C O MM U N I T Y Ladder
C O MM U N I T Y Ladder of achievement Emphasis on education helps Chaldeans and Jews climb By Alan Stamm and Justin Fisette Personal gains entwine with Jewish and Chaldean community gains as tightly as ties to their ancestral homelands. Individual accomplishments inspire others and reinforce group pride, spinning a cycle of success forward. Education feeds essential fuel into this momentum. “Education was viewed as the key to the American dream,” recalls attorney Eugene Driker, a son of Jewish immigrants from Russia who met at a Detroit night school English class. “I grew up in a household where it was simply in the air that you would get an education. It wasn’t made the subject of lectures or formal discussions, it was just understood.” Chaldean families in Metro Detroit place an equally high premium on learning, as forerunners did when they began arriving from Iraq early last century and in larger waves as wartime refugees during recent decades. “The easiest thing to do with limited English is blue-collar work,” says Father Frank Kalabat of St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Church in West 90 Bloomfield, noting that even well-educated professionals worked in 80 auto plants or stores at first. “What the parents went through, they didn’t want their children to endure. Kids who didn’t want to go to 70 school, the father would say, ‘I had no option, you do.’” 60 Portals to progress Each community’s arrivals, coming from cultures that value education, saw schools as doorways to careers, secure incomes, assimilation and overcoming inequality. “The drive for education comes from a sense of accomplishment by oneself and their parents, and a sense of honor for the family,” says Fr. Kalabat. “We used the Jewish community as an example,” adds Josie Sarafa, former bilingual supervisor for the Birmingham School District. “They were feverish to send their children to school, wanted them to have that education and were successful businesspeople. We strived for the same thing.” While public schools are social equalizers – part of the fabled melting pot – many Jews and Chaldeans choose faith-based settings that reinforce religious heritage, pride and purpose. “Jewish kids who graduate from Jewish day school, studies show, are more likely to be involved in everything Jewish than kids who went to public schools,” says Steve Freedman, head of school at Hillel Day School in Farmington Hills. “We are so integrated into American culture in society, the challenge is to maintain that sense of Jewish identity. Education helps.” His school, founded 52 years ago at two rented rooms in Detroit, now serves more than 600 students from early childhood through METRO DETROIT JEWISH POPULATION 40 30 39% . . . . .Wayne State University 20% . . . . .University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Wayne State, University of Michigan and Michigan State University top Jewish alumni list. 20 10 0 63% . . . . . .Have college degree 83% . . . . . . Some form of Jewish education 36% . . . . .Reform 28% . . . . .Conservative 18% . . . . .Just Jewish 11% . . . . .Orthodox 3% . . . . . . .Humanist 3% . . . . . . .Reconstructionist 1% . . . . . . .Renewal Reform is now the largest branch of Judaism. 14% . . . . .Michigan State University 6% . . . . . . .Oakland Community College 21% . . . . .Western Michigan University, Oakland University, Walsh College and Others Nearly two-thirds of Jewish adults have a college degree. SOURCE: 2005 DETROIT JEWISH POPULATION STUDY, JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT
eighth grade. More than half of the graduates go on to the Frankel Jewish Academy, a college prep high school in West Bloomfield. “The second and third generation [in immigrant families] began to achieve the American dream — became professionals and have more than their immigrant parents or grandparents — through education,” adds Freedman. Hillel Day alumni include attorneys, doctors, professors, journalists, a judge and rabbis. “Yearning to learn . . . has always been a part of our people,” adds the school administrator. “Education allowed access to better ourselves despite discrimination.” Chaldean families uphold their heritage at Catholic parochial schools and academies throughout Metro Detroit. “These are schools that follow a secular curriculum in terms of teaching all the subjects that you’d learn in government schools,” explains Farmington Hills residential developer Dave Nona, who chairs the Chaldean Federation of America. “Alongside a rigorous liberal arts education, they try to instill basic values and discipline that are based on Christian values. Their primary goal is to educate, not preach, and equip you with a general, broad education.” Extending a legacy Nona was educated in Iraq’s capital, where he graduated from a high school named Baghdad College — founded by American Jesuit priests. He carries that legacy forward as a board member at Loyola High School in northwest Detroit, a boys school in the Jesuit tradition. At the university level, Wayne State continues to serve as a career gateway for Chaldeans and Jews, as it has for countless children of immigrants. “Wayne was the logical choice because it was accessible, geographically close and affordable,” say Eugene Driker, who earned a bachelor of science in 1959 and a law degree in 1961. “I often joke my father told me I could go wherever I wanted to for college as long as the Dexter bus would take me there.” Earlier, he attended Detroit Central High and learned about Jewish literature and other culture at the Sholem Aleichem Institute in Lathrup Village. His merchant father had a high school diploma and his mother lacked formal education. “It was a common pattern,” says the founding member of a Detroit law firm called Barris, Scott, Denn & Driker. “Immigrants struggled to make a living. Their children studied hard and succeeded.” ‘A premium on education’ Driker, who knows Chaldeans both socially and professionally, sees that pattern woven through the fabric of their community: “The immigrant generation worked hard to establish themselves in America through small businesses and professions, and put a premium on education.” Those stepping into the saga now include educated Iraqi refugees facing fresh challenges. “With a poor economy, they cannot be absorbed as easily into the system,” says Nona. “Many lack the necessary certification to become a professional or practice their current profession from Iraq. The question is, how do we provide meaningful employment and educational recertification for a new crop of educated immigrants in this area?” Addressing that need will reinforce Metro Detroit’s historic role as a gateway to achievement. Alan Stamm and Justin Fisette are writers for Tanner Friedman, a marketing communications firm in Farmington Hills. P R E S E N T I N G S P O N S O R G O L D S P O N S O R S METRO DETROIT CHALDEAN POPULATION S I LV E R S P O N S O R S 52% 18% 18% 25% Chaldeans’ level of schooling on rise since 2000 12% 13% 18% 11% 11% 9% 4% 4% 59% . . . . .Regularly 33% . . . . .Occasionally 7% . . . . . . .Holidays Over 90% of Chaldeans regularly or occasionally attend church. Less than high school High school graduate Some college, no degree Associate’s degree 2000 2007 Bachelor’s degree Graduate or professional degree 1% . . . . . . .Do not attend SOURCE: METRO DETROIT CHALDEAN SURVEY 2008, COMMISSIONED BY THE CHALDEAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND ADMINISTERED BY UNITED WAY AND WALSH COLLEGE
