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A Maryland physician will be temporary
cantor for Kenya's only synagogue.

Daytime:
Mon. 1 p.m. • Tues.-Thurs. 9:30 a.m. & 12:30 p.m.
Evening:
Tues. & Wed. 6 p.m. • Thurs. 6:30 p.m.

ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN

Special to The Jewish News

W

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MIXED

Mon. 7:30 p.m. • Wed. 8:45 p.m. • Fri. 6:30 p.m. & 8:45 p.m. e/o week
Sat. 6:00 p.m. e/o week • Sunday 5:30 p.m. & 7:45 p.m. e/o week

MEN

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Mon. 7:30 p.m. • Tues. 9:15 p.m.
Wed. 8:30 p.m.
Thurs. 9:30 p.m • Sunday 9:30 a.m.

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For more details and information
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1991

Nairobi For The
High Holy Days?

hat's a young ob-
stetrician I gynecol-
ogist from Balti-
more, Md., doing at the pulpit
of the only synagogue in
Kenya?
Singing, of course.
Dr. Paul Blumenthal, on
staff at Johns Hopkins
Hospital and Frances Scott
Key Medical Center, recent-
ly returned from three years
in Nairobi, Kenya.
He taught at the Univer-
sity of Nairobi, worked on
family planning projects,
and served as cantor for the
Nairobi Hebrew Congrega-
tion. Although he doesn't
plan to move back to Africa,
"I do plan to return to Kenya
every year to do the High
Holy Days services," he said.
Dr. Blumenthal, 39, went
to Kenya because his wife
got a job there.
"As an epidemiologist
with a specialty in family
planning, she received a con-
tract to help the Ministry of
Health set up a health in-
formation system," he said.
"At the time, I went along as
an officially dependent
spouse.
"I knew that the congrega-
tion there was in need of a
cantor, but a month before I
got there they hired someone
to be both rabbi and cantor.
He didn't work out, though.
So, I arrived in January and
was on the pulpit by the
High Holy Days."
Dr. Blumenthal said he
learned to be a cantor while
growing up in Chicago.
"In those days, there was
no cantorial school, so I
learned how to daven and do
the whole service at my
family's synagogue," he
recalled.
He was also in the syn-
agogue's boys' choir. But
when his voice started
changing, he moved from
singing to directing the
choir. Despite his lack of
formal singing lessons, he
worked as the congrega-
tion's substitute cantor from
the mid-1970s until he left
for Kenya in early 1988.
"My style is very folk-
oriented," he said. "By
taking Yiddish folk melodies

Elizabeth Bernstein is staff
writer for the JUF News in
Chicago.

Dr. Paul Blumenthal will lead a
photographic safari and High Holy
Day services in Nairobi, Kenya.

and turning them into
liturgies, I try to create
songs that everyone can
relate to."
Nairobi's small but active
Jewish community dates
back to the turn of the cen-
tury, when the first Jewish
families in British East
Africa settled in what was
still a labor camp and minor
administrative center of the

"As much as you
fall in love with
Africa, it is unlikely
that Africa will fall
in love with you."

Dr. Paul Blumenthal

Uganda Railway. The com-
munity now numbers about
700.
"The original plan for the
settlement of the Jewish
people was the Uganda
Scheme," Dr. Blumenthal
explained.
In 1903, the British
government made a proposal
to early Zionists to establish
an autonomous Jewish col-
ony in what is now Kenya —
rather than in Palestine.
After much controversy and
debate, the British withdrew
their offer in 1904.
By 1913, there were 20
Jewish families in Nairobi
and the first synagogue —
the Nairobi Hebrew Con-
gregation — had been built.
Most of these Jews did well
as doctors, lawyers, mer-
chants and colonial admin-
istrators, Dr. Blumenthal
said. Then during World