$1.4TERIVATIONA ■ L

HONORS FIRST "WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT"

JEANNIE WEINER

"Singlish," is crafted so that it not only
reflects the meaning of prayers, but can
be sung simultaneously with the
Hebrew.
"We love Joe's work," said Ellen
Bernstein, director of the Philadelphia
Federation's Jewish continuity project,
who discovered Lewis while searching
for a fully transliterated siddur, some-
thing in short supply. Together, Lewis
and Bernstein customized the siddur to
meet Friday Night Alive's needs.
"This prayerbook is so simple to fol-
low," said Bernstein. "Many people
want to participate in services and they
can't with most other prayerbooks,
because they're big, heavy and difficult
to find your way around."
Since Friday Night Alive was
launched last year, Lewis has sold more
than 1,200 copies of the siddur to
Philadelphia congregations. He is
launching marketing efforts — so far to
no avail — with. Detroit synagogues.
"It's a little hard to penetrate the
local market because we don't have a
program similar to the Philadelphia
one," said Lewis, sitting in his home
office, a tidy room brightly decorated
with pictures and stickers donated by
Lewis' three children. "It takes a long
time for this kind of thing to take hold
in a synagogue."
Lewis' one-man company, the
Singlish Publication Society (jokingly
called the Joe-ish Publication Society
until the Philadelphia-based Jewish
Publication Society threatened Lewis
with a cease and desist order), also sells
a fully explanatory Passover haggadah
that Lewis claims is "guaranteed to
make your seder more fun than ever" as
well as a book on how to produce and
direct Purim plays.
The books are available at Judaica
stores, bookstores and on the Internet.
The Singlish homepage at
(http://members.aol.com/singlishps)
reflects Lewis' somewhat quirky sense
of humor, boasting his victory several
years ago in a national "worst poetry"
competition and selling customized
acrostic poems (in which a word or
name is written vertically, and a hori-
zontal line of verse begins with each
letter). He said he sells his poems at the
rate of "Scrabble value (of the letters)
times the last digit of the year."
For years, Lewis wrote and directed
satiric Purim plays, which included
such titles as "Shushan [Shush And]
Sitdown," "The Shushan Boys" and
"The Joy of Sects." The plays, at
Congregation Beth Shalom, ended after
some fellow congregants halted produc-
tion of "Jewrassic Park," offended by its

plot in which anti-Semitism is extinct
until someone creates a theme park
bringing notorious Jew-haters back to
life.
Lewis' publishing business took of
when, while planning his eldest daugh-
ter's bat mitzvah, he couldn't find a
bentscher (booklet with the blessing
after meals and Shabbat songs) accessi-
ble for relatives who didn't read
Hebrew. He decided to make his own,
and then began adapting it for other
occasions.
Tom Wexelberg-Clouser, who leads
High Holiday services with Lewis at
the Jimmy Prentis Morris Jewish
Community Center in Oak Park,
admires his friend's skills as a translator.
"His choice of words frequently cap-
tures the idea of the Hebrew original
while connecting to a very contempo-
rary American, and sometimes British,
flavor," he said. "They also convey a
sense of personal commitment and
piety."
Lewis, who has a doctorate in
English and makes his living primarily
through consulting work in communi-
cations, marketing and Web site design,
grew up in Bournemouth, a British
resort town with several kosher hotels.
Lewis met his wife, Bobbi, an
American studying abroad, when she
volunteered with him in running a
Zionist youth movement, Hanoar
Hatzioni. In 1976, the couple moved
here and have remained rooted on their
heavily Jewish, tree-lined street in north
Oak Park ever since.
The family was active in B'nai
Moshe for years, where Lewis studied
chazzanut with Cantor Louis Klein.
Shortly before B'nai Moshe moved to
West Bloomfield, they switched to Beth
Shalom, where Lewis now teaches
Hebrew school.
"I think Joe is just a tremendously
creative individual," said Beth Shalom
Rabbi David Nelson. "I'm honored to
have him among my congregants
because he's thoughtful about all the
issues and is so literate and knowledge-
able."
Lewis acknowledges that some of his
irreverence is offensive, but says he
wants not to annoy, but to make
Judaism fun and accessible. "You need
to have a way for people to come to the
synagogue and participate without any
prior training," he said. "You have to
make the synagogue a welcoming place
where people can walk in and feel com-
fortable.
"I want to make people love being
Jewish so much that they laugh out
loud." ❑

Thursday, October 29, 1998
11:45 a.m.

ADAT SHALOM SYNAGOGUE

29901 Middlebelt Road
Farmington Hills, Michigan

ESTHER APPLEBAUM AND LUCILLE GERSTEN

Special Gifts Chairmen

SALLY LIPPITT

Reservations Chairman

248-353-4477

CHARLOTTE EDELHEIT AND IDA NATHAN

Luncheon Co-Chairmen
$100 Minimum Contribution per person

$25 Luncheon Covert

BETSY WINKELMAN

Honorary Chairman
Honorary Committee

Penny Blumenstein
Pearlena Bodzin
Tillie Brandwine
Barbara and Jerry Cook
Elaine Driker
Carol Weintraub Fogel
Arline Gould
Diane Klein
Nancy and Harold Kulish

Ellen Labes
Congressman Sander Levin
Janet Levine
Florence and Arnold Michlin
Evelyn Noveck
Barbara Nusbaum
Judy Rosenberg
Dulcie Rosenfeld
Florin Mark Ross

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• ir A, V a. A

A

N 4 I V. 3 11' I I I I

r #

I

Janice Schwartz
Kathleen Straus
Brent Triest
Howard Wallach
Lucille Weisberg
Allen Zemmol
Ann Zousmer

♦

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10111

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(ad Rem, Radom

Tuesday
October 20th
7:30 p.m.
Orchestra Hall
Detroit, Michigan

AN
EVENING
TO
BENEFIT
KAD I MA

JEWISH RESIDENTIAL& SUPPORT SERVICES
FOR ADULTS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

FOR TICKETS & MORE INFORMATION CALL

• '(248) 559-8235 • Fax (248) 559-0229"

• a. •

V

Detroit Jewish News

10/9
1998

19

