PHO TO BY DANIEL L IPPITT

A quintessential

New Yorker,

Rabbi Dannel

Schwan has

found the

spotlight in the

Midwest.

UNE MEREINTH COM

STAFF WRITER

Shir Shalom's Rabbi Dannel Schwartz

0

n the wall in Dannel
Schwartz's office are framed
Andy Warhol portraits of
Martin Buber, Albert Ein-
stein and Louis Brandeis, the
rabbi's heroes. Those Pop Art
paintings — the style com-
bined with the subjects — illustrate the
kind of rabbi Dannel Schwartz aims to
be: contemporary, intelligent and out in
the world.
He is almost slick, but not quite. One-
of-a-kind. Stylish, charismatic. And he
always draws a crowd.
Other rabbis — "the impact they had
on other people, the impact they had on
me"— inspired Rabbi Schwartz to aspire
to the Reform rabbinate: rabbis like Ed
Klein and Stephen Wise, whom he knew
as a child in New York. The future Rab-
11 bi Schwartz grew up at the Stephen Wise
Free Synagogue, "the congregation that
basically housed Hebrew Union College."
Many of his religious school teachers
were HUC students, "men who were just
so neat and so kind. I was a little bit of
a cut-up in school."
The assistant rabbi, Gerrold Raiskin,
bet the young Dannel that if he won a
game of ping pong, the rabbi would buy
him an ice cream soda — after he learned
>-C.) his bar mitzvah Torah portion. If the rab-
bi won, young Dannel had to perfectly re-
cite two verses of his Torah portion.
"Either way, [Rabbi Raiskin] won. As
a 12-year-old, I didn't understand that,"

-

he recalls. To this day, the pair play ping
pong whenever they get the chance.
Nearly a decade ago, New York-born
Rabbi Schwartz left a rabbinic post at
Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills to
form a new congregation, Temple Shir
Shalom in West Bloomfield.
He left Beth El for many reasons. Some
thought, he says, that he was "too Jew-
ish, too theatrical, too New York, that a
rabbi should be an employee and there-
fore should do what he's told. I felt a rab-
bi is a partner in the congregation. It's a
very delicate role."
Some say Rabbi Schwartz was urged
to leave Beth El because he advocated a
return to tradition, including the wear-
ing of kippot and talleisim.
Not only did he lose his pulpit, his mar-
riage broke up. But, he says, it was all
"beshert."
. At first, 30 families followed him away
from Beth El. That became nearly 250
families who helped Rabbi Schwartz
found Shir Shalom, which for almost sev-
en years met in an office building on
Maple Road.
Next year, the congregation — which
now claims 770 member families — will
celebrate its 10th anniversary.
To attract new members, the rabbi
treated the congregation almost like a
business, taking out full-page ads in The
Jewish News "because nobody knew we
existed."
Some of those ads, encouraging inter-

marrieds and converts to join, drew the
ire of the Orthodox community; one ad
featured a drawing of the biblical Ruth
and Naomi with the headline: "Ruth in-
termarried, too. At Shir Shalom, we would
have made her part of the family."
Rabbi Schwartz makes no secret of the
fact that his shul is open to interfaith fam-
ilies. But, he says, people joined at first
because of him and his style. "People felt
a part of it and its foundations."
He sees the Reform and Conservative
movements in America "growing by leaps
and bounds. I see a tendency of [Reform
and Conservative] institutions, [which
have been] apologetic to [their] Orthodox
brethren, gaining a sense of self-worth.
These are our choices; this is what we
are."
There was also a silver lining to his love
life. In December of 1988, Rabbi Schwartz
married Suzi Romanik. "She's marvelous,
the most fun I've ever had in my life."
But it hasn't all been easy. When he
was 17, his best friend committed suicide.
The year before that, Rabbi Schwartz's
dad died. "The rabbi who did the funer-
als, and was basically there for me, taught
me a great deal about what it meant to
listen and to care."
When his friend died, he went through
a "crisis of faith," shying away from pur-
suing the rabbinate. Instead, he became
a page at NBC. Many of his colleagues
from those days later became executives
at the network.

But after a year, he looked for another
position, and ended up a volunteer writer
in the news department. That led to a job
as a copy boy — "news assistant" — where
he got donuts for the higher-ups and
passed out wire stories to reporters.
Finally, he got an assignment. He was
asked to write about the romantic rela-
tionship between Henry Sobel, then a 21-
year-old rabbinic student at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, and actress Mau-
reen O'Sullivan, then 65.
Due to that dalliance, Rabbi Schwartz
says, Mr. Sobel was asked to leave JTS.
He was later a classmate of Rabbi
Schwartz at HUC and is now the chief
rabbi of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
But ultimately, it was faith that took
Rabbi Schwartz to rabbinical school.
"I did a story at NBC on the Holocaust,
about the Jews of Denmark who were
freed. I got clips, real footage on the boat
lift. The end story is that 90 percent died."
But someone at NBC "stood up and
said, People want a happy story, so why
don't you just end it that they saved '-
them?' " Rabbi Schwartz thought, "No
truth, no decency."
Since then, he has seen two of his books
reach publication — On the Wings of Heal- -
ing and Finding Joy, A Practical Spiri- "j
=
tual Guide to Happiness.
"I went to rabbinical school because I --'
believe in my God and in my people. I'll
always be a rabbi — writer and rabbi,
teacher and rabbi."

