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"YES THERE IS
LIFE AFTER
BREAST CANCER.
AND THAT'S THE
WHOLE POINT:'

Obituaries

•

Obituaries are updated regularly and archived on JN Online:
www.detroitjewishnews.com

The

Sound

q f The

City

—Ann Jillian

Cantor Israel I. Idelsohn

DAVID SACHS
Staff Writer

I

A lot of women are so afraid
of breast cancer they don't want
to hear about it.
And that's what frightens me.
Because those women won't
practice breast self-examination
regularly.
Those women, particularly
those over 35, won't ask their
doctor about a mammogram.
Yet that's what's required for
breast cancer to be detected early.
When the cure rate is 90%. And

5/5
2000

158

when there's a good chance it
won't involve the loss of a breast
But no matter what it
involves, take it from someone
who's been through it all.
Life is just too wonderful to
give up on. And, as I found out,
you don't have to give up on any
of it. Not work, not play, not even
romance.
Oh, there is one thing, though.
You do have to give up being
afraid to take care of yourself.

s/AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY'

4

Get a checkup. Life is worth it.

srael I. Idelsohn's lifelong

ambition was to be a full-time
cantor, but after immigrating
from Latvia in 1938, econom-
ics dictated otherwise.
He eventually wound up selling
goods door to door in Detroit
neighborhoods like the Brewster
housing projects, a mile north of
downtown.
Decades later, and a mile south,
he realized his dream — serving 19
years until his death on April 30 as
cantor of the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue. The racially and geo-
graphically diverse Conservative
congregation is the only synagogue
meeting weekly in the city of
Detroit.
Cantor Idelsohn, 85, of
Southfield, conducted Shabbat ser-
vices the day before he died. At his
funeral May 2 at Clover Hill Park
Cemetery Chapel, he was musically
saluted by cantorial contemporaries
Harold Orbach of Temple Israel,
Larry Vieder of Adat Shalom
Synagogue, Sidney Resnick of
Windsor's Congregation Beth El and

Chaim Najman of Congregation
Shaarey Zedek, with many other
cantors in attendance.
Said Cantor Najman, national
president of the Cantors Assembly,
"He was a good colleague, a good
friend and, as evidenced by the
turnout today, his colleagues valued
that relationship very much."
Cantor Idelsohn's retail career led
to his owning an army-navy surplus
store, Triple I, in Detroit and later
Rochester. But he always sang on
the High Holidays, helping out syn-
agogues over the years in Mt.
Clemens, Silver Spring, Md., and St.
John, New Brunswick, Canada. For
the past two decades, many Detroit-
area Jews worshipped with the can-
tor at the Downtown Synagogue's
High Holiday services, held most
recently at the Millennium Theatre
Center in Southfield, where he
would perform the Musaf, Kol Nidre
and Neila services.
Cantor Idelsohn studied both litur-
gy and opera in his native Riga,
Latvia. He performed with the
Detroit Opera Company and studied
voice at the Detroit Institute of
Musical Art under Anthony Marlowe.
He formed a kinship with Downtown