Sefer Torah
Dedication

Torah Portion

Love Across The Street

Two synagogues

on Lincoln Road

make wedding

a community

celebration.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

T

he group of festively dressed party-
goers who formed a human bridge
between Congregation Beth Shalom
and Dovid Ben Nuchim in north Oak
Park were actually guests at a two-synagogue cel-
ebration of a wedding.
The marriage of Reva Nelson of Southfield
and Dr. Daniel Kaplan of Huntington Woods
took place the evening of June 23-at Beth
Shalom, a Conservative synagogue. Its rabbi is
the bride's father, Rabbi David Nelson.
Prior to the ceremony, however, 500 guests
filled the Orthodox shul Dovid Ben Nuchim,
down the street on Lincoln Road, for kabbalat
panim (receiving guests). The bride was greeted
from a "wedding throne" while the groom was

feted with song and toasts. Later came the tradi-
tion of bedeken (the veiling of the bride). "This
was really a show of congregations working
together," says Alicia Nelson, the bride's mother.
When the families realized there was not
enough room at Beth Shalom to accommodate
the guests, they were invited by the neighboring
congregation to hold part of the celebration
there. "It felt as though we were making a wed-
ding celebration for the community," says Alicia
Nelson, whose guests were seen dancing across
Lincoln.
The bride was chauffeured between the syna-
gogues in a vintage car provided by guest
Howard Fridson of Huntington Woods. After
the ceremony, guests once again braved the heat,
streaming back outside where the party took the
shape of a giant, lively circle of dancing and cel-
ebrating in music and song. ❑

Clockwise from top:
Wedding guests cross the street between
Dovid Ben Nuchim and Beth Shalom.

The bride dances with her mother,
Alicia Nelson.

Rabbi David Nelson, his daughter
Reva and the bridegroom,
Dr. Daniel Kaplan, at the signing of
the ketubah, or wedding contract.

7/12
2002

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