- [Reporter] Coming up on "One Detroit," Governor Gretchen Whitmer talks about growing Michigan's population in a future of work report.

Plus, we'll take you to an event exploring the legend of the Golem in Jewish folklore.

Also ahead, a local filmmaker chronicles the lives of Muslim chaplains in the US military.

And if you're looking for something to do this weekend, we'll have some fun suggestions.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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(soft music) - [Reporter] Just ahead on this week's "One Detroit."

An interactive event focusing on the myth of the golem in Jewish folklore.

Plus a new PBS documentary tells the story of three Muslim chaplains in the US armed forces.

And Peter Whorf of 90.9 WRCJ has some ideas on how you can spend the fall weekend in Metro Detroit.

But first up, governor Gretchen Whitmer sits down for a one-on-one conversation about growing Michigan's population.

As part of One Detroit's Future of Work initiative, contributor Zoe Clark of Michigan Radio, talked with the governor about the work of the growing Michigan Together Council, which is expected to provide its findings and recommendations in December.

(upbeat music) - So we are talking all things population and trying to grow this state's population.

You know, earlier this year, this big report from Citizens Research Council came out.

I think it really grabbed a lot of folks' attention saying Michigan was only second behind West Virginia in population growth.

- Yep.

- So then in May, there's the Mackinac Policy Conference, and you come out and you create the Growing Michigan Together Council.

This idea of trying to grow the state's population, you name the state's first, and actually, I believe she also likes to say the country's first Chief Growth Officer.

- That's right.

- Tell me about this council.

Tell me why, and what are you looking for?

- Well, listen, here's what we know.

In the last census, we saw growth, but it was minuscule and we lost a congressional seat from it.

As we are seeing economic growth happen in Michigan, we need people to do the jobs.

We wanna make sure Michigan's a place where people will come and build their lives or people will stay here and thrive.

And we can get that kind of long-term view and investment.

With climate change, the whole world's gonna be looking to move to the Great Lakes.

That's not a strategic growth initiative.

That's a terrible way to grow your population.

We've gotta combat climate change.

But Michigan's got a powerful story to tell, and we gotta get better at telling it, and make sure that we've got the policies and offerings that talent wants and expects that business needs to thrive, and it's all connected.

And that's why this work's really important.

And it's important to take it out of the legislature and out of the governor's office, 'cause it's not about any one person, it's not about any one party, and the work will not be done in three years, when my term comes to a close.

So we gotta get serious, we've gotta get on the path, and we've gotta make sure that we have a strategy to grow our population in a way that enhances everyone's life here.

- Well let's talk about that strategy.

At that same announcement, you said we need an all of the above approach.

What does that look like to you?

What does that mean?

- Well, I think nothing's off the table.

And that's why I asked John Rakolta and Shirley Stancato, two known leaders, one Republican, one Democratic, one male, one female, one black, one white.

This has gotta be an approach where every person can see a good quality of life in the state of Michigan, can see a path to prosperity where business can see, yeah, we work hard, we've got a great low cost of living and a high quality of life.

That's who we are.

That's hallmarks of what we do.

We're not really good at telling our story.

You know, one of the great things about Michiganders, is we're humble.

We ever met a Texan, oh my God, all they do is brag about the state of Texas, no matter what side of the island they're on.

We gotta get better at telling our story, and make sure that our policies reflect what young talent is looking for, and what business needs in order to be successful.

- I'm curious, sort of what you are hoping to hear from this council.

I mean, you could have a wishlist of, you know, a 100 things depending on who you're talking to.

What are you really looking forward to hearing?

- I'm hopeful is that they throw a blueprint on the table and say this, "These are the things that are important, and this is how we're gonna get there.

This is what we think needs to be done."

So that we can take that work with the legislature, determine where we, whether it's through budget, or it's through policy making, have a role to play.

And we put those things into effect so that people can see, okay, Michigan's serious, this is a place where I can live the life that I want to live.

Michigan is home to 21% of the world's fresh surface waters in these Great Lakes that define this state.

It's a huge asset, but it's also an unparalleled quality of life.

I am always thinking about this company, KLA, whose main headquarters is in Silicon Valley, headquarters too, is in Washtenaw County, Michigan.

They weren't sure, that it would be a great place to recruit too.

They're having great success, because with our higher educational, you know, offerings, and the cutting edge work that is being done here, we got a powerful story to tell, but we've gotta do more to ensure that companies like that see that here, and that all the employees that are attracting to Michigan, we're doing that on a much greater scale.

- Don't wanna be the Debbie Downer here in the room, but governor after governor, it seems like has tried to do this.

- Mmh - How will this time be different?

- Right.

