PROLOGUE
1ST DETROIT SERVICE
SHULS
1ST HEBREW DELRAY
AARON ISRAEL [STOLINER]
ADAS YESHURN [TYLER]
ADAT SHALOM
AHAVATH ZION
AMARATH TEMPLE
AVAS ACHIM [DELMAR]
AVAS ACHIM 2
BETH AARON
BETH AARON V ISRAEL
BETH ABRAHAM
BETH ABRAHAM 2
B'NAI DAVID
BETH EL [BONSTELLE]
BETH EL
BETH EMMANUEL [TAYLOR]
BETH ITZCHOCK
BETH MOSES
BETH MOSES 2
BETH MOSES [OWEN]
B'NAI MOSHE
BETH SCHMUEL
BETH TICHVAH [PETOSKEY]
BETH YEHUDA
B'NAI ISRAEL
B'NAI ISRAEL 2
B'NAI JACOB
B'NAI JACOB
B'NAI ZION [HUMPHREY]
DOWNTOWN SYNAGOGUE
EL MOSHE
EZRAS ACHIM TUROVER
HERES ISRAEL
MISHKAN YISROEL
NUSACH HARI
SHAAREY SHOMAYIM [FENKELL]
SHAAREY TORAH
SHAAREY ZEDEK
SHAAREY ZION [PIGGLY WIGGLY]
TEMPLE ISRAEL
INSTITUTIONS
BETH DAVID CEMETERY
BETH EL ELMWOOD CEMETERY
BETH OLEM CEMETERY
BUTZEL BUILDING
FREE BURIAL ASSN
JCC MEYERS
JCC WOODWARD
JEWISH WELFARE FED
MANUEL URBACH
SHAAREY ZEDEK SCHOOL
SINAI HOSPITAL
THE SCHVITZ
TUSHIYAH UHS
UHS DELMAR
YESHIVA BETH YEHUDA & MOGEN AVROM


Aaron Israel

2567 Elmhurst at Linwood
AKA the
Stoliner Shul

Now

Williams Memorial Missionary Baptist Church

Called the Stoliner Shul because the people who founded the synagogue came from the town of Stolin, Russia. Check out this great link to the ruins of the Great White Synagogue of Stolin!

 

We welcome and invite you to share your memories of Detroit's former synagogues and Jewish sites.
Email your memories to us » and we will add them to the site. *PLEASE* be sure to cite the name of the synagogue or site.

Shared Memories of Aaron Israel

I have just spent more than an enjoyable, albeit sad, morning viewing the "ruins" of Detroit. Then I discover more gold - your "lost synagogues" of Detroit page.

I'm in my early 40s and live in Windsor. My mother was born and grew up in Detroit in the Linwood/Gladstone Jewish neighbourhood in the 30s and 40s.

My late father Michael was one of less than a handful of survivors of the massacre of more than 7,000 Jews of the Stolin, Belarus ghetto on Rosh Hashana, 1942. He was the only survivor, that I know of, who lived by actually hiding within the ghetto itself. The other ghetto Jews - mostly women, children and elderly, were from Stolin and the neighbouring villages of David Horodok and Rubel. The Jewish men of these villages and towns mostly were massacred in 1941.

My father, when he was dating my mother, just loved the Linwood area and felt totally at home there. He said it reminded him of pre-war Jewish Poland, with so many shules and Yiddish in all the shop windows.

I've tried, in vain, to take my mother over the river to scout out her old neighbourhood. She's 78 now and nervous.

I've also spent considerable time researching Stolin (now in Belarus), the home of my family for at least 300 years until the Holocaust. I was very pleased to see the Stoliner shule of Detroit and your link to Avram Shacham's wonderful web site of his trip to Stolin.

Since Mr. Schacham's visit to Stolin a few years ago, there have been many great changes occurring in Stolin. For the first time since the massacre of the Stolin ghetto Jews in the forest of Stasino, a Yizkor - or Memory Day - service was held in 2000 and will again take place this year on September 23rd.

