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