I think you're right, I mean, I was in the legislature when Governor Granholm was - Cool Cities - Right, Richard Florida and it's good stuff, but obviously we had a lot of other challenges during that period of time.

I know that Governor Snyder spoke to, you know, civility and how do we make Michigan a place where people want to live?

But I think right now we've really done a important work of making Michigan policy reflect that this is a state that values all people.

That this is a state where you can come, and you can make it here in Michigan, no matter who you are, where you come from.

Michigan is a melting pot and it's the greatest strength of this state.

It's also gotta be a fundamental of where we're headed.

So when we enact a law that ensures the LGBTQ community has basic civil rights protections the rest of Michiganders do, this generation, expects those fundamental rights to be protected.

Same with a woman's ability to make her own choices about her body, same with the Crown Act, or a state that is leveling the financial barrier that keeps people from getting skills so they can get into good paying jobs.

All of these things are really important.

And so too is our policy when it comes to climate.

Young people are thinking about these issues, and a state that is addressing them, I think is is opening up the conversation.

- So finally, recommendations.

You don't necessarily wanna put a number, right?

On the population growth.

What will success look like?

How are you going to measure success?

- I think success looks like Michigan being a cool place that young people are talking about moving to, that are investigating where we see growth in terms of, you know, movement into the state of Michigan.

I think success is Michigan becoming that state where people are like, you know, there's so much cool stuff happening.

Or if I'm a climate activist, I want to be somewhere where I can enjoy the outdoors and have access to this water.

You know, I think it's starts with buzz.

I think that's what we're building.

- [Reporter] And the governor had a lot more to say.

You can see her entire conversation with Zoe at onedetroitpbs.org.

Let's turn now to an event earlier this week that explored the myth of the famous Jewish creature, the Golem.

Monster Mash took place at Third Man Records in Detroit.

Bestselling author Adam Mansbach, Detroit professor Justin Sledge, and Angelique Power, CEO of the Skillman Foundation, participated in a conversation about the historical, and contemporary aspects of the Golem legend.

One Detroit's Chris Jordan was there.

(soft music) (indistinct chattering) - [Angelique] Around us, you're seeing films, you're seeing artists that are painting images of this mythical creature.

- You know, Halloween, of course not a Jewish holiday, some of us have been calling it era of Halloween, you know, the, the night before Halloween, and kind of, you know, making it a little bit Jewish, right?

- You know, I've been touring this book for the last month and a half, and this is really the event I've been looking forward to the most.

- You can see around me that there's a vibrant community of people from different backgrounds, religions, and we're all here to focus on an incredible, provocative, work of fiction that helps us understand the current moment.

- So Reboot's mission is to foreground Jewish arts and culture.

And we do it by looking to the past, and inviting artists, and storytellers, and creators to wrestle with the past, to create new stories for the present and the future.

- One of the great things about Reboot is it says, "Here's a tradition, what are you gonna do with it?"

How do we reboot our traditions?

How do we keep our traditions alive?

And one of the great tasks that I get to have, in the conversation with Reboot is taking what is often very obscure, very esoteric ideas, and then making them accessible in a contemporary way.

And asking, this is also part of your tradition, magic mysticism, the occult.

What do you do with it, if anything?

- Yeah, I've been part of reboot since 2006, and it's been an incredibly important part of my life.

The people that I've met, the conversations I've had, the notion of re-envisioning in a broad and expansive way what Judaism is and can look like.

- Author Adam Mansbach conjured up a Golem for the 21st century to address 21st century issues, specifically issues around antisemitism, white nationalism.

- Adam's done a really ingenious job of reinvigorating this Golem tale, and I'm gonna be sort of the connective tissue, showing how Adam's drawing on really amazing mythology history, amazing stories from the Kabbalah mysticism in the occult and magic.

And showing that this very ancient, very medieval, very strange, very occult literature, can live on in really extraordinary ways, like this novel.

- It's a novel called "The Golem of Brooklyn."

In Jewish folklore, Golem is a humanoid creature, nine, 10 feet tall, made out of mud or clay, always by a very learned man, a rabbi, at a time of immediate crisis for the Jewish people.

My book is a little different.

The Golem my book is made by an art teacher, who is neither learned nor religious, and it is not a time of crisis.

He's merely in possession of a large amount of clay and extremely stoned.

So he makes this Golem, he manages to bring it to life.

The Golem immediately starts trashing his apartment, and screaming at him in Yiddish, which is a language he does not understand.

And we've learned that what he's been screaming at Len, his creator, is "Where is the crisis?"

Len can't really answer this question, but eventually someone shows the Golem, video of the 2017 Charlottesville tiki torch, Unite the Right, Jews will now replace as marchers.

And the Golem is like, "Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

Where are those guys?"

