FEBRUARY 2 • 2023 | 31

T

his won’t be Yevgeniya Gazman’s 
first trip to Israel; it will actually 
be her fourth. She visited rela-
tives in Israel with her family as a child, 
went on a Birthright trip in the early 
2000s and last visited about 10 years 
ago with family for a friend’s wedding. 
“At that time, I was very, very sick 
with bipolar disorder and definitely 
not in the right place in my life to truly 
experience Israel,” she said.
Gazman, 43, of Farmington is in a 
very different place in her life today. 
Her health has improved, and she feels 
a sense of well-being. “I’m really ready 
to take it all in.” 
Gazman is very involved in the Metro 
Detroit Jewish community. She’s on the 
board of the Michigan Chapter of the 
ADL, as well as the board of The Well, a 
nonprofit that focuses on creating inno-
vative and inclusive programming for 
young adults in the Jewish community. 
She’s also on the board of Step Space, an 
artist incubator in Farmington. She is 
the founder and creator of YGazm Art.
“I’ve taken a lot of time in recent 
years to grow within my Judaism in a 

lot of different ways,” she added. 
She studies Torah at the Downtown 
Synagogue in Detroit and Hebrew at 
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. “I’ve 
been growing a lot in my involvement 
in the community, but I’ve also been 
growing a lot in my relationship with 
God and in my faith,” she said.
She said she believes this trip to Israel 
will be more meaningful for her than 
previous trips.
“I’m looking forward to this trip 
because this is the first time I’m going 
with the adult community with whom 
I live,” she said. “One of the things I’m 
truly looking forward to is getting to 
know the people on the Mission and 
coming back and having an even bigger 
circle of friends and community than 
I have now. I think that’s really, really 
meaningful.”
Gazman, who was born in the former 
Soviet Union and came to the United 
States with her family as a refugee at 
age 9, has been very open about her 
battle with bipolar disorder. She was 
last hospitalized in 2019, “which is not 
all that long ago,” she said. 

She is on new medication, and it is 
only in the last year, she said, that she’s 
started to truly flourish and believe in 
her future. 
 She described her health challenges 
as doing well and “all of a sudden you’re 
like a different human and everything 
is derailed and you are just not thinking 
clearly,” she said. “You’re not acting in 
a way that’s safe. It’s a long time before 
you start to believe in yourself again.
“I don’t take it for granted that at 
some point I may be sick again,” she 
added. “So, it’s really important to me 
to live as fully as I can, to do as much 
good as I can with every day of my life,” 
she added.
She said she’s grateful to Federation 
for providing a stipend that made the 
trip financially feasible for her. 
“The Mission is going to be amazing!” 

The Federation’s Motor City Mission takes place 

March 12-21. The JN will be featuring stories about 

Mission participants each week until the plane leaves 

for Israel.

OUR COMMUNITY

Meet Yevgeniya Gazman, an artist heading 
to Israel with the Motor City Mission.

‘Finally in the 
 Right Place’

JACKIE HEADAPOHL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

MOTOR CITY MISSION COUNTDOWN

EVAN DEUTSCH

Yevgeniya 
Gazman

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