AUGUST 24 • 2023 | 13
Barak in a 2009 featured article in the
Michigan Jewish History publication
of the Jewish Historical Society of
Michigan.
The founding families
took on the full financial
obligation of IADS for its
first four decades, until
1962, when it was no longer
tenable. The group applied
for and received a charter
from the state of Michigan.
With the charter, IADS was officially
named a Conservative congregation.
That same year, IADS purchased the
Fintex Men’s Clothing Store at 1457
Griswold Street, which is the home of
IADS to this day.
Starting in 1963, for nearly the
next four decades, IADS was under
the rabbinic and spiritual leadership
of Rabbi Noah M. Gamze, until his
retirement in 2001. Following the
departure of Rabbi Gamze, Dr. Martin
Herman, lovingly called Marty by his
family and friends, assumed the role of
IADS de facto ritual director.
Herman first sought out IADS in
1989 when both his parents died within
months of each other. Herman, at the
time, was a faculty member at Wayne
State University in Detroit, and IADS
was the only synagogue in Detroit that
offered a daily minyan for him to say
Kaddish for his parents. Herman was
grateful to find a spiritual home and a
community at IADS.
Herman led IADS until 2016, when
Rabbi Ariana Silverman
was selected and accepted
to be the new religious
and spiritual leader of
the congregation. Over
the decades, Herman has
held multiple leadership
roles and continues to be a
regular at Rabbi Silverman’s
Thursday Torah study.
Many, like Herman, first sought out
IADS to say Kaddish, including Joe
Lewis. “Joe became acquainted with
IADS soon after we moved to Detroit in
1976,” recalls Bobbie Lewis, Joe’s wife.
“His mother died a few weeks after
we moved, and he needed a place to
say Kaddish on workdays. We lived in
Palmer Park, and he was teaching at
Wayne State University, so IADS was
convenient, and Rabbi
Gamze was a comforting
presence.”
She added, “Since
membership dues have
always been very low,
we were members for
a long time as a way to
support the congregation
although we weren’t active. We became
regulars after we moved from Oak Park
to Midtown in 2020.”
Among the couple’s many talents and
contributions to the IADS community,
Joe Lewis created and printed the
siddurs used by the congregation.
The synagogue, established
as Orthodox, then chartered as
Conservative, became egalitarian in
1984 by adopting two practices approved
by the Committee on Jewish Law and
Standards of the Jewish Theological
Seminary (JTS) that expanded
recognition and opportunity for women
within ritual practice.
The first, approved by JTS in 1955,
called for women to be awarded aliyot
on an equal basis with men. The second,
approved by JTS in 1973, called for
women to be counted toward a minyan.
Rabbi Silverman and her husband,
Justin Long, moved to Michigan in
2010 and immediately embraced
and established roots in Detroit’s
Woodbridge neighborhood. Both
Rabbi Silverman and Long grew up in
urban settings: Silverman on the south
side of Chicago and Long in Hartford,
Connecticut.
The couple is fully committed to
Detroit. Their children, Rebecca and
August, were born in the city and attend
Detroit Public Schools. In a 2017 article
published by Jewish Historical Society
of Michigan, Rabbi Silverman shared
the importance of individual choice
and impact on the common good:
“The Detroit Public Schools need to be
improved for all kids, and I want my
family to be engaged in even a small
part of that change, and not just from
the outside, but as parents and students,”
she said.
“What we like about IADS is its
easy-going attitude, its acceptance of
everyone and its involvement with the
Detroit community in many different
ways” said Bobbie and Joe Lewis.
“We love Rabbi Silverman, who is
invariably cheerful and whose sermons
and lessons are always excellent, they
continued.
“We’re excited about the reopening of
the building!”
continued on page 14
A view of the
windows from
inside the
synagogue
PHOTO BY YEVGENIA GAZMAN
Leor Barak
Rabbi
Ariana
Silverman
Joe and Bobbie
Lewis