ROSH HASHANAH
Hy’s Cider Mill in Romeo
Hy’s Cider Mill Get your High Holiday apples from a Jewish farmer in Macomb County.
JENNIFER LOVY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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ever tiring of the crunchy texture and sweet to tart taste, Jim Goldstein eats two to three apples a day. His favorites change depending on the time of year but include Golden Russets, Paula Reds and Ambrosias. As the owner of Hy’s Cider Mill in Romeo, he literally enjoys the fruit of his labor. Goldstein is a third-generation farmer, an occupation not particularly common in the Jewish community. Although
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he’s helped his father and grandfather for as long as he can remember, farming became his profession in 1976, immediately after his high school graduation. Hy’s Cider Mill is located on an 80-plus acre apple orchard in the northernmost part of Macomb County, an area inhabited by several other cider mills and U-pick farms, including Westview Orchards, Blake’s Cider Mill and others. Goldstein’s orchard and cider mill is nearly an hour
from the West Bloomfield/ Farmington Hills area, and approximately 45 minutes from Southfield. Still, his cider is widely known because it’s sold in several high-end grocery stores, including Plum Market, Westborn Market and Nino Salvaggio. CIDER MILL TOUR When I pull up to meet Goldstein, 63, he is waiting on the expansive porch of his old-fashioned cider mill. The retail part of the building is
an all-wood exterior structure built with the lumber of a previously existing barn on the property. It looks like it would fit perfectly on the set of an old television Western. Perched above the door is the sign, “Hy’s Cider Mill Etc” It’s faded but still readable after several decades of use. Hy’s is off a dirt road in a sparsely populated area. One year ago, Joey Roberts of West Bloomfield was helping a rabbinical student scour Macomb County for Jewish residents. They found Goldstein and put him in touch with Rabbi Menachem Caytak, who, along with his wife, Chana, run the Chabad Jewish Center of Troy. Now the Goldsteins come to some of the Caytaks’ holiday events and Shabbat dinners. On Aug. 29, the Chabad Jewish Center of Troy hosted a Jewish continued on page 62
SEPTEMBER 2 • 2021
