Peter Rosenthal Talks Family Ties

Peter Rosenthal, 29, has been through more than 30 states. “And I’ve yet to find lamb and potatoes made the same way as in Greektown,” says the West Bloomfield native, who lives in Los Angeles and plans to move to Santa Barbara in the next month. He works remotely for a company in upstate New York writing software for next generation airport baggage scanners, and is transitioning into a software job working with atomic force microscopes.

A 2005 University of Michigan graduate, he left Michigan for a job with General Dynamics in Tallahassee, Florida. He went on to work in Virginia, where he lived for more than two years, and then went remote. “A co-worker invited me to move out to California and see the sun more often,” he said of his current location on the West Coast, which he says is “a very acquired taste.”

He says he misses his tight-knit family the most, including his new niece, Stella. “It's a hard trip to make from LA to Detroit too often; she keeps getting bigger in leaps and bounds every time I see her.”

Last home in February, he says he has thought of moving back. With his brother in Birmingham working as a lawyer and the new growth he’s seeing in area business, it would be a possibility if the job prospects improved, he said. “After traveling around the country and visiting others, I haven't been able to find anywhere quite like the metro Detroit area.”

His parents recently bought a new house in the Farmington area and his whole family got together, one of his favorite recent Detroit memories. “Everything about the day was positive and a foot or two of snow had just settled outside,” he recalled, adding that even the seasons seemed like a treat.

“It just felt like something I was missing from my life, and something I'd like to have back. A sense of peace that comes from knowing the people around you understand you and the relationship goes beyond just a group of friends out for a drink.”

Heather Shenkman Connects With Brownies Buddy at TribeFest

Heather Shenkman, 35, caught up with fellow Detroiters at TribeFest in Las Vegas this week. Living in Los Angeles, the Farmington Hills native misses some of Detroit’s community charms.

“I come home and I’ll go to Hiller’s and I’ll run into people I know,” she said. “It’s nice.”

She had a taste of that connection Tuesday morning; the yoga class she participated in was taught by someone she knew from years before. “We were in Girl Scouts together and went to Forest Elementary,” she said of Nikki Fayne, who led the eight a.m. class.

It was exciting to see a strong Detroit contingent at the Federation-hosted event, said Shenkman, who feels a strong allegiance to her hometown. “To this day, I won’t drive a foreign car,” she said. Instead, she drives a white Ford Mustang convertible.

Shenkman left Detroit in 1993 for college, returned for a residency stint at Henry Ford Hospital in 1999, and left again in 2003 to complete her cardiology training. Coming back to Detroit as an adult, “we used to hang out at Roosevelt’s a lot,” she said.

Also missing from her routine are the Somerset Collection Mall and Twelve Oaks Mall — she and her mom have a shopping tradition — as well as Orchard Lake Road, and “everything being right there.”

When she comes home, which she does about once a year, she always visits her Aunt Ida, 92, and spends time with her parents, who live on Wolverine Lake. “Sitting on the pontoon boat or in the kayak, it’s relaxing,” she says.

Shenkman says there are some Detroiters she sees regularly in Los Angeles, and that they frequently wind up talking about home. One of her good friends is someone she met on Federation’s 2001 Young Leadership Mission when they were both living in Detroit, she recounts.

As a triathlete, she said California has some perks. “It’s a big thing for me to go running outside in a pair of shorts. That’s something you can’t do in Detroit in January.”

But even with the no-snow advantage, its still not quite the close-knit Jewish community she grew up in and hasn’t found anywhere else, she said. “I think Detroit’s unique.”

Monica Woll in Madison, Sees Something Special in Detroiters

Monica Woll, 25, has lived a lot of places — France, India, and Ethiopia among them — but says the most interesting people she has come across have been from Detroit. The West Bloomfield native, who is in her second year of medical school in Madison, Wisconsin, said she thinks its a special take on reality that makes people from her hometown shine. “There’s something in the punch that makes us think we’re invincible,” she says. “And because of that we are able to really do what we want to do.”

Woll graduated from the University of Michigan in 2007 with a degree in history and a minor in international studies, then decided medical school was in her future. She went to a program at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to get up to speed on the science, then went to Ethiopia for a year to broaden her perspective on “how the rest of the world really lives.”

She worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, helping physician Rick Hodes in Addis Ababa tackle tuberculosis and other health conditions on the ground. While she was there, she also worked as a liaison for a JDC college program for women and on a health education project with an Israeli-based NGO, the Center for Emerging Tropical diseases & AIDS.

“That was pretty drastic,” she said of the poverty, illness, and pollution she witnessed. She also spoke of how rewarding the experience was, as she immersed herself in the Ethiopian community and shared the experience with friends and family who came to visit. She returned to the States in 2009 to start medical school.

But there’s still nothing quite like home. She heads back to Detroit for holidays and various other occasions, dividing her time between her house and a friend’s basement when she goes. “People from here make fun of me because they think I’m always in Michigan,” she said. “But I love Detroit.”

