HASCA T A 1110 a HAPPY NEW YEAR OPEN 7 DAYS • LUNCH & DINNER featuring Art On A Prayer • AUTHENTIC JAPANESE CUISINE AS YOU LIKE IT! • Elegant Atmosphere • Gracious Warmth • Reasonable Prices * Sushi Bar * Private Japanese Rooms * Cocktails Including 30 Different Kinds of Sake Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11:30-2 p.m. • Dinner: Mon.-Sat. 5:30-10:30 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. 737 - 7220 Fax: 737 - 7223 32443 NORTHWESTERN HWY. Between Middlebelt & 14 Mile Visit us on the web www.hakatashushi.com Ann Arbor's Lauren Isenberg Zinn discovers a talent for art through a return to Judaism. LYNNE MEREDITH COHN Special to the Jewish News IV 01911116MSHEO OESTOURONTS OF NORTH IIMEMCll 19978140RO OF EXCELLENCE We Sincerely Wish Our Custotriers and Friendd a Healthy tuzd Happy New Year!! 30715 W. TEN MILE RD. (Just East of Orchard Lake Rd.) 248.474.3033 Distinto Italiano MOLLY and HERMAN YAGODA Wish Their Family and Friends A Happy and Heatthy New Year MC VEE'S 23380 TELEGRAPH, South of 10 Mile Rd. • Southfield • (248) 352-8243 frappu Xeir sear! Best wishes for health and GREAT MENU:4141-14 GREAT FOOD: GREAT LOW PRICES: (1/2 Orders Available) 0/ 0 OFF AINT DINNER With This Ad •Limit 1 Coupon Per Couple • Expires 12/31/98 • BIG ROCK Enjoy GOURMET DINING by Former Chefs at Giorgio's & Peter's K owe . *est Side 4g=.101 qIonnie SC.rman„,rePage 9/18 1998 1.16 Detroit Jewish News OPEN 7 DAYS 8 p.m.-9p.m. 6393 Farmington Road, Just N. of Maple (Next to the Sports Club) • West Bloomfield (248) 626-3722; hen Lauren Isenberg Zinn wanted to infuse her life with more Judaism, she faced a stumbling block: remembering the Friday night Shabbat prayers. To help herself along, the Ann Arbor-based artist created The Blessings. A set of four framed and painted can- vas "cheat sheets," the series of wall hangings show the Kiddush, the Shabbat candles, the challah and the blessing of the children, each with the proper prayer in Hebrew. So began a journey that has taken Zinn deeper into her Jewish roots and encouraged a bevy of artistic endeavors. Despite years at Congregation Shaarey Zedek and many summers spent at the Conservative movement's Camp Ramah, Zinn, who grew up in Birmingham, "wanted something more, and I wasn't finding it." For a while, she looked into other religions to find the spiritual fulfillment she needed, and for 10 years found "spiri- tual sustenance" in Eastern religions. But then a couple of dreams and a serendipitous four-day trip to Israel brought her home. "In the summer of 1996, I had a dream about a friend who lives in - Israel," Zinn recalls. "I started having dreams about the Torah service, so I decided to go [back to] Israel. I hadn't been [there] in 17 years. "Just being in Israel and staying with my friend, who had become religious, [reconnected me] with the land and the people and the language," she says. When she returned to Ann Arbor, Zinn started going to services at Beth Israel, a synagogue where she had taught Sunday school a decade earlier. She wanted to bring more Judaism into her home, too. "My friend had mezuzot on all her doors, and I wanted to do that," she recalls. But the cost of buying mezuzah covers and scrolls for each doorway ran high. Zinn decided to make the covers herself. Using canvas fabric and paint to create the covers and squares of velcro on the backs, she" secured the hand- AEI made mezuzot to every door frame in her two-story home, and went on for a time to sell the canvas covers, at a modest price, at both the Ann Arbor and West Bloomfield Jewish commu- nity centers. Zinn, who has a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan, a master's in philosophy from York University in Toronto and a."'" 4 doctorate in educational planning . Lauren Isenberg Zinn displays a wall hanging that ePicts special memories of her father. from the U-M, now sells her work by commission only. She is not fond of art that doesn't have a use. The earthy innovator insists that her creations have a practi- cal, as well as a pretty,_side. The wall hangings instruct her on what prayers to say. The affordable and artistic mezuzot covers are a mitzvah, she says. The artist also created a Shabbat bag, with Shabbat prayers on one side, prayers for Havdalah on the other, and inside, the paraphernalia for observing the Sabbath. She has crafted pillows and quilts from pictures and memorabilia of peo- ple who have been important in her life, and everything, insists Zinn, must be washable. There is a small room in Zinn's Ann 4•4