Rht: Blake Kownacki, 23,
of Kalamazoo, jams during
an air-guitar performance.

Be

Scene

woftlikosAIVI .

Young adults say
farewell to
"Seinfeld" at the
first - J.D.'s Key
Club Scene Party.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN

Scene Editor

I

t was a warm, spring night in down-
town Pontiac when a group of
young Jewish adults gathered at the
popular dueling piano bar, J.D.'s
Key Club, for an adios to the "Seinfeld"
TV show.
They danced and bopped to the bouncy
piano tunes on May 6 and got an idea of
what goes into making The Scene. Keep
your eyes open for the next Scene party.

Mindy Kolender, 26, and Aric Melder, 27,
both of Birmingham, fill out a song request.

John Gallas and Kim Menges, of
Pennsylvania, enjoy the rockin' crowd.

Was this place packed! Shira Lauder, 21, of West Bloomfield?
Sage Prigozen, 22, of Long Island, NY, and Scene Editor
Lynne Meredith Cohn are rapt in conversation.

Those piano
players sure
do , duel!

SPIRITUALITY from page 80

what I want my children to have, Friday
night being the winding down, sitting
around the table together, much more
than Judaism, being together."

Adam Chalom
After a lifetime growing up at the
Birmingham Temple, Adam, 22, is pur-
suing rabbinic ordination in the
Humanistic movement. He lives in Bev-
erly Hills and keeps an apartment in
Ann Arbor, where he is completing a
master's degree at the University of
Michigan in conjunction with his rab-
binic program at the International Insti-
tute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in
Farmington Hills.

6/5
1998

82

What does spirituality mean to you?
"I think, in general, spirit can be one
of two things: people usually mean
either the sort of spirituality you have in
the word 'spiritualist,' 'supernatural spir-
it' or the 'spirit world.'
"When I use the word, what I mean
by it is the sense of raising the human
spirit, to keep up your spirit. What does
that for me are things like nature, feel-
ing part of groups larger than myself, so
that raises my spirit, and so that's spiri-
tuality for me."

What does God mean to you?
"It represents an idea that people cre-
ated to represent the power that they

needed and the knowledge that they
didn't have and the ideals that they
wanted."

What does Judaism mean to you?
"Judaism is basically what Jews do.
It's the culture and civilization of the
Jewish people. It includes food, religion,
language, history — everything that
goes under the title of culture and civi-
lization."

How does it fit into your life?
"My case is probably not typical,
because I get paid to do this. The way I
work it into my life, on the one hand,
are the choice of activities I do recre-
ationally.

"For example, if I pick a book to
read, on Jewish history or Persian
empire, I choose Jewish history. When I
pick a special event to go to, I look at
the listings of Jewish events going on in
the area and Jewish holidays, and in
general
go to those events.
"When I read the newspaper, I find
articles on Israel and Jewish issues and I
read those first, strike me as the ones
that are both interesting and directly rel-
evant to me.
"You don't have to radically reorder
your life to make your Jewish identity
important. It's a matter of, when you're
making your choices, is it included as -
one of the options?"

–\

c_/\