12/33269.