Among her staples when she’s home are Coney Island on 14 and Orchard and BBQ ribs made with meat from Harvard Row butcher. She fondly recalls her old-time hangouts, Plaster Playhouse, where she had all her birthday parties, and US Blades. She jokes about the hours she spent driving around the parking lot at Caribou Coffee in high school for fun.

And when she leaves town, she goes loaded up with hamantaschen from Diamond Bakery, her mom’s chicken and her favorite cookie scones from a coffee shop in West Bloomfield.

Some of her closest friends today are from Detroit, people she has known her whole life. When she and three of her friends were six they were called the “Spice Box Girls,”at Congregation Beth Ahm. They would do the songs Saturday morning at services.

“Whenever I hear the Spice Girls we call each other,” she said. “And I think of those moments — we used to alternate singing different lines. I think it’s good, good times.”

How Detroit Shaped Author, Prof. Rachel Havrelock

Rachel Havrelock, 38, remembers before Tally Hall went in at Orchard Lake Road off 14 Mile. “It really was orchard once upon a time,” she recalls. She remembers the driving range before the Whole Foods strip mall, and the “pseudo-Chinese” roof on the Chinese place that also once called the intersection home.

A Hillel Day School and later Detroit Country Day student, she comes from a family of Detroiters. She learned to swim at the JCC, worked there as a lifeguard from the time she was 13 until she moved away, and was also on the swim team. “That was always like a second home,” she said.

The Farmington Hills native left Detroit in 1990 to forge her own path; where her mother, aunts, and cousins went to University of Michigan, she followed her calling west to Santa Cruz. She sold her car and rode a bicycle everywhere, taking on an entirely different mode of living and devoting herself to “radical individuality.” She even married a San Francisco guy.

She’s pretty sure it was the perception of communal conformity that made her rebel. “Its just such a big part of your life being a Jew from Detroit, the community is such a big part of your life,” she said. “Everyone does the same thing, we’re all wearing this and eating here and we all go to summer camp here and we all go on vacation here.”

Later on she came to realize that such activities have other functions, she said, and contributed in ways she didn’t understand at the time to the strong sense of Detroit community she feels. “I think its another way that people stay together and maintain tradition and identity.”

And as it turned out, she couldn’t stay away from this part of the country. She finished a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at University of California Berkeley and then moved to Chicago in 2002 to take a position as a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. “It’s fate,” she says of her return, and the fact that her first big job brought her right back to the Midwest.

She credits her teachers at Hillel and Shaarey Zedek, where she attended Hebrew High School until graduation, with inspiring her to continue her studies of Judaism. She also recently finished a book, “River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line” which she hopes to bring home next fall.

Growing up in the Detroit area taught her to celebrate her Judaism, she said. Having lived in multiple cities and in the US and Israel, she said she has found Detroit Jews are very comfortable with and excited about their Jewish identities. “You meet people from Detroit and we’re into it,” she said.

She wants her daughter, three-year-old Delilah, to feel the same. In addition to teaching her Hebrew early on, she said she wants to make sure her daughter grows up close to her grandparents as she did. She also works to create a community for her daughter, to make sure that in the same way she has lifelong friendships, such as a friend she went to Hillel with who she has known since she was three, Delilah grows up with solid ties she can count on. “It makes your world bigger, to have people that know you and you can rely on in life.”

Perry Teicher, Back in the US After Living Abroad

Perry Teicher, 26, spent more than two years living in Kazakhstan. The West Bloomfield native left Michigan after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2007 with a degree in Organizational Studies and Political Science to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer.

“I wanted to move outside my comfort zone, challenge myself and really see if I would be able to be successful in an environment that was different than what I used to, make a difference and learn something,” he said.

He moved abroad, where he worked at a disability organization that built the first wheelchair factory in Central Asia, and also helped establish a volunteer club that engaged over 100 local students to work one-on-one with children with disabilities.

The support network he grew up with helped prepare him for his life in Aktobe, he explained. “On the family side, my parents were always very supportive of whatever I wanted to do, they pushed me to do more things and explore what I wanted,” he said. “And on the community side, that there was this sense of support and sense of purpose.”

His travels took him through Central Asia and then back to the U.S., to Washington D.C. by way of West Bloomfield. Living in metro Detroit was a totally different experience as an adult, he said. He spoke of coming home to new parts of town he hadn’t explored before, of going downtown with friends and spending time in Royal Oak, areas he’d missed the first time around. “It was really nice to see that there’s a lot of energy in the city and the suburbs,” he said. “And a real desire to think of the future and create a new experience for the city and communities.”

Teicher said he’s inspired by the movement taking place, and the way the buzz about Detroit’s future is spreading in other cities. “They hear all these good things, the do-it-yourself, the urban farming, and all of this energy that’s there,” he said.

Currently, he’s living in Washington D.C. and working as the first fellow for Repair the World, an organization that focuses on making Jewish service work more meaningful and effective. “So I’m basically doing research on a variety of projects they’re developing and being able to apply my background in international volunteerism and business development to a really great cause.”

