metro

Shalom San Miguel

Couple works to build community in Mexico.

Jackie Headapohl

I Managing Editor

ach year around Thanksgiving,
Charles "Carlos" Soberman and his
wife, Linda, head south of the border
to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a 16th-
century city with cobblestone streets nestled
in the mountains. The Sobermans purchased
a home there in 2005 and have been busy
building community there ever since.
"I'm not a person who can relax:' says
Soberman, a retired university professor and
businessman who sold his third-generation
family business, Mercury Paint, in 1996.
Soberman took up Spanish while teach-
ing business classes at Wayne State. He and
Linda fell in love with San Miguel on their
travels to Spanish-speaking countries.
"I got involved with the Jewish community
in San Miguel; he says.
When the Sobermans first moved to San
Miguel, the small Jewish community of
15-25 people was meeting for weekly ser-
vices in the reading room of a local hotel.
Calling themselves "Shalom San Miguel; the
group put on cultural and holiday events. "It
was more a cultural group than a synagogue,"
Soberman says.
A few years later, as Dan Lessner, a retired
doctor from New York, and Larry and Carole
Stone from Pittsburgh, who taught Hebrew
school and knew liturgical music, moved
into the area, the services took on a more
traditional philosophy. Since the organization
has no rabbi, all services are lay led, usu-
ally by Lessner, but also by others including
Carole Stone and Soberman.
"We needed a new model; Soberman
says. The group incorporated as CHESMA,
which stands for Comunidad Hebrea En San
Miguel de Allende, an interdenominational
Jewish community of about 120 members,
a quarter of whom are Mexican natives and
the rest expats from the U.S. and Canada.
"About five years ago, non-Jewish
Mexicans asked if they could watch our ser-
vices:' Soberman says. "Some people became
spiritually attracted and began attending
services and Torah study. Others believed
that their ancestors from Spain had been
forced to convert. Four years ago, we had our
first conversion ceremony for about a dozen
people
Three Hispanic rabbis now living in the
United States presided over the emotional
conversion ceremony.
CHESMAs motto is "one community,
many journeys:" The group is an umbrella
organization unaffiliated with any specific
Jewish movement. It does have a traditional,

E

Soberman celebrates the opening of the Community and Computing Center with the
school's principal and local children.

egalitarian minyan group that has been
accepted for membership in the United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
The group's siddurim include a Hebrew,
English and English transliteration version
as well as a Hebrew,
Spanish and Spanish
transliteration version.
Both were put together
by a committee of
members.

Torah discussion groups in English and
Spanish, film showings, monthly Shabbat
dinners and other community gatherings.
Soberman is on the board, is active in fund-
raising and looks for visiting rabbis. He's also
in charge of the artist/
scholar-in-residence
program.
Linda Soberman is a
renowned artist who is
active in San Miguel's
large art community,
A New Home
where she frequently
Although the group
exhibits. She cur-
rently has an exhibit,
began looking for a
building to rent that
The Empty Chairs, on
was within walking
view at the Holocaust
distance of the center
Memorial Center in
Farmington Hills. The
of town, it wasn't until
2012 that they found
multi-image installa-
a suitable place. Once
Charles Soberman at the JC3 seder
tion, more than 100
occupied by the non-
earlier this year
steel chairs cascading
profit Feed the Hungry,
from the ceiling from
which builds kitchens and feeds children in
invisible thread, memorializes lives lost in
rural communities, the building was suitable
the Holocaust, war and global genocides that
for CHESMA, but out of their price range.
continue to this day.
"It was $250,000, and we had about
Michael Wolk, the architect of Keter Torah
$12,000 in our treasury:' Soberman says.
in West Bloomfield who spends part of the
"We were able to negotiate the price down
winter in San Miguel, introduced Soberman
and raise a $100,000 down payment from the to noted synagogue designer Alex Gruss.
Jewish community in a matter of weeks:
Gruss, a native Spanish speaker born in
Fundraising by the two of them and oth-
Buenos Aires, who designed the bimah
ers since the purchase has continued, and the of Keter Torah, enthusiastically offered to
building will be paid off this fall.
donate his services to remodel the JC3 build-
The building is called the JC3 (Jewish
ing. He flew to San Miguel last winter and
Cultural and Community Center). In addi-
began his preliminary drawings, which were
tion to Conservative, Reform and meditative
accepted by the board. Bathrooms were
services, there are Spanish-language classes,
added to the building, a former warehouse,

The ark in the sanctuary area
of the JC3

this summer. Renovations on the area to be
used as the sanctuary are next on the agenda.
This year, the board of CHESMA will ring
in the Jewish new year with a brief spiritual
service and community dinner on Sunday,
Sept 13. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah,
there will be an English-dominant Reform
service; on the second day, there will be
a traditional Conservative High Holiday
service. All services are free and open to
members, non-members and tourists in San
Miguel.

Connecting Communities
Not content merely with his work with
CHESMA — he can't relax — Soberman
