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Other Detroit-bred 
Israeli Media
Poris and Alterman are not the only Detroit-bred 
Israelis in the media. Several have taken to the key-
board or camera professionally since making aliyah.
Aviva Zacks, who made aliyah in 2006, 
writes about Detroit olim (immigrants) 
in Israel for the Detroit Jewish News. A 
former teacher at Yeshivat Akiva/Farber 
Hebrew Day School, she spends most of 
her days as “an Israel-based interviewer, 
marketing writer, editor and Hebrew-
to-English translator,” according to her 
LinkedIn profile, which says that she “expertly trans-
lates Hebrew-to-English documents, blogs, articles 
and marketing materials.”
Idele Ross spent most of her media 
career as broadcast journalist/editor at 
the Israel Broadcasting Authority “after 
the Munich Massacre in September of 
1972,” she said. Her most recent 9-to-5 
job was as media services coordinator 
at MediaCentral, a Jerusalem-based 
nonprofit media liaison service center for 
journalists based in or visiting Israel, the Palestinian 
Authority and the region. She also worked for Ynet 
news, according to her LinkedIn profile. Today, the 
Michigan State University alumna is “a freelance 
writer and translator who is part of the group trying 
to establish a seniors co-housing project in Israel. 
Pioneering for the third age.” 
Pontiac native Ze’ev (or Zev) Chafets, 
who made aliyah immediately after the 
Six-Day War and now lives in Tel Aviv, 
was founding editor of the Jerusalem 
Report. He served as director of the 
Israel Government Press Office and has 
written 14 books, according to various 
sources. In 2008, he was recognized 
with the Wilbur Award for nonfiction books for A 
Match Made In Heaven for excellence by individ-
uals in secular media in communicating religious 
issues, values and themes, according to the Religion 
Communicators Council, who presents the award.
Susan Lerner has worked as an editor at 
Bloomberg News, business editor at 
the Jerusalem Post, and a reporter for 
MarketWatch, according to her LinkedIn 
profile. The Michigan State University 
alumna made aliyah in 2005 from New 
York.
Nathaniel Warshay, who made aliyah in 
2019, also works in the media, writing for 
the Detroit Jewish News. He previously 
was managing director of the Media Line, the non-
profit American Middle East news agency 
covering the Middle East for the past 20 years. 

Aviva 
Zacks

Idele Ross

Susan 
Lerner

Zev 
Chafets

can’t afford you.
’”
Yet, that was not all, “… even 
my phone bill expired on my [ali-
yah] schedule. Yeah, like I said, it 
was by total chance,
” he said.

LIFE IN ISRAEL
Like Alterman, Poris’ aliyah was 
not his first time in Israel. “When 
I was growing up, we would 
come to Israel every other year or 
so to visit family. Right after uni-
versity, I actually came to Israel 
for eight months. I worked in the 
Ilana Goor Museum in Jaffa’s Old 
City, which is both a gallery and 
Ilana Goor’s home. I was the resi-
dent jeweler there,
” he said.
“I knew I didn’t want to go 
directly into the workforce from 
school,
” he said. “I wasn’t tied 
down and I wanted to spend 
some time in Israel; I wanted to 
travel while I could and see what 
it would be like to live there.
”
He arranged an internship in 
Tel Aviv based on his interests at 
the Ilana Goor Museum. “I was 
immersed in Israeli life. I didn’t 
teach. I worked for an amazing, 
dynamic artist, Ilana Goor, and 
had the best time.
”
Goor is an Israeli artist, design-
er and sculptor who displays 
more than 500 of her works and 
those of other guest artists in the 
18th-century structure, a former 
hostel for Jewish pilgrims, she 
turned into a refuge for herself 
and her art. She held her first 
one-woman show in Los Angeles 
in 1972, and her jewelry designs 
were sold in many New York 
department stores. While she 
never has been to Detroit, Poris 
displayed and showed his jew-
elry designs refined during the 
internship at local multimedia 
showcases.
“So, I was here in Israel after 
I graduated university, working 
in the gallery as the resident 
jewelry artist.
” His job included 
“the interpretation of Ilana Goor’s 
style into new and revitalized 

jewelry designs, using her origi-
nal jewelry sculptures. I made a 
number of pieces for her under 
her instruction,
” he explained.
“She had certain pieces that I 
was there to re-create; I kind of 
likened it to playing with expen-
sive Legos, because she had all 
the different pieces. She would 
tell me to make new composi-
tions with my work, wearable 
pieces, and things like that [as 
part of the training],
” he said.
“I created all the pieces that 
were her designs. And I kind of 
made some new compositions 
based on her work and her style. 
After that, I came back to the 
States and I started teaching full 
time,
” he added.
Neither Poris nor Alterman’s 
pre-aliyah employment were pre-
dictors for their media careers.

ENTERING THE PROFESSION
Making aliyah in 2010 as a single 
30-something, Alterman worked 
as a researcher at the Institute for 
National Security Studies (INSS). 
The Tel Aviv-based independent 
research institute and think tank 
addresses security studies and 
impact on strategic issues relating 
to Israel’s national security. These 
include military and strategic 
affairs, cyber warfare, military 
balance in the Middle East, ter-
rorism and low-intensity conflict, 
according to the INSS website.
“I would be on TV as part of 
my job at the think tank; I was 
good at it and I loved it,
” he said, 
noting “at one point, as part of 
my INSS work, I was going on a 
24-hour news channel three or 
four times a week. So, I told the 
station I wanted to put something 
on my resume that would say 
something like ‘24-hour news 
analyst’ or ‘contributor.
’ They 
said that was fine, but I needed 
a meeting with the head of the 
channel. A week later, I signed 
the contract for my current job.
”
He was hired as i24’s senior