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.

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."