Temple Shir Shalom and a black Baptist church share holidays and friendships.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN Staff Writer

Above: Rabbi Michael Moskowitz and Blanche Mindlin
light Shabbat candles.

Right: Rev. Robert Bailey addresses the congregation.

10/17
1997

14

BILL HANSEN Photographer

very year on the Shabbat between
Rosh Hashanah and. Yom Kippur,
Temple Shir
Shalom invites its
sister congregation, the Trinity
Baptist Missionary Church in
Pontiac, to services. It's part of
that black-Jewish friend thing.
For three years, church
members and worshipers from
the Reform temple in West
Bloomfield have been praying
and working together toward
a common goal: peace.
"It's been a wonderful rela-
tionship," says Rabbi Dannel
Schwartz. "Our youth groups
have gotten together --- in the
cold winter months [we] bring blankets to the
homeless of Pontiac."
The relationship that has grown between

Schwartz and the Rev. Robert Bailey has
"been a phenomenal thing," says Schwartz.
- "To me, it's what's known
as tikkun am, repair of the
world."
This year, the congrega-
tions gathered on Friday,
Oct. 3.
"Both of us have been
under a little bit of siege so-
to-speak," said Schwartz.
"Some people have said he
shouldn't speak to Jewish
audiences, and I've been
told that I shouldn't be
opening up a Shabbat ser-
vice, in the middle of the
holiest time of the year, for
a minister to be preaching. But I believe it's
one of the mission statements of our com-
bined faith."