- So I think it speaks very beautifully to kind of perennial worries around not only the monsters that stalk us in the night, that are supernatural and beyond our making, but really the monsters that are the most dangerous, are us.

The monsters that we make, and the monsters that are in fact us.

The Golem is us.

And I think that's a powerful lesson.

- I hope that people will do some critical thinking about the means and the exercise of power.

To me, this speaks to the moral murkiness of creating a golden to begin with, and the necessity of stepping away from that fearsome power as soon as possible.

Nobody ever makes an army of Golems.

Nobody ever allows the Golem to remain active as a standing deterrent to future violence.

And that speaks to the necessity of a certain level of optimism, even in the face of horror, and speaks to how much of our own humanity we lose, if we were to allow the Golem to exist in perpetuity.

And I think that speaks to the current world in a fairly profound way.

- And his interpretation today really looks at the intersection of antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, LGBTQ oppression.

So it's really an interesting take at looking at all of these issues together.

- It's really important to be able to have a conversation right now that allows for the complexity, that doesn't live in the binary, and that is really about humanity at the center.

- And I think it's always with our artists where we can really see the true lines of humanity.

(indistinct chattering) - [Reporter] And you can see the author talk with Adam Mansbach about his new novel, 'The Golem of Brooklyn" on pbsbooks.org, tonight at 8:00 PM.

Turning now to a new documentary airing on PBS, that examines the challenges faced by Muslim chaplains in the US armed forces.

Historically, military chaplains have come from Christian denominations and later the Jewish faith.

The first Muslim chaplain in the military came along in the 1990s.

The documentary is titled "Three Chaplains," and One Detroit's, Bill Kubota spoke with the producer, Detroit Area filmmaker Razi Jafri, and director David Washburn.

(soft music) - [Announcer] A new documentary, "Three Chaplains" filmed at military bases all over the country, premiers this month on PBS' "Independent Lens."

- Alright, everybody have a seat.

- The film follows a story of three Muslim chaplains in the US military as they navigate issues around Islamophobia, religious freedom, multiculturalism.

- [Reporter] Filmmaker, Razi Jafri based here in Metro Detroit, he made the recent doc "Hamtramck, USA," this time the producer, working with David Washburn, who directed "Three Chaplains."

- Three chaplains evolved out of a short film series that I did, with Muslim military veterans over several years.

I came across a story of two chaplains.

It's their religion, it's serving others, it is about religious freedom.

- Yes, it does, it does.

- These chaplains are not just chaplains and caretakers for Muslims on base, they're caretaking educating everybody.

- Chaplain Lantigwa, can you say that?

- [All] Chaplain Lantigua.

- [Reporter] Two chaplains, Rafael Lantigua, Air Force Chaplain, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Khalid Shabazz.

They're joined by Air Force Second Lieutenant and chaplain to be Saleha Jabeen.

- I'm an immigrant from India.

I came to America to study MBA.

After taking prerequisites, and having conversations on campus with seminarians, I prayed and I was really guided.

So I approached my parents and I said, I wanna do Islamic studies.

- You, so you see that a chaplain is an individual, who is a clergy person that works at a institution, and obviously they're military, right?

- You see in the first scene how one of the chaplain goes in front of about 700 young trainees on this Air force base, and he's wearing a kufi, and he's clearly identifiably Muslim.

And I was wondering, while filming that scene, I was like, how many people, is this the first time, they've had a commander or a leader who's in their life anywhere, who's Muslim?

And what are they thinking as he's speaking to them?

- I would assume that a number of you have heard it before.

Yes?

- Yes sir.

- I got to know Rafael really well throughout the course of producing this documentary.

And I think that moment really exemplifies his magnetism, his charisma, his charm, and really his ability to connect with people.

- Yes sir.

- So you will see us journeying with you as you go through basic military training.

- [Reporter] Three Chaplains shows us military life stateside, no overseas battle scenes here, but stressful enough with basic training.

Enough for many recruits to seek out spiritual guidance.

- There are approximately 3000 chaplains on active duty, and there are less than 20 Muslim chaplains, but they represent something much larger.

- The Quran says in chapter 49, 13, "I have made you into many tribes and families, not that you despise one another," what?

That you get to know one another, whether they're Christian, whether they're Jewish, whether they're pagan, whether they're sabians, whether they're zoroastrians, it does not matter.

- One of the main messages of the film is interfaith tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

First of all, David and I are an interfaith team.

You know David's Jewish American, I'm Muslim American.

- Oh yeah, it's right here, it's right here.

- We came together to work on this film together, and I think we brought, both of us brought something unique from our backgrounds to the storytelling process and to developing the project.

(upbeat music) - All right, fantastic.

So how you been?