A person by the name of Michael Chernyavski - not a Stoliner - but a Russian Jew who now lives in Stolin, has taken it upon himself to clean up the White Shule. His efforts attracted attention as no one had done this in 58 years - as 400 years of Stoliner Jewry was totally wiped out in 1942.

Little by little, local people came forward, telling Mr. Chernyavski of their Jewish roots - something no one would offer previously, based on the murder of the Jews and the persecution of any others during the Soviet regime.

They formed a small Jewish Community two years ago - a miracle to say the least. They went into the forest and cleaned up the grave, reburied bones and cleaned up broken liquor bottles. Apparently the mass grave was a popular site for youths over the years who would dig up bones and drink there - they know nothing of what happened - if you can believe that. They have their myths that the Jews were buried with gold and diamonds. In reality they were human skeletons and broken souls when they were shot at the brink of the pits they dug themselves.

There is now a proper Hebrew/Belarussian grave marker there as well.

Although Stolin had a great Jewish history and sparked the Karliner-Stolin hassidim sect, the little Jewish community of Stolin today has absolutely no archives, pictures or anything else. Your picture of the Detroit shule, with your permission, would be welcome to them.

I am going to Stolin for this year's Rosh Hashana Memorial Service. My grandparents, aunts, cousins and countless other relatives are all buried in the forest. My father, who passed away in 1984, forbid me to ever go there as much of the killing and misery was conducted by the local people.

I hope he forgives me, but I just have to see it for myself and say the Kaddish prayer in the forest.

It was a beautiful Jewish world there - just as once was the Linwood area.

It's ironic, but the Jewish worlds of both my parents - Detroit and Stolin - are gone.

Thank you for your wonderful website.
I have just spent more than an enjoyable, albeit sad, morning viewing the "ruins" of Detroit.
- Murray N.

There is some very interesting history with Stolin and Detroit. A Stoliner group of Chassidim lived here and established that old 'shul' on Elmhurst in Detroit. The Chassidim were led by a "Rebbe" who immigrated from Europe and settled in New York City. He came to Detroit periodically to visit his 'Chassidim'. On one visit (in the '50's?) he passed away. The Chassidim wanted to move his remains back to New York for the funeral and burial. However, when they went through his belongings they discovered that the Stoliner Rebbe had taken along shrouds on this trip and left a note that he wanted to be buried in Detroit. Since that time, a large group of Stoliner Chassidim come every year on the Rebbe's Yahrzheit (date of passing) to visit his grave, pray, sing and learn to honor his memory.
- Miriam

Speaking as a Stoliner chossid myself, I wish to let you know that our shuls have often been called Bais Aaron v'Yisroel. I doubt it was called "Aaron Israel." We have had a few Rebbes named Reb Aharon, and one named Reb Yisroel, and that is why we often use that combination of names. "Aaron v'Yisroel" means "Aaron and Yisroel," which in English is "Aaron and Israel." I could find out the name of the Detroit shul for sure, by asking around here where I daaven (pray), in the Brooklyn Stoliner Shul, which happens to be called Bais Aaron v'Yisroel. Where did you get those amazing pictures of our shul in Stolin? Thanks much!
- Mordechai

This structure looks like the "Stoliner Shteibel" that I remember as a child growing up near the corner of Elmhurst and Davison(?). What about the Young Israel Synagogue, and the Mogen Avrohom on Dexter near Cortland? This is a fascinating study...good luck! Have you seen Irwin Cohen's history of Jewish Detroit for background on some of these structures?
- Miriam

Miriam is correct, this was the Stoliner Shul or the Elmhurst Street Shul.  

The formal name of the synagogue was Aaron Israel but it was called the Stoliner Shul because the people who founded the synagogue came from the town of Stolin and were followers of the Stoliner Rebbe.

The building on the other corner (NW) did indeed house the 2 congregations and the Yeshiva Chachmey Lublin.
- Ruthe

 

The Lost Synagogues of Detroit

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