Little Oak Park shul known as I.V.trai Zion
maintains its retired rabbi's Tegacy and
remains a', spirituale-force.
DEBRA ISAACS Special to the Jewish News
KRISTA HUSA Staff photographer
en-men are -ven-
ing,-kicluding 13-
year-old Menachem
Davis. Each is
enveloped in pri-
vate and mournful
prayer as the Yom
Kippurkatan- service nears its end,
somewhere before 9 p.m. May 9.
Though they have fasted all day
and have been on their feet for
most of it, a sense of jubilance
greets the darkening sky.
B'nai Zion is, perhaps, the
only shul in the Detroit area
that observes the "small" Yom
Kippur most every month
before Rosh Chodesh. It's also
the only place that holds regular
sunrise services. In the summer-
time, that means 5:45 a.m.
Those are two reasons that B'nai Zion attracts
a loyal contingent of worshippers who could be
davening much closer to home.
Wedged in a narrow lot at the corner of Nine
Mile and Avon roads, just east of Greenfield in
south Oak Park, B'nai Zion is located at the far
reaches of the Orthodox community of Oak Park.
It is in a neighborhood that is primarily
African American, with a smattering of
Lubavitchers who have their own minyanim
(prayer quorums). Its longtime rabbi has left. A
new lockbox at the main entrance and a recent
coat of paint are the only signs it is still in use.
While it is difficult to count the number of
Detroit-area shtiebels, roughly defined as intimate,
informal and often home-based synagogues, a few
others are located south of 10 Mile in Oak Park,
including Kahal Chareidim on Burton Street and
Minyan Avreichim on Dartmouth.
B'nai Zion is not technically a shtiebel,
although its home was once a private residence.
But its members consider it such.
"It's an old-time shtiebel. It's a warm place," said
Stuart Newman, B'nai Zion's president, gabbai (sex-
ton) and janitor.
Shtiebels were once the province of Chasidim,
whose communal praying tended to center on
the style and teachings of a master, said Rabbi
Moshe Krupka, national director of community
and synagogue services for the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
In the early part of the 20th Century, shtiebels
were the norm because few people had the
resources to build "cathedral-type" synagogues.
Those came in the 1950s and 1960s.
STILL A BEACON on page 16
Above: Aharon Meer of Oak Park davens.
Facing page: ffnai Zion at Nine Mile and Avon
roads in Oak Park.
5/17
2002
15