Today, Detroit is infamously often associated with urban decay. However, a century ago the city was best known as the world's automobile center, hence nicknamed Motor City, a name also reflected in the city's deep musical legacy famously celebrated through Motown. The Midwestern city also has a long and complex Jewish history.

Today, most of Jewish life has moved to the suburbs – Metro Detroit – but there are many traces of the once vibrant Jewish life within the city limits. Through his nostalgic black-and-white photographs, Julian Voloj takes us through a journey, revisiting the city's past, documenting abandoned and reinvented synagogues, hidden cemeteries as well as the revival of Jewish life in downtown Detroit.

Julian Voloj is an award-winning writer and photographer. Born to Colombian parents in Germany, where he studied literature and linguistics, Julian moved to New York City in 2004. The city and its inhabitants are often subjects of his photographic work and graphic novels.

After his "Forgotten Heritage" series documenting New York's Jewish past, Voloj turned his focus to Detroit, his wife's hometown. There, his work became a race against the clock, as many historic buildings face decay or demolition. He photographs former synagogues, cemeteries, and neighborhoods with a Jewish past—some repurposed as churches or community centers—while also observing efforts to revive Jewish life. His black-and-white images evoke history, capturing places that seem of the past yet remain part of the present.