Oak 
Park

Berkley

Royal 
Oak

Huntington Woods City 
Commissioner Jeff Jenks, also a 
former mayor, said, “My house deed 
didn’
t allow my home to be sold to 
Jews although I’
m Jewish.
”
Rabbi Dan Horwitz, 35, directs 
The Well, an award-winning pro-
gram serving young, sometimes 
unaffiliated Jews. He grew up in 
West Bloomfield. His wife, Miriam, 
38, a self-employed American Sign 
Language interpreter, is a native 
of Albany, N.Y. They, too, chose 
Huntington Woods, relocating 
from Washington, D.C. The family, 
including sons Jonah, 4, and Micah, 
2, are members of Temple Israel in 
West Bloomfield.
“To make the move from a 
dynamic urban center to Metro 
Detroit was challenging in many 
ways,
” Dan said. “We wanted easy 
access to the city and to the Metro 
Detroit suburbs with great down-
town areas, such as Ferndale, Royal 
Oak and Birmingham. Living in the 
Woodward Avenue corridor became 

the obvious choice. In terms of 
Huntington Woods specifically, we 
had a number of friends who were 
living in the neighborhood and sang 
its praises.
”
Jaimie Powell Horowitz, 40, and 
Jeff Horowitz, 41, met at University 
of Detroit Mercy School of Law 
and moved to Huntington Woods 
nine years ago. Members of Temple 
Emanu-El in Oak Park, they have 
a daughter, Aidan, 10, and a son, 
Asher, 6. Jaimie heads the Fair 
Michigan Justice Project, a part-
nership with the Wayne County 
Prosecutor’
s office. Jeff is a partner 
at Honigman, Miller, Schwartz and 
Cohen.
Seeking a new home, the couple 
“looked for a neighborhood with 
lots of young families that would be 
close to temple and in between our 
places of work,
” Jaimie said. They 
put a high priority on being able to 
walk to a downtown with restau-
rants and shopping, such as they had 
living in Royal Oak.
She says she wouldn’
t change a 
thing about their life in Huntington 
Woods, praising Burton Elementary 
School, the Rec Center and its 

Ferndale

Orthodox Community
Irwin J. Cohen, author of Echoes of Detroit’
s 
Jewish Communities: A History, has been 
studying Detroit Jewry for decades. He is part 
of and a careful observer of the Orthodox 
community throughout Oak Park, Southfield 
and Huntington Woods. 
“Anyone who wants to know [the health of 
the community] can just look at Lincoln or 10 
Mile roads in Oak Park on a Saturday morn-
ing and see families walking together.”
Cohen observes other signs of vibrancy. 
“Yeshiva Beth Yehudah (YBY) has a growing 
enrollment, now above 1,000 students. Add 
students at Farber and other schools, and the 
number probably exceeds 1,800.” 
Farber Hebrew Day School recently com-
pleted a new building, while YBY and Bais 
Yaakov School for Girls both have started 
construction on new buildings. 
Cohen says some changes in the Orthodox 
community are due to in-migration. National 
authors Rabbis Berel Wein and Paysach 
Krohn have touted suburban Detroit’
s com-
plete infrastructure for an observant Jewish 
life, coupled with a low cost of living. 
The Orthodox community footprint has 
expanded, Cohen says. “Look at Mt. Vernon 
Road between Greenfield and Southfield in 
Southfield. Young families of observant Jews 
are moving into a neighborhood where few 
Jews have lived in recent years.” 
Comparing the 2018 Detroit Area Jewish 
Population Study with the 2005 study (both 
sponsored by Federation) provides num-
bers that seem to challenge the historian’
s 
observations. 
While the data suggest the 
number of Orthodox Jews in the Detroit 
area decreased from 15,400 to 10,700, 
the primary drop occurred among those 
age 65 and older whose Orthodoxy was 
often defined by whether they kept kosher 
homes and lit Sabbath candles.
The 2018 survey reports about a third 
of area Orthodox Jews moved here in the 
past decade. It also shows more than 40 
percent of the Orthodox Jewish community 
continue to be under age 18. ■

— Louis Finkelman, contributing writer

continued on page 14

March 28 • 2019 13
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