DETROIT — Blair Nosan grew up in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, attended the University of Michigan, and then, like thousands of other young Jews from the beleaguered state, moved away.

Although she grew up in a heavily Jewish area Nosan, 26, had felt disconnected both from her Jewish identity and the nearby city, which was undergoing its own debilitating population drain. Over the last decade, 25 percent of Detroit’s residents have taken flight. Some 5,000 young Jews left Michigan between 2005 and 2010, according to a 2010 survey by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

But then, Nosan came back.

SAN FRANCISCO — For the iTunes generation, Tikva Records’ pop-up Jewish record store in San Francisco probably looks like something out of the Stone Age.

For those born during the Stone Age, the record store is a comforting throwback to the days of vinyl, glorious vinyl.

Open Dec. 1-28 in a Mission District storefront, the pop-up resembles a classic 1950s record store: shelves lined with 12-inch LPs and knick-knacks from the era when music turned at 33 rpm.

“Vinyl has come back in,” says San Francisco’s David Katznelson, co-founder of the all-volunteer nonprofit Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation. “This is definitely the first pop-up Jewish record store.”

WASHINGTON — The California race between Democratic congressional incumbents Howard Berman and Brad Sherman is pitting experience against energy, compromise against confrontation and — painfully for many in the Jewish community — pro-Israel stalwart against pro-Israel stalwart.

“These are two guys who are extraordinary leaders on issues of importance to those who care about Israel,” said a pro-Israel insider in Washington who, like many others in the community, asked not to be identified in order not to offend either congressman.

“Congress will be lessened by one of them not being there,” said the insider, who likened the choice to Solomon’s judgment to split the baby.

Berman, 70, and Sherman, 57, currently represent adjacent districts in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. They have been thrown against one another because of the post-census redistricting of California’s electoral map by a nonpartisan commission.

WASHINGTON — Political observers here say a suburban Chicago congressional primary that features two Jewish candidates is a test of the Democratic Party’s direction for 2012.

The race’s two highest profile candidates are Brad Schneider, who enjoys establishment support and has strong ties to the organized Jewish community, and Ilya Sheyman, a 25-year-old progressive activist who has proven to be a whiz at small-donor fundraising.

In addition to the race’s generational aspect — Schneider, 50, is twice the age of Sheyman — observers see the primary as a bellwether for Democrats as they head into next year’s nationa elections: Will the party tack left. or try to hold closer to the center?

PHILADELPHIA – Uriah P. Levy, the first Jewish commodore of the U.S. Navy, was one for voyages.

His first came in 1802, at the age of 10, when he offered his services to the captain of the USS New Jerusalem, stipulating that he be returned to Philadelphia in time for his bar mitzvah at Cong. Mikveh Israel, then less than a century old.

More than 200 years later, Levy, in the form of a two-meter-high statue weighing more than 1,000 pounds, has arrived back home. The artwork of the man famous for abolishing flogging in the Navy and later purchasing the home of Thomas Jefferson began its journey in a Moscow studio and has landed atop an enormous pedestal outside the same Old City synagogue where Levy once read from the Torah.

Lighting a Chanukah menorah (known as a chanukiah), singing “Maoz Tzur,” spinning a dreidel, flipping latkes, exchanging gifts. That is Chanukah in practice. Chanukah in theory is about religious freedom and Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.

Everyone who has ever seen a Chanukah play visualizes those themes in the person of Judah Maccabee, the mighty warrior of Modi’in who has come to symbolize victory over religious persecution — a precursor to the modern Israeli soldier-scholar.

Who was Judah, really?

What are “Maccabees” and “Hasmoneans,” anyway?

Jewish historian Mitchell First of Teaneck explains, in a soon-to-be-published article (at seforim.blogspot.com), that no group by the name of “Maccabee” existed in ancient times. Each of Matityahu’s sons had a nickname and “Maccabee” was Judah’s according to I and II Maccabees.

WASHINGTON — If the thought of spending too much Chanukah gelt on lavish gifts for friends and loved ones seems a little dim this year, adding a little tikkun olam to the presents can give your Festival of Lights a memorable glow, says the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC).

The RAC has assembled a Social Justice Chanukah Gift Guide with gift-giving ideas suitable for all the do-gooders on your list. Buying fair trade products, adopting a U.S. serviceman or servicewoman, donating blood, or joining the National Bone Marrow Registry are just a few of the suggestions that can be found easily on the organization’s website (http://rac.org/pubs/holidayguides/chanukah/giftguide/index.cfm?). There is an idea for each of the eight nights of Chanukah.