18 | OCTOBER 17 • 2019
continued from page 17
Jews in the D
Shabbat dinners. With eight
children (aged 1 to 18), he
appreciates how easy it is to
get from his house to the
Orthodox day schools.
Mendel Polter
stepped in to
become the
rabbi of the
Woodward
Avenue Shul
when founding rabbi
Chanoch Hadar moved into
a more administrative role.
His wife, Kaila, works with
him to help grow the com-
munity. Part of a four-gener-
ation Detroit family, Polter,
29, grew up in Oak Park and
earned a bachelor’
s degree
and rabbinic ordination at
the Central Yeshiva Tomchei
Tmimim in Brooklyn.
The family, which includes
a 3-year-old son, moved from
New York in 2017. Though
their home on Woodward is
technically in Royal Oak, it
feels like part of Huntington
Woods, where they are among
many young Jewish families.
“It’
s unique in atmosphere,
” he
said. “Everyone feels like one
big family, very interconnected
and supportive of each other.
”
Simcha Tolwin,
45, grew up in
Israel and Detroit
and moved to
Huntington
Woods in 2007
to start Aish HaTorah, just
across the Coolidge Highway
border in Oak Park. He and
his wife, Estie, who works
with him, have six children
ranging from young adults
(one recently married) to the
youngest in first grade.
Tolwin was ordained at Aish
HaTorah in Jerusalem and
also has a master’
s in clinical
counseling from Bellevue
University in Omaha, Neb.
He gets frequent requests
from neighbors to help put up
mezzuzot, and a neighbor who
liked to engage him in debate
asked him to do his funeral.
He got an usual request when
a neighbor asked him to keep
their curtains open on Friday
evenings so they could watch
the family’
s Shabbat dinners.
He likes the “shtetl” feeling of
the community. “Everyone
knows what everyone is doing
so it’
s easy to make an impact
because people talk!” he said.
Ari Witkin and
his wife, Liz, are
celebrating the
birth of their first
child, Hadar
Yonah, born in
August, just a few months
after they moved to
Huntington Woods from
Philadelphia. All he knew of
the Detroit area was West
Bloomfield, where his in-laws,
Steve and Janice Traison live,
he said. The Witkins started
house-hunting after he accept-
ed the position of director of
leadership development for
the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, and they
liked Huntington Woods
immediately.
They especially appreciate
the city ordinance that allows
them to keep three chickens
in their backyard. Witkin, 32,
grew up in Minneapolis, grad-
uated from Goucher College
in Maryland and was ordained
at the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College. He also
has a master’
s from the
University of Pennsylvania in
nonprofit leadership. The fam-
ily is still “shul shopping,
” but
he says they’
ve gotten a very
warm welcome from all the
congregations in the area.
36 Under 36
Nominations
Now Open
Do you know someone making an
impact in the community you can
nominate for this special honor?
Th
e Well, an organization building inclusive Jewish
community in Metro Detroit for the under-40 crowd,
and the Jewish News are once again partnering on “36
Under 36” to recognize doers, activists, entrepreneurs,
philanthropists, community organizers and other
young Jewish professionals reshaping and broadening
Metro Detroit’
s Jewish community.
“In short,” Rabbi Dan Horwitz of Th
e Well said,
“we are looking for the people who give of themselves
to the community in robust — and often thankless
— ways. In essence, the kinds of people we admire
and aspire to be, whose accomplishments we want to
celebrate and who we want the world to know make
their home in Metro Detroit.”
Nominations are due by
Oct. 30. A special group of
nine volunteer judges (none
of whom are affi
liated with
Th
e Well or the JN) will be
reviewing submissions and
choosing the 36 winners.
Honorees will receive free
three-year subscriptions to
the JN and be featured in a
February 2020 issue.
To nominate someone,
log on to tiny.cc/36under36.
thirty
six
UNDER
36
M. POLTER FACEBOOK
S. TOLWIN FACEBOOK