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.”