Bringing Sukkot Home

Temple Kol Ami workshop offers holiday study and sukkah-building tips.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer

IV

hile Temple Kol Ami religious school students are in classes on
Sunday, Sept. 23, their parents and other adults will be studying,
too."Sukkah-Rama: Bringing Sukkot Home," a hands-on adult
education program, stemmed from questions many of the congre-
gants had about the holiday of Sukkot and building a sukkah, or booth. The
event, open to the community, will be held 9:30 a.m.-noon at Ealy Elementary
School in West Bloomfield.
When Patti Feenstra, coordinator of the first-time program, realized that Bruce
Katz has been holding demonstration workshops on building sukkot for 15
years, she invited the Kol Ami member to participate.
For many years, Katz's business, John R Lumber, was in Berkley, near a heavily
Jewish area where many families built sukkot each year. "They'd find out our
store has Jewish owners and that we carried the supplies they needed, so they
would come to us for help," says Katz, whose business now is at 7940 Cooley
Lake Road in Waterford.
In time, Katz and his staff became experts in the sukkah-building business,
holding workshops at various synagogues and supplying materials for sukkot at
such places as Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit and the home of Kol
Ami Rabbi Norman Roman.

Sukkah-Building 101

Katz understands that figuring out what supplies to purchase and how to assem-
ble them is mind-boggling enough to be a deterrent to many.
"But for me, it's something I know how to do, and being able to teach other
people feels good," he says.
In addition to his workshops, which he calls Sukkah-Building 101, Katz makes
himself available at his store. He suggests starting out with a ball of string that
can be set out on an area of grass or deck where a Sukkah can be built to deter-
mine the size. He says some even take a table and chairs outside to see exactly
how much room they'll need.
"Then we provide everything they need to build a sukkah to their own specifi-
cations, from doors to pre-drilled wooden walls, lattice work and hardware," he
says.
"Over the 15 years that I've been doing this,
we've made a lot of configurations," says Katz, who
also gets requests for additions to pre-existing
Sukkot. He even offers decorating tips and a lami-
nated poster of a Sukkot prayer and has staff for
hire to build Sukkot and take them down for stor-
age after the holiday.
Cost varies depending on size. Katz will be avail-
able at the workshop for questions and orders.
The hands-on holiday program is the first of a
series of Kol Ami workshops, with others planned
before Chanukah and Passover.
"We hope parents who come to the program will
take home what they learn to their children,"
Rabbi Norman Roman
Feenstra says. In addition to the Sukkah-building
workshop, other sessions will be held.
SEMCOEJL (Southeast Michigan Coalition on the Environment and Jewish
Living) will talk about environmental themes of Sukkot, and JEFF (Jewish

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2001

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A group of Kol Ami members get out their sukkah-building sup-
plies outside the synagogue. Shown in back row are Andrea and
Josef Roisman of Franklin and William Faber of West Bloomfield.
Front row: Ethan Freedman, 5, and his father Chuck of Walled
Lake and Jeff Schulman of West Bloomfield.

Experiences or Families) will help bring the Sukkot observance into the home.
Rabbi Roman will lead a study session. "We'll look at some of the midrashic
(biblical parable) literature interpretation as well as some of the historical refer-
ences to the holiday," Rabbi Roman says. "Not so much to the constructing of
sukkot but to the lulav and etrog and how the holiday may have been celebrat-
ed in Jerusalem, especially at the time of the Second Temple."
"The program is geared toward busy parents who don't always take time to
learn about the holidays," Feenstra says. The hope is to offer insight into
Sukkot on many levels, all in one place, in a single morning.

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Temple Kol Arni's "Sukkah-Rama: Bringing Sukkot Home" will be held
Sunday, Sept. 23 at Ealy Elementary School, 5475 W Maple Road, West
Bloomfield. 9:30-9:45 a.m., coffee and donuts; 9:45-10:15 a.m. Sukkot
overview with Rabbi Norman Roman; 10:15-11:15 a.m. breakout sessions:
Environmental Themes of Sukkot led by SEMCOEJL; Sukkot Text Study with
Rabbi Roman; Bringing Sukkot into Your Home with JEFF; and 11:15-11:45
a.m. Sukkah-Building Workshop with Bruce Katz. S5 donation suggested.
For information or to make reservations for the program, call Temple Kol
Ami at (248) 661-0040. For information and materials to build a Sukkah, call
Bruce Katz at John R Lumber, (248) 363-7103.

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