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Water Wars

MR. ALAN'S

SHOES & SPORTSWEAR

Building \a new Orthodox mikvah on community land
has a Conservative rabbi up in arms.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN

Staff Writer

A

EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS

WEST BLOOMFIELD (248) 626-3362
SOUHFIELD (248) 559-7818

IleiqUorhood Center

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3/13
1998

12

WEST BLOOMFIELD • MICHIGAN
Orchard Lake Road • North of Maple

(248) 851-7727

s the Orthodox community
gets closer to breaking
ground for a new mikvah,
Rabbi David Nelson. is cry-

ing foul.
At issue is the fact that the mikvah
site is on Federation property behind
the Jimmy Prentis Morris Jewish
Community Center (JPM); Nelson, of
the Conservative Congregation Beth
Shalom, believes the mikvah should
thus be available to the entire commu-
nity, but it has been designated as an
Orthodox-only ritual bath.
Although Federation contributed
the land for the new mikvah, all the
money raised to build it has come from
the Orthodox community. The Ortho-
dox community has outgrown Mivkah
Israel, just west of the JPM on 10 Mile
Road. It needs a larger mikvah to
accommodate the 4,000 women a year
who use it to follow taharat hamish-
pachah (laws of family purity).
Taharat hamishpachah requires a
husband and wife to refrain from
physical contact for a period of at least
12 days, beginning the first day of the
wife's menstruation. At the end of the
period, they may resume contact after
she visits the mikvah.
"I understand there's a great
demand, but once it's on community

Nelson has used the mikvah at
ground, don't you think there's a
Temple Israel for conversions.
responsibility to the entire communi-
"It's a beautiful mikvah, but we've
ty?" said Nelson. "I feel that it is really
been spoiled. We want our own. In
a slap in the face ... They should have
matters of Jewish law, we have Con-
figured out a way that we would use it
a little bit, so that it wouldn't commu- servative mohelim, we have a Conser-
vative mikvah," he said. "I don't feel
nicate that when we use it, it's treife
usage, but the real users are among the that we should give the impression
that when you get serious about
more traditional."
Judaism, you go to the
Nelson said there are
Orthodox.
other reasons he is coming Above left: Mikvah
Israel in Oak Park has
"There's a lot of con-
out now against the
outgrown its usefulness. cern that we're going to be
Orthodox-only rule:
bereft of a mikvah," Nel-
Detroit's only Conservative
Top right: One of two
son continued.
mikvah, housed at Beth
mikvaot at Mikvah
Detroit is home to four
Achim, will no longer be
Israel
mikvaot — Mikvah Israel,
available if the building is
Beth Achim, Bais Chabad
sold. Beth Achim and Adat Bottom right: The
of West Bloomfield and
Shalom Synagogue are
proposed site for a new
Temple
Israel. Temple
conducting merger talks.
Orthodox mikvah is
Israel's
mikvah
is one of
Nelson doesn't have a
adjacent to and behind
two
Reform
mikvaot
in
problem with the Ortho-
the Jewish Communi ty
dox needing a mikvah for Center in Oak Park, on North America.
Mikvah Israel is over 30
taharat hamishpachah; his Federation land.
years old, lacks a sophisti-
beef is that the Orthodox
community will not allow Opposite page: Mikvah cated chlorination system
and, with only two tubs
non-Orthodox rabbis to
Israel's six changing
use it for conversions. He rooms make it difficult and six changing rooms, is
performs about 20 conver- for women to get in and too small to accommodate
the growing number of
out quickly.
sions per year.
women who use it. The
Beth Achim's Rabbi
new facility will feature two tubs and
Herbert Yoskowitz said the mikvah is
between 12 and 16 changing rooms.
used "very often for conversion, and
Leah Lange, Mikvah Israel's mikvah
it's open to the entire community.
attendant, said when she began 12
Before they built a mikvah at Temple
years ago, about 1,500 women went to
Israel, the Reform were coming here."