- One of my favorite scenes in the film is when you're seeing several young people converting to Islam.

- This is a space, a sanctuary in which we are able to make Salah, to make our daily prayers.

All right?

So anytime that you're able to get away from the training, and you're afforded that two hours per week, all right?

To come to this location, to the Interfaith Chapel, - Many of these young people who intern to the military, they're exposed to Islam for the first time.

They're allowed to go to, voluntarily so, allowed to go to Islamic education classes, and they're learning about this religion, which they've misunderstood or they knew very little about.

And so eventually some of them really get into it, and take the next step and choose to become Muslim.

- Alright, so here we have two English translations of the Quran.

- He doesn't proselytize.

They come to him asking that they want to do this.

And he says, well, this is my role as a chaplain to assist you in your first amendment right.

- When I decided to become a Muslim chaplain, I knew that there were gonna be associated dangers with that because of just the nature of what's going on in the world.

The news footage continues to propagate this idea that Muslims are terrorists, Muslims are the bad guy, the boogeyman, you know, they're coming to get you.

(sings in foreign language) - When you see these scenes, where a Muslim military chaplain is assisting young non-Muslims to to choose to become Muslim, - Mohammedan - Mohammedan - And doing it in front of everybody, including the commander on the base, and everybody claps afterwards.

It really is kind of mind opening.

And when I was filming those scenes, I was really excited.

I was like, I want other people to see this because this is like, this is this idea of like religious freedom in action.

- [Announcer] Today shock and mourning in Christchurch, New Zealand, and lots of questions about the terrorist attack that killed 49 people, and injured dozens more at two mosques in the city.

- After the tragedy of the Christchurch shooting where worshipers were killed in New Zealand, you have this really incredible moment at the Islamic Center of Denver where you have Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs.

- There's something that is connecting these events that I think challenge us who are people of faith.

- People from all different backgrounds gathering in this mosque in a show of solidarity.

And I think it's one of the main messages of film.

- And we've seen this too often in many mosque, and temples, and synagogues and churches all across our nation.

It's time for the people of faith, to turn up our volume and not to be ashamed of what we believe in, not to be ashamed of what we stand for, and not to fight against each other.

We need Christians, we need Jews.

- Let's go on.

We need to start on time people.

- [Reporter] Saleha Jabeen's story documented in "Three Chaplains," history captured on camera, sworn in by chaplain Steven Shike, air Force Major General.

- So help me God.

- So help me God.

- Please welcome.

(audience clapping) - [Reporter] Jabeen, the first female Muslim chaplain in the US military.

(audience clapping) - I think others will follow in Saleha's footsteps, you know, as well, and she's followed in other people's footsteps, who have opened doors for her and others.

I just hope that that journey for my community continues where we continue to gain more visibility and more acceptance in American society, and we play larger and larger leadership roles in our society as well.

- What we would like to do with this film is kind of show that the world is much more nuanced than traditional news media creates, and definitely social media, that we need to be open, and free thinkers and not bring us so much prejudgment to those people that we're seeing out in the world.

(audience clapping) - [Reporter] And you can see "Three Chaplains" on the PBS app, starting November 6th.

Fall is in full swing, and there's plenty to do in Metro Detroit.

Peter Whorf from 90.9 WRCJ has some suggestions in today's "One Detroit Weekend."

- Hi, I am Peter Wharf with 90.9 WRCJ, and I'm so excited to share some events you can enjoy throughout the weekend.

First, we all know fall is one of the most beautiful times in Michigan, and you can take in all the colors over at the Ford House Grounds during their Autumn Landscape Tours.

The tours run through November 22nd.

Then on Saturday, the Detroit Historical Museum is hosting The Hustle: Entrepreneur Resource Summit.

Head over there for networking and panel discussions with some of Detroit's top entrepreneurs.

And don't forget to enjoy the marketplace in the streets of Old Detroit.

Also, Saturday, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit is hosting a workshop to create a life-size glow in the dark structure, taking inspiration from the current exhibition by artist Spirituals, entitled "Shadowworking."

As you know, the holidays are just around the corner.

I really cannot believe it.

And All Things Detroit is having their holiday shopping experience and food truck rally in Eastern Market November 5th.

And something for the kids "Peppa Pig's sing-a-long Party" is coming to the Fisher Theater Sunday at 2:00 PM.

Plus there's so much more going on in Metro Detroit.

So here are a few other events to check out.

Enjoy your weekend.

(soft music) - [Reporter] That'll do it for this week's, "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the One Detroit website for all the stories we're working on.

Follow us on social media, and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

- [Announcer] From Delta Faucets to Bear Paint.

Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world, experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Esso Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Narrator] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations, that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Announcer] Nissan Foundation and Viewers Like You.

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