12 | APRIL 15 • 2021
I
spent the week before Rosh Hashanah
in a bit of a funk,
” says Madison Heights
Mayor Roslyn Grafstein, who last
August was appointed to the city’s top posi-
tion. “I was missing my mom and my fami-
ly a bit more than usual.
”
Her non-Jewish neighbors
didn’t have any firsthand
knowledge of Rosh Hashanah.
Yet, they figured out a way to
help Grafstein celebrate her
most memorable Jewish New
Year.
Before COVID, Grafstein,
a Toronto native, crossed the border fre-
quently to visit loved ones in Canada. Last
year, she planned to return for a birthday
celebration, Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah.
All three trips were canceled because, due to
COVID, the borders closed for nonessential
travel. Grafstein hasn’t seen her mom or her
siblings since December 2019.
“My neighbor asked me what I missed,
other than my family; I told her it was the
shofar and the songs,
” Grafstein says. “She
invited some of our non-Jewish neighbors
to her house for a bonfire and an outside
Rosh Hashanah celebration. She read the
children a Rosh Hashanah book she found
at the library. We ate cut apples drizzled in
honey, listened to Avinu Malkeinu on her
phone. Her daughter sounded the shofar
from church. I have never celebrated in that
way before, but I will never forget the feel-
ing of welcome that I felt.
”
Spanning seven square miles, Madison
Heights borders Warren, Hazel Park, Royal
Oak and Troy. With approximately 30,000
residents, the Jewish population is tiny,
numbering only a couple hundred.
“I don’t know many Jewish people are
living here,
” says Sean Fleming, a 49-year-
old retired army veteran now working in
telecommunications. He moved from Oak
Park to Madison Heights in 1997. “It’s not
a far-fetched idea. They just aren’t like ‘here
I am.
’”
The Jews who call Madison Heights
home say they love where they live for
various reasons, including the city services,
friendly neighbors and convenient location
near I-75.
Grafstein, 50, came to Michigan in 2004
because she “met a guy from Detroit.
” That
guy, Scott McGuire, is now her husband,
and he purchased a house in Madison
Heights a year before she left Toronto.
“Madison Heights is not the bastion of
the Jewish people — there aren’t a whole lot
of us here, but my job is to represent every-
body,
” says Grafstein, who is most likely the
city’s first Jewish mayor.
Elected to city council in 2017, she was
appointed mayor after her predecessor
became a judge.
“I’m probably not what most peo-
ple think of when they hear of a for-
eign-born, non-Christian,
” says the former
Torontonian. When constituents hear their
mayor is Jewish, they may be surprised
because of the low Jewish presence in the
city, according to Grafstein.
A 2018 Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit population study showed 221 Jewish
households in Madison Heights, comprising
just .7% of the city’s population.
IMPACT NOT SMALL
Amanda Stein, a clinical social worker, wife
and mother of three, had an emergency
food pantry up and running almost imme-
diately after realizing the community would
need assistance due to the financial strains
of COVID.
Stein thought of creating the food pantry
last March, the same night schools across
the state closed for in-person learning.
During the first nine months of operation,
it served an estimated 12,000 people, raised
Amanda Stein started
the Food Pantry when
the pandemic hit.
OUR COMMUNITY
Mayor
Roslyn
Grafstein
Madison Heights Jews are not
so isolated as one might think.
Living Jewishly
in the Heights
JENNIFER LOVY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Volunteers at the
Madison Heights
Food Pantry