He also runs a mobile application development company based out of Michigan. “It’s called the Giving App,” he said. It’s based around the idea of using mobile technology to help nonprofit organizations increase fundraising and connect with supporters, as well as to distribute information.

When he’s in town, Teicher’s picks include New York Bagel, the Plum Market coffee shop, and Buddy’s Pizza. And when he’s in Ann Arbor, its Cafe Zola and Zingerman’s.

He also enjoys his newfound ability to speak Russian with his dry cleaners, a reminder of his travels right on Orchard Lake Road. “They speak Russian to me now and I get my clothes cleaned in Russian, which I didn’t do in Kazakhstan, so there were new words for me to learn.”

Zachary Mondrow Leaves Snow for Sunshine, Career as Cantor

Zachary Mondrow, 28, grew up in a household divided — by corned beef.

“The problem was we had a rift in the family, one side liked the Stage, the other side liked Deli Unique,” said the West Bloomfield native. The breakdown? Dad liked the Stage, while mom swore by Deli Unique. Still, Mondrow proved to be his own man. He eats tuna fish at both these days.

Mondrow left Michigan in 2004, two weeks after graduating from Kalamazoo College with a major in music. He moved to Jerusalem to start attending Jewish Theological Seminary’s cantorial program, an idea planted in his head years earlier by his cantor, Earl Berris, at B’nai Moshe. Mondrow came back stateside in 2005, moving to New York City to continue his studies. Five years and a slew of Modern Hebrew, Bible, history of synagogue music, liturgy and education classes later, he got offered a job in Florida and took it, trading the snow for a clime he calls “fantastic.”

Today he’s a cantor at Temple Torah of West Boynton Beach in Boynton Beach, Florida.

But Detroit is still in his blood. “I bought a Ford. I defiantly bought a Ford because I wanted to support the Detroit auto industry.” Mondrow drives a Ford Fusion. And when he doffs a sweatshirt, it’s got University of Michigan or Kalamazoo colors.

After all, Michigan is where the heart is – or at least, it’s where the fondest dreams of his youngest years took shape. “The neighborhood was young and all my friends lived within two houses of me. There were no play dates, you just ran over, knocked on the kids’ door and said ‘you want to come outside?’”

It’s different now. “I want to pick up the phone and call someone, but the same people aren’t there.” But at least the world is bigger. “I went bowling every week,” he recalls. Now, he can travel further afield. When he’s in town he goes out in Birmingham, Ferndale or Royal Oak at least one night. He also has made a point over the years to stop by West Bloomfield High School and also Scotch Elementary, where he went to elementary school, to see his music teacher. “I often credit her for engaging me in music.”

And though when he went home for his high school reunion, he said he was reminded that he hadn’t followed the ‘traditional’ hometown path of becoming “a doctor or a lawyer,” he says he is happy with the route he has chosen. He considered a career in opera, but his passion for working with people and desire to put down roots as opposed to having a singer’s hectic travel schedule led him down his current path.”I think it was always expected by me and everyone I went to high school with that I was going to sing for a living.”

Elana Rybak on Baltimore and Biggby

Elana Rybak drove in for Thanksgiving with two other “displaced Michiganders,” went up to East Lansing to catch up with the 'old gang' from college and helped a hometown friend shop for a wedding dress. All in a holiday weekend for Rybak, 27, who left West Bloomfield in October 2009 for a research job in Baltimore.

It's a fast-paced place where people act like things should have been done yesterday, she says, but she's brought a few things, like her laid-back Midwest attitude, with her. “It's funny because I'm consistently picked out as being from the Midwest,” she says. “The accent, and I say 'pop' not 'soda.'”

After attending undergrad and veterinary school at Michigan State University, she graduated in 2008 and worked as an equine veterinarian intern at a horse clinic in Emmett for a year. When the internship ended, there were no equine jobs in Michigan, she says, so she decided to try research.

Now she's a research assistant in a University of Maryland laboratory, where they test drugs to prevent and treat organ rejection.

Rybak, who grew up in Southfield and moved to West Bloomfield in high school, says she misses Biggby coffee, Meijer, and Michigan prices.

As she moved from suburb to city, she says she's learned about alternate street-side parking, how to be city-savvy and know where to go, and how to navigate a fleet of one-way streets and hilly roads. “There'll always be a soft spot in my heart for the Michigan left,” she says.

As for the Jewish scene, she went to Bais Chabad on Maple Road and now doesn't have a synagogue affiliation but tries to go to Shabbat dinners and happy hours held by Chai Life and Moshe House, which cater to young Jewish adults in Baltimore.

She stays in touch with friends from home, and uses her new location in Baltimore to stay connected. “I go visit friends in DC all time, and it's not too far from a friend in Virginia, so I see her a lot, too,” she says.

She has a sister in Lansing, another sister finishing up a Master's at University of Michigan who's headed for Milwaukee, and her parents live in West Bloomfield.