OUR COMMUNITY

continued from page 11

able for many. By day, they’d stand for 
hours in Italian markets, selling Soviet-
made watches, linens and other goods for 
money. By night, they’d take English les-
sons as they prepared for their new lives.
Still, despite their effort and sacrifice, 
many Jews were denied the right to come 
to the U.S. “People were there [in Italy] 
for six months or a year, even more than 
that,” Feterovich says.
It was the same story over and over 
during interviews at immigration offices 
— Soviet Jews explained that they were 
persecuted. This was why they wanted to 
go to America. Yet some families received 
approval while others were left behind.
“I think that immigration person, who-
ever made that decision, who was sitting 
on the other end … maybe they were 
having a good day or bad day,” Feterovich 
describes, “because how else do you make 
that kind of decision?”

HEADING TO DETROIT
Luckily for the Feterovich family, who 
came from Moscow, approval was swift. 
They made their way to the Metro Detroit 
area, where they had relatives. Yet for 
teenagers like Feterovich, who arrived 
with the expectation to see glimmering 
lights and bustling avenues like that of 
New York City, ending up in quiet Oak 
Park — where many Soviet Jewish immi-
grants first settled — was an unexpected 
shock.
“I came from a big city,” she says. 
“Here I am, Oct. 24, standing in front 
of Northgate Apartments [in Oak Park], 
wondering if this is my life. I remember 
asking my parents, ‘Did you bring me 
here to die?’ I regret that phrase now, and 
it’s such a devastating question, but you 
could say my expectations were not met.”
Most Soviet Jews arrived to small 
apartments with a scattering of donated 
furniture. They often only had one or two 
mattresses, a kitchen table and occasion-
ally an old TV. “I remember our [paired 
volunteer] family was extremely wealthy,” 
Feterovich says. “They had a helipad and 
we had nothing. We were literally sleep-
ing on the floor.”
It was a stark and eye-opening expe-
rience on both ends, for the Soviet Jews 

who had to rebuild their lives from 
scratch and for the American Jews who 
often expected the newly arrived Soviet 
Jews to be, for lack of better words, more 
Jewish.
“There was this huge separation 
because we didn’t really know much about 
Judaism,” Feterovich explains. “
All of these 
people were like, ‘Let’s be Jewish together,’ 
but we had no idea what that meant.”

NEW AMERICAN WAYS
Yuliya Gaydayenko, chief program 
officer of behavioral health and older 
adult services at Jewish Family Service 

of Metropolitan Detroit, says the influx 
of Soviet Jewish immigrants coming to 
the area picked up in the early 1980s 
and continued through the mid-1990s, 
stopping sharply with the 9-11 attacks in 
2001.
Donations from Jewish families in 
Metro Detroit helped pay for staff to facil-
itate the mass arrivals, which included 
greeting immigrants at airports, placing 
deposits for apartments and connecting 
them to government benefits, among 
other services.
Gaydayenko, who also immigrated 
from Moscow, estimates that each reset-
tlement cost about $5,000. “This would 
cover the first three months of the initial 
resettlement for families,” she explained. 
After that, immigrants would take over. 
They were provided with ESL (English 
as a second language) courses, cultural 
workshops and other educational pro-
grams to learn American ways.
JVS Human Services, meanwhile, 
helped immigrants find employment and 
write resumes. Both parents and teenag-
ers often worked multiple jobs to support 
their families in the first few months or 
even years. It was common for teenagers 
to attend school during the day, then 
work late into the night, sometimes until 
2 a.m., in order to help their parents put 
food on the table.
With the assistance of volunteer fam-
ilies, Soviet Jews would also learn how 
to do things like grocery shop, read 
food labels and, of course, experience a 
Shabbat dinner. Some immigrants grew 
close to their newly understood religion, 
opting to become Orthodox. Others 
became Conversative or Reform, and 
some not religious at all.
Despite the path they chose, Soviet 
Jews played a remarkable role in devel-
oping Metro Detroit’s Jewish communi-
ty. From their impact in the workforce 
to their contributions to society, they 
became an indisputable and essential part 
of local life.
Most importantly, though, they were 
free to make those choices of who they 
wanted to be. Their children could have a 
future. And there was no one to tell them 
they couldn’t be Jewish. 

COURTESY OF JFS. 

Jenny Feterovich and her parents, Nelly 
and Vladimir Feterovich, on her first day in 
America in 1989.

A Soviet family 
arrives at Metro 
Airport in this 
historical photo.

12 | MARCH 11 • 2021 

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