24 | JULY 29 • 2021 

ERETZ

J

eff Schreiber, 68, regales us with 
stories of his fierce Zionism and 
why Zeman’s seven-layer cake 
and seeing his son are the only things 
he misses about living in Detroit. Jeff 
and his wife, Faye, made aliyah 16 years 
ago and have never looked back. Jeff, an 
engineering technician, repairs special-
ized computerized machinery.

Q: Tell me how you got connected to 
Israel and became a Zionist.
Jeff Schreiber: When I was growing up 
in Detroit, Israel was this faraway place. 
Just before I turned 21, in 1974 after the 
Yom Kippur War, I was tired of going 
to university. I told my parents I wanted 
to spend time on a Kibbutz called Sde 
Eliyahu in the Beit Shean Valley. I was 
there for six and a half months, working 
half the days and studying Hebrew in 
the ulpan the other half. Oddly enough, 
many people from Detroit have ended 
up there.
The second time I was in Israel was 
in 1995, and I arrived with my wife and 
three children in tow. It was just before 
my son Danny’s bar mitzvah. Since then, 
we managed to come every year or two.

Q: How did you prepare your children 
for living in Israel? 
JS: We spent our hard-earned money to 
send our kids to a religious Zionist day 
school, and we ended up with religious 
Zionists. 
 I used to laugh at my friends who 
wondered what they did wrong because 
their kids wanted to live in Israel.
We knew that when our daughter 
Shira left after high school, if she came 

back, she was only coming for a visit. 
That was in 2003. The next year, Danny 
and I came to Israel for a wedding. I 
went back to Detroit and said to my 
wife, “I’ve waited long enough. With you 
or without you, I’m going.” And to her 
credit, she took care of everything. She 
made all the arrangements.
We arrived a couple weeks before Rosh 
Hashanah of 2005, and we have been 
here ever since.

Q: What are your kids up to these days?
JS: Our older daughter Avital lives 
around the corner from us and works at 
Shaare Zedek Medical Center as a nurse’s 
aide. She spent many years in the new-
born nursery, and now she works in the 
outpatient chemotherapy department.
Danny is in Detroit, and I miss him. 
We still try to convince him that this is 
where he belongs. It has been the better 
part of 18 months that we have been try-
ing to get him to visit, and now it looks 
like he actually can.
Shira, our youngest, has been married 
for 12 years and has presented us with 
interest on our original investment. We 
now have three grandsons and a grand-
daughter.

Q: What organizations were you affili-
ated with in Detroit?
JS: We went to the Young Israel of Oak 
Park, and our kids all went to Akiva 
(now Farber). For my own schooling, 
I went to the afternoon school of Beth 
Yehudah and my sisters went to United 
Hebrew Schools. My little brother was 
in the first graduating class at Hillel Day 
School. So, we covered the gamut of the 

different organizations.

Q: Is there anything that you miss 
about living in Detroit?
JS: I miss Zeman’s seven-layer cake. I 
miss the Great Lakes. Having lived in 
Michigan my whole life, once you have 
seen Lake Superior or Lake Michigan, 
you can’t put the kid back on the farm. 
And I miss sane drivers.

Q: Do you have a message for people 
who are reading this interview?
JS: What are you waiting for? 
 I would be lying to say that living in 
Israel is easier than living in the United 
States. It is not, but when you look at the 
bus coming at you in the opposite direc-
tion and it says Chag Sameach [Happy 
Holiday] on it in Hebrew, it is all worth 
it.
And there are always inspirational 
things that happen day-to-day. I was 
with a Druze customer in Kiryat Shmona 
last week, and I saw something that 
struck me as incredibly odd. I said to 
him, “Why do you have a mezuzah on 
the door of your business when you 
don’t have an obligation to hang one?”
He said, “Yes, but I do it out of respect 
for my Jewish customers.” I have Muslim 
customers who text me “Chag Sameach” 
on Israel Independence Day. 

Religious Zionism led to family’s 
decision to move to Israel.

AVIVA ZACKS
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

MEET THE OLIM

Jeff 
Schreiber

