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

