This Week

LOOKING FORWARD

Redefining Reform

from page 16

Ties To

Beth El

1VI any of our syna-

All photos courtci;y of Rabbi Leo M. FranOiniArdlives

Above: Sarah and Isaac Cozens, founders of the BetEl Society.

Below: Rabbi Daniel Syme

Baptist Church in Detroit. Together
they hive held holiday services and
prograrriMing, including special
appearances by civil rights activist
Coretta Scott King, ABC News Chief
Congressional,Analyst Cokie Roberts
and Morris Dee, director of the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
Beth El's annual concert for corn-
munity elders caters td\those in nurs-
ing homes, assisted-care facilities and
in private homes. Rabbi Syme calls it
"an afternoon of pure joy in their
honor."
He looks at the future as a time to
build upon such programs.
With a continuing emphasis on
social justice and communal organiza-
tion, Beth El maintains involvement
with such groups as the Orchards
Children's Services, Jewish • Association
for Residential Care and the Lovelight
Foundation.
In Beth El's more recent history,
Rabbi Sheila Goloboy became the tem-
ple's first woman rabbi in 1998. She
will be leaving the congregation for a
position in California this summer.
Programs Rabbi Syme
foresees continuing include
those spearheaded by fellow
Beth El clergy, including "the
incredible music programs
instituted by Cantor Dubov."
The cantor enjoys working
with the temple youth, pri-
marily the 25 young mem-
bers of The Kids Klez Band,
his group for students in
fifth- through 12th grades.
"They are truly dedicated
to being in the band," says

5/12

2000 •
18

Cantor Diibov, They've gotten profes-
sionaL experience when they were a*
hired to perform at weddings and bar
mitzvahs. Their pay is apportioned,
with a-do-nation made to the temple."
He delights in sharing how parents
are pleased to hear Jewish music com-
ing from their basements when
the kids practice at home. The –
group recently performed at
Disney World. in Orlando, Fla.,
during the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations' bienni-
al convention.
Looking to the secular
world, Cantor Dubov sees the
future of the synagogue in
computers.
Bar and bar mitzvah tutoring
now has a computerized com-
ponent. And a temple-spon-
sored class to teach grandpar-
ents to use the computer has
the requirement of e-mailing a
letter to a grandchild in order to pass.
He says a plan to hold services on the
Internet for the homebound also is in
the works.
Cantor Dubov praises
Rabbi Castiglione for
establishing a syna-
gogue Web site,
www.tbeonline.com ,
which includes songs
from religious services.
Rabbi Syme lauds as
"visionary," another of
Rabbi Castiglione's
accomplishments, the
Jewish Adventurer pro-
gram. Synagogue fami-
lies in the program are

.

gogues and clergy
can trace ties to
Temple Beth El, once the only
Jewish congregation in the
Detroit area.
• Congregation Shaarey
Zedek split off from Beth El after
some temple members became
increasingly uncomfortable with
changes in the Reform ritual at
-Beth El. Shaarey Zedek's religious
philosophy embraced an
Orthodox path, but later became
Conservative. Rabbi Irwin
Groner of Shaarey Zedek says,
"Originally Beth El was the
Jewish congregation for the
Jewish community in 1862."
• Rabbi Norman Roman of
Temple Kol Ami once was an assis-
tant rabbi at Beth El (1982-85).
• When Temple Beth
Jacob in Pontiac faced
declining membership
and planned to dis-
band in 1992, congre-
gants looked to other
synagogues for mem-
bership.
Leslie Gowan,
archivist of the Rabbi
Leo M. Franklin
Archives at-Temple
Beth El, says most of
those who joined
other congregations,
chose Beth El. She
while the two
says
Rabbi
synagogues
did not
Leon
officially
merge,
all of
Fram
their memorabilia,
including their only
stained-glass window, their past
president's official portraitures,
ceremonial artwork and their his-
tory, documents and archives are
in the Beth El building.
• Several other congregations
were founded by former Beth El
members and leaders, who left to
begin their own synagogues. In
1941, Beth El assistant Rabbi Leon
Fram left the temple, along with
former President Morris Garvett
and some of the membership, to
form Temple Israel, the Detroit-

area's second Reform congregation.
Temple Israel Rabbi Harold
Loss describes Rabbi Fram as "an
active Zionist within the Reform
an\broader Jewish community"
at a iime when Zionism was not
in the fo‘front of the move-
ment.
"The fact that our name
includes 'Israel' is` fin indication
of Rabbi Fram's cornin-fitment
and devotion to the establish-
ment of the modern Jewish
state," Rabbi Loss says.
Maintaining that throughout
the history of the temple, he adds,
"We have taken more [people] to
Israel than perhaps any other con-
gregation in the country."
• Temple Shir Shalom was
started by Rabbi Dannel I.
Schwartz, an assistant rabbi who
became Beth El's senior rabbi in.
1982-1987. Some families came
with him when he founded Shir
Shalom in 1989.
• Temple Beth El in Flint has
the unusual distinction of form-
ing its Sisterhood before the syn-
agogue itself.
According to Rabbi Mark
Goldfarb, the congregation's
rabbi of four years, in the mid-
1920s, some Flint-area women
joined together to provide edu-
cation for Jewish Reform youth.
Soon after., they began to raise
funds to bring various rabbis to
town to lead holiday services for
the community. In 1927, the
women called upon Temple Beth
El's Rabbi Leo M. Franklin to
help them and the men of the
community to incorporate their
group into a synagogue.
Today, reaching unaffiliated
and interfaith families, stressing
adult and family education, the
congregation of 220 households
continues to grow.
Rabbi Goldfarb says Temple
Beth El in Flint follows the phi-
losophy of "progressive Judaism
in a friendly, family atmos-
phere," where the rabbi knows
most every congregant's name.
"We must be doing some-
thing right," he says, after citing
an increase of 60 member fami-
lies in the last three years. They
came from as far north as
Saginaw and as far south as
Waterford.

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— Shelli Liebman Dorfman