metro

Camp Reunion

Sunday, November 2, 2014
4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.

First-Time F ffon

Paradise Park

45799 Grand River Avenue, Novi, MI 48374

Shabbos Project leaders applaud
turnout, but plan to extend outreach.

Choose 2 activities:
Mini Golf, Laser Tag,
Mini Bowling and
Go Karting

Barbara Lewis

Contributing Writer

T

Enjoy Pizza, Pop & the
2014 Summer Video

Bring a Friend • All are Welcome • $10 per person
RSVP at 248-543-5697 or infoPwoodenacres.com
Hope to see you there! -- Harvey

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entering
grades2-5.
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information.

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A decade of summers, a lifetime of friendships

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he Shabbos Project was billed as a day that would unite the entire Jewish
community.
Dr. Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, started the Shabbos
Project last October by encouraging that country's Jews to celebrate one Shabbat
together. About 70 percent of South Africa's 75,000 Jews participated, he said.
This year Goldstein took the effort global. More than 400 cities in 64 countries
set up Shabbos Project committees to plan a communal challah bake, hosting for
Shabbat meals and a post-Shabbat concert. Jewish celebrities, including Mayim
Bialik and Paula Abdul, planned to participate.
The Shabbos Project in Detroit included the Great Big Challah Bake on Oct. 23,
attended by more than 300 women. On Friday night and Saturday, people shared
Shabbat meals at home. The event ended with a concert on Saturday night at
Young Israel of Oak Park. Hundreds of people of all ages, from toddlers to seniors,
attended the concert, which featured Michael Nadata and his Jewish rock band
from Merrick, N.Y.
Brian Wolf of Oak Park said the weekend was "magnificent" and a great way to
meet new friends. He and his wife, Risa, members of Young Israel of Oak Park,
registered on the Shabbos Project's website to be hosted for Shabbat meals. They
were invited for Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch by Hindy and Shneur
Feldman of Oak Park, whom they met for the first time.
Rabbi Dovid Lichtig, local director of NCSY (National Conference of Synagogue
Youth) and his wife, Chavie, of Oak Park, hosted 25 NCSY teens at a dinner
Friday night at Aish in the Woods in Oak Park. Chavie Lichtig did all the cooking.
The Lichtigs brought their three children, Shira, 6, Nosson, 4, and Tali, 2, to the
Saturday evening concert.
Aside from Thursday's challah bake, Detroit's Shabbos Project attracted a
mostly Orthodox crowd. Only a handful of non-Orthodox were in the audience
for the concert.
Detroit's celebration was coordinated by Partners in Torah, a program of
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in Southfield. The committee didn't get going until August
so the promotional effort wasn't as broad as it might have been.
Some non-Orthodox Detroiters learned about the Shabbos Project from articles
and ads in the Jewish News or from an email blast sent by the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit. But overall, non-Orthodox organizations and congregations
were not involved.
Conservative rabbis Robert Gamer of Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park
and Aaron Bergman of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills said they
would have participated if they had known more about the project. They received
flyers and posters but had no real sense of what the Shabbos Project was meant to
be or how they could involve their congregations.
In other cities, the Shabbos Project reached a broader audience. Dov Gardin, a
former Oak Park resident who now lives in West Orange, N.J., said the Orthodox
and Conservative congregations there worked together on Shabbos Project events.
The concluding concert was held at the Conservative synagogue.
In Durham, N.C., Dallas, Texas, and Palo Alto, Calif., the Jewish Community
Center hosted the challah bake and the concert.
Rabbi Bentzion Schechter of Partners in Torah, who chaired the local Shabbos
Project, said the weekend was "amazing:' He visited several synagogues in Oak
Park and Southfield on Saturday morning and saw more worshippers than usual,
and he was pleased with the turnout for the concert.
But he admitted "there's no question" the planners could have done more to
bring in the entire community.
"For next year, I'll have the time needed to properly meet with the rabbis and
lay leaders at all the synagogues and temples to explain the project's beauty of
creating unity across the full spectrum of Judaism:' he said. "I want to get every
single rabbi to be aware of it:'

