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.

Dani Ungar, and a Search for Hometown Tastes

Dani Ungar, 29, is on a constant quest for Vernors. The Oak Park native has four cases of the signature beverage stacked in his apartment, just in case he can’t find it again soon. “I bought it all at once -- I pretty much bought the store out,” he says of his purchase from a store in New Jersey. “I’m still looking for a local place that sells it.”

Currently a lawyer living in Manhattan, he says tastes of home are always welcome. His last fix: cake from Zeman’s, served at the home of fellow Detroit natives during a Shabbat meal. “They took it out for a special treat,” he says of the unexpected slice of seven layer. “It was pretty good.”

And there’s more where that came from -- he has two more installments of the cake, likely half-logs, waiting for him in various apartments around the city. His sister and a friend each came in this week with it in their luggage. “I have to go pick them up.”

Ungar, who left Detroit after middle school to attend a yeshiva in Baltimore, has since lived in Washington D.C., where he worked in the government’s patent office, and also in Boston, where he attended Harvard Law School.

He moved to New York in 2008, but says he still feels Detroit has a lot to offer. Food and drink from home are just one way of expressing that, and of sharing the sentiment with friends. “It reminds me of my childhood; it makes me feel connected,” he says. “It reminds me of good times in Detroit.”

Tamar Schiller on Quality Over Quantity

Tamar Schiller, 30, thinks Detroit could learn a thing or two from Omaha, Nebraska, where she lives these days. The West Bloomfield native, who left for Chicago in 2006 and moved to Omaha in 2009, says she wants to see her hometown recognize that it's quality, not quantity that matters when it comes to community.

“Even with a small community you can still be active and involved,” she says of her experience as a young Jewish professional in Omaha. “You can still have a visible Jewish community with a tenth of the community that Detroit has.”

She says that while there's not as much to do Jewishly, there's still enough to keep busy, and a long history of Jewish families around town--some have lived there over 100 years, she says. “The funny thing about Omaha in general is that you can't say you're from here unless you were born here.”

The Michigan State University graduate is working as a claims attorney, and in her spare time sings in a choir, reads, travels, and participates in area activities. She especially enjoyed the Iowa State Fair this summer, she says.

She misses being close to Canada and the Franklin Cider Mill, driving 70 miles per hour down I-696, and her family, but says Detroit's a tough place to find work. It's also a changing Jewish scene, she says, noting especially the closing of Shaarey Zedek's B'nai Israel Center, which her family had been involved with since she was 12.

She says home's an interesting mix of people who grew up and stayed, like their parents did, and those passing through who left. “But it's always nice when I go back, and I see other kids who come back and say where they are now. We swap stories,” she says.

Bryan Lubaway Says, Try Yoga

Bryan Lubaway never expected to love yoga. But in August 2008, it brought him home. He had been living in East Lansing and moved back to West Bloomfield to become more involved in his cousins' yoga studio chain, the Yoga Shelter.

Now the 28-year-old Michigan State University graduate manages the West Bloomfield location and teaches five classes a week. "It's something that will not leave my life now," he says of yoga and the overall experience it brings with it. "It's a chance to really focus on yourself a little bit--usually I run around, I have three phones on and everything else in the world going on, but with yoga, you go into a room and it shuts everything else out."

Beyond offering classes, Lubaway says he values the kind of community the studio builds around yoga and its participants. Founded by Eric Paskel and his wife Lisa in November 2004, the studio has offered apple picking, yoga retreats in Costa Rica and Belize, and has an open mic night in the works.

Lubaway says he also enjoys the opportunity to challenge people to make their days and lives a little better. "It's a great thing to do physically, to do the most that we can, work as hard as we can in class," he said. "Maybe off the mat we can do a lot of the same things...to challenge yourself and grow."

As for being back home, Lubaway says he sees a real push toward building out social and professional opportunities for young people who want to stay in the metro Detroit area or move back. From social events to mixers at area synagogues to staffing BBYO retreats, he says he likes to stay involved. "I like to give back when I can, and AZA did give me a whole lot when I was growing up," said Lubaway, who has fond memories of Greenberg AZA and regional conventions. "It's a great thing to be able to pass on."

Rachel Boyman Headed Home for Yom Kippur

Look for Rachel Boyman, 28, on Orchard Lake Road this weekend. She's headed home for Yom Kippur. "I love the familiarity of it," she says of coming back to West Bloomfield. "I'll never be able to replicate that anywhere else."

Boyman, who left for New York City in 2004 and now works for Fox News in social media strategy and mobile/video content, says she looks forward to running into people she knows while she's in. Also on the to-do list: visit family and friends, her dentist, Coney Island, and the cider mill, if she can help it, she says.

"Home is family and everyone being in the same place," she says. "And of course, I miss driving."

Her travels have taken her to Chicago for graduate school at Northwestern University and back to New York, where she says she appreciates the diversity in perspective and priorities. City living promotes a focus on "figuring out who you are and what you want," she says.

Still, from family to lifestyle, she says there are a lot of trade-offs. People ask how she can take public transportation, live in New York, and handle the day-to-day stresses, she says. But on the flip side, in New York City "you wouldn't have to shovel your driveway or go outside and turn the car on and wait for it to warm up."

She has brought with her to the city the willingness to help an extended network of people, such as the kids she used to babysit for who are now out scouring for internships. And while living in New York, she says she has learned to be open to new experiences and new people. "I couldn't imagine living somewhere else now, at this point in time."

That said, she notes it's different starting with work friends and building from a new foundation. "You kind of have to get used to doing holidays in the city and long weekends, and you sort of have to create a little home away from home."

Michael Vosko Takes Lessons From Home

Ask Michael Vosko about home, and he'll tell you how moving away helped him appreciate where he came from. The 31-year-old West Bloomfield native, who left for a computer job in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2003, says he finds the camaraderie born out of metro Detroit's history doesn't exist most other places.

"You grew up there, your parents grew up in Detroit or grandparents grew up in Detroit, so there's generations of relationships of families," he says. "Everyone seems to know someone."

But moving didn't mean he wanted to leave the idea of community behind. Vosko is on the planning committee for ShabbatLuck, a group he helped found in 2007 to bring 20- and 30- something area Jews together for potluck Shabbat dinners. The group has expanded to a mailing list of 600 plus members who sign up to host and attend meals.

ShabbatLuck has partnered with other young Jewish groups and area synagogues for events including a potluck on a hiking trail, a break fast and seders. It also started a "cool shul" campaign to help young people get tickets for High Holiday services. Area synagogues donated over 200 tickets to the group last year and more are on board for this one, he says.

Back home last for a friend's wedding 4th of July weekend, he stayed with his parents in West Bloomfield and hung out in Novi. When he's in, Buddy's Pizza is a must, as is rye bread, which he claims delis do differently out West. He says he has heard it's the lack of moisture in the air that makes it harder to make. "It's a classic rye, usually with seeds, and it's okay, but it's not your crunchy deli rye that you get back East." His favorite deli in town: the Bread Basket.