16 | JUNE 18 • 2020 

where those stories came from,
” 
she said.
One of the year’s most mean-
ingful moments for Katz came 
during a Passover seder in 
Ukraine. There was a group of 
elderly women at her table and, 
when Katz looked into their 
faces, she saw her own grand-
mothers, who’
d passed away 
when she was a teenager. 
Katz said she looked at the 
women and told them, “‘
You look 
like what I remember my grand-
mother to look like,
’ Because we 
come from here — this is where I 
come from.
”
After her time in Eastern 
Europe, Katz went to Majorca, 
Spain, for a young adult shab-
baton and a conference run by 
international Jewish-learning 
charity Limmud. The pictur-
esque island of Majorca, nestled 
in the Mediterranean Sea and 
known for its coves and resorts, 
has a long Jewish history, dating 
back to the before the Spanish 
Inquisition. Many Jews on the 
island publicly converted to 
Catholicism in the 1400s while 
continuing to operate as a tight-
knit Jewish community. Today, 
there are several dozen people on 
the island who have reclaimed 
their Jewish faith. 
Next, Katz returned to New 
York to present her findings on 

leadership programs in Europe 
to JDC’s board, and went back to 
Europe for some time in Portugal 
with her family. Her travels then 
took her to Florence, Italy, where 
she attended a conference for 
small Jewish communities. 
“What are these communities, 
in Venice, Italy, or in Amsterdam 
or Helsinki — what are the chal-
lenges that they go through?” 
Katz said. “
As much as we're all 
very different, some of their chal-
lenges are no different than larger 
communities or things we think 

about all the time in Detroit. And 
then they have unique challenges 
as well.
”
The following weeks found 
Katz in India, where she staffed a 
JDC program that brought young 
adults to volunteer and teach 
children in the slums of Kalwa 
and the village of Ashte. Katz had 
wanted to visit India since learn-
ing about the country’s Jewish 

history years ago — it has a small 
but historic Jewish population, 
divided between three historic 
communities, the oldest of which 
has been in India for over 2,000 
years. 
Following India, Katz got 
to participate in a JDC trip to 
Azerbaijan and Georgia. In the 
latter country, she and a friend 
stayed in an old winery in a tiny 
town where they came across an 
abandoned synagogue. Katz and 
her friend stood out in the rain, 
trying to communicate with their 

Georgian taxi driver that they 
wanted to find whoever had the 
key to the place. 
Today she cites Georgia as one 
of her favorite travel stops.
After another trip back to 
Israel, Katz settled in Dubai, the 
largest city in the United Arab 
Emirates, from September to 
November. The UAE doesn’t 
officially recognize Israel as a 
state, although relations between 

the two countries seem to have 
been warming in recent years; 
the first publicly acknowledged 
direct commercial flight between 
the two countries (a cargo flight 
carrying COVID-19 supplies for 
Palestinians) took place in May. 
Still, Katz said some of the Jews 
she met in Dubai didn’t tell their 
coworkers about their Jewish 
faith.
This was the first time JDC 
had worked with Dubai’s Jewish 
community, which is small, pri-
vate and comprised of expats, 
business travelers, families and 
some long-term residents. There 
is no official synagogue, but the 
community worships and holds 
programs in a space called “The 
Villa,
” which is where Katz lived 
in Dubai as she helped the com-
munity create more program-
ming. 
“I think [Dubai is] a place 
where a lot of the people are able 
to find camaraderie through their 
Judaism. They come together 
because that's the thing that 
holds them together,
” Katz said. 
In September, the country 
unveiled plans to build the 
Abrahamic Family House, which 
will house a mosque, a church 
and a synagogue on one campus. 
The designers of the campus held 
a joint meeting to make sure they 
designed each house of worship 
correctly; Katz sat in as one of the 
Jewish representatives. 
In a large, disc-like building in 
the 

“Coming back, I really felt that 
community uplift
 … It really made 
me even more excited about staying 
in Detroit and continuing to build 
what exists here.”

— JESSICA KATZ

continued from page 15

(L-R) Interior of Keneseth Eliyahoo
Synagogue in Mumbai, India; baking challah
in Dubai; meeting with Jewish teenagers in Riga, Latvia.

16 |
JUNE 18 • 2020

(L-R) Interior of Keneseth Eliyahoo
Synagogue in Mumbai, India; baking challah
in Dubai; meeting with Jewish teenagers in Riga, Latvia.

ing about the countrys Jewish
officially recognize Israel as a
state, although relations between 

correctly; Katz sat in as one of the
Jewish representatives. 

In a large, disc-like building in 

the 

RANGAN DATTA WIKI VIA CREATIVE COMMONS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JESSICA KATZ

Dubai
Latvia

Mumbai

Jews in the D

