All The World's A Stage
Below: Jordan
Berman will be
confident in
front of the
crowd.
: • -,4KA`PA-ke.?
Earth Angel brothers Jared (stage manager), Jordan and Evan Berman.
Jordan Berman is about to turn in another performance
as he takes the bimah this weekend.
JULIE EDGAR
Special to The Jewish News
Berman put in the min-
i " ordan
imum two hours of commu-
nity service required of bar
mitzvah boys when he sorted
and packaged food last year at Yad
Ezra with his Hebrew school class
from Adat Shalom.
But the contribution struck him as
"puny." So this summer, Berman spent
a month visiting the Fleischman Resi-
dence twice-weekly to dance and bowl
with residents.
It was not only fun, he said, but it
got his performing group, the 20-
member Earth Angels, a gig on
Grandparents Day in mid-September.
The residents at Fleischman, on the
Jewish Community Campus in West
Bloomfield, enjoyed his visits, too.
"While he was here, we probably
had the largest bowling group we had
in a long time," said Myrna Katz, pro-
gram director at Fleischman. "I think
he's an exceptional young man. He's
very outgoing. He came here and was-
n't at all shy about going over to the
residents and dancing with them."
Berman, a seventh grader at Warner
Middle School in Farmington Hills,
began performing with the troupe
when he was 10. A substitute teacher
who had watched him lip-synch his
way through Elvis Presley's "Heart-
break Hotel" during a school variety
show contacted him a few years later
and invited him to audition.
Earth Angels, a lip-synching ensem-
ble that practices in whoever's base-
ment is biggest, has played at Adat
Shalom, in school gymnasiums, soup
kitchens, and for the first time, at Dis-
ney World this summer. After Jordan
joined, he got his brothers Evan, 10,
and Jared, 8, involved, along with his
mom, Susie.
Naturally, Jordan isn't at all nervous
about his bar mitzvah Saturday at
Adat Shalom. He is in an accelerated
Hebrew class with teacher Clara Gaba
and feels confident that he knows his
stuff.
"I know I still need to practice a lit-
tle, but I feel confident I could do it
right now," he said.
After services, guests will head to a
"really big dancing party" — Jordan's
Dream Cruise — at the Parthenon
House.
Jordan thinks he might pursue a
career in the performing arts, or at the
very least, in the arts. He likes to read
Japanese comic books and watch
Japanese cartoons and "Buffy, The
Vampire Slayer," plus draw Japanese
comic book characters. CI
10/9
1998
Detroit Jewish News
67