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SCHOOL OF DANCE

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Proudly announces the Opening of our new addition!

November 3rd

we are offering new classes in

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"The Swing' ,

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(248) 553-0305

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10/24

1997

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Cultural Tuneup

Aiming to send teens'
Jewish commitment
into higher key.

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Call Now! Dance your way to the Top!

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STEWART AIN
Special to The Jewish News

ewish day schools, Jewish
summer camps and trips to °
Israel have been found to be
instrumental in shaping one's
Jewish identity. Now, New York UJA-
Federation's Jewish Continuity
Commission is trying another
approach: singing.
Three new Jewish coed choral
groups composed of high school stu-
dents on Long Island, Staten Island
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and Westchester are being organized
with the help of a $40,000 grant from
the commission.
The grant was awarded to Hazamir:
The National Jewish High School
Choir, which was founded in 1993
and already has choral groups in
Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore and Houston.
"It is a safe, non-religious way to
express your cultural identity," said the
organization's founder, Matthew Lazar.
"The Jewish Continuity
Commission appreciated the fact we
had a unique and attractive way of
reaching out and touching teen-agers
who might otherwise be lost to
Judaism," he said.
Lazar noted that Jewish youngsters
who sing in their high school choirs
c
do so with no Jewish context and that
each December many of them end up
singing Christmas music.
"We can take those high standards
and the social possibilities choirs cre-
ate and put them in a Jewish context,"
he observed. "They will be in a Jewish
community, forming a Jewish musical
minyan."
There is no limit to the number of c;
teenagers who can sign up for the
choirs, which are geared for the musi-
cal novice as well for the musically
experienced.
"Everyone should come because we
find the repertoire that succeeds," said
Lazar.
"We try to make kids with a Jewish
education more musical, and give a
positive Jewish cultural identity to
those who have their musical skills
developed but have little Jewish con-
sciousness," he added.

❑

— New York Jewish Week

