By KELLY L. REYNOLDS
Special to The Oakland Press
With the crisis in the Mideast, many Jewish people may need a place to turn for support and comfort.
The Novi-Northville Center For Jewish Life started almost two years ago and has since been providing area residents with its support and unbiased services.
The center started with an event at the Novi Civic Center in 2004, when Rabbi Avrohom Susskind and his family still lived in Oak Park. Since then, the center has moved to its current Novi location and has grown in size and influence in the Novi-Northville community.
“After being in contact with Jewish families living here and moving to the area, they are happy about the center coming to town and the future of what the center will bring,” Susskind said. “We are getting phone calls from people asking to get on our mailing list and invitation list.”
The center, based out of Susskind’s home, offers a variety of services for all Jews, regardless of affiliation or personal level of observance, according to the center’s Web site.
“We do activities and socialize together,” Susskind said. “It’s an opportunity to explore Jewish topics. It has been very successful.”
After moving to Novi, Susskind said, there has been a wonderful reaction from the community.
“We have felt the need for this more and more due to the fact that if you just look at growth of Novi in general. Not just for Jewish people, but for everybody,” he said. “We moved to the center of Novi to make it accessible to everyone.”
The reaction “has been very positive and very surprising,” Susskind said.
Levi Stein of Oak Park was asked by Susskind to help get the word out about the center.
“We have a flyer about the Jewish center and we put together a Web site,” Stein said. “This is the only Jewish center where you don’t have to become a member. You don’t have to commit, no money, it’s just whenever you feel like it — at your own pace. We don’t like to label the different Jewish people, we like to just invite them.”
