JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER
Right: Jerry Soble with his art.
Far right:"The Magician of
Lublin" was recently
installed at the JCC.
bronze hands anchored on pedestals.
Perilous as the walk is, the charac-
ter maintains his equilibrium and
perseveres — a characteristic of the
Jew.
"The basic premise of The Magi-
cian of Lublin' is all through those
traumatic times, this so-called
tightrope we're on, where do we go?
How do we balance ourselves so we
don't fall off?
"Sometimes it's a preoccupation
for certain individuals. Most people
involved in Judaism, most people
who have a Jewish soul, so to speak,
will feel this sense of imbalance,"
said the 66-year-old Mr. Soble, a for-
mer president of Congregation B'nai
David who currently belongs to Beth
Abraham Hillel Moses.
The mime's mask signifies the dis-
guises some of us wear to hide our
Jewishness, he explained.
The smile? All of Mr. Soble's fig-
urative sculptures, including two
bronze busts inside the Maple/Drake
JCC, are distinguished by their hap-
py expressions. The mimes are no
exception.
"Most of my mimes have smiles
on their faces because even though
things become precarious for us,
we never lose our sense of humor.
There are always others worse
off, and people don't want to hear
your tsuris (troubles), so smile," he
added.
PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPPITT
erched delicately
on a tightrope,
one foot poised to
take a step, the
mime grins broad-
ly while jauntily
holding up a
parasol.
In sculptor Jer-
ry Soble's mind,
the image is em-
blematic of the Jewish
experience.
`There are external forces
that sometimes give us a
push, but we've always been
engaged in some type of bal-
ancing act, trying to main-
tain our Jewish identity," he said.
Mr. Soble's "The Magician of
Lublin" was recently installed near
the entrance of the Jimmy Prentis
Morris Jewish Community Center
in Oak Park. The 7-foot cast bronze
sculpture was donated to the JCC
by the Benard Maas Foundation,
which bequeathed another Soble
sculpture to the Maple/Drake JCC
three years ago. That features a
mime climbing a rope and sits near
the front entrance of the building.
"In both [sculptures], from Jerry's
point of view and ours, there is a
wonderful, playful, mystical element
that responds to the individual's re-
lation to Jewish life," said Dr. Mor-
ton Plotnick, executive vice president
of the JCC.
Mr. Soble, who spends
half the year in Orchard
Lake Township and the
other half in Sarasota,
Fla., where he maintains
a second studio, has cre-
ated 16 mime sculptures,
including the West
Bloomfield piece, as part
of his "Control Series."
"The Magician of
Lublin," named for a folk-
loric character whose
mental alertness kept
him out of harm's way,
features a hatted, be-
gloved, masked mime
with a happy face who
walks a rope held tautly
at either end by two large
sing Act
The Jewish Community Center
receives a gilt of a sculpture
that is both whimsical and
metaphorical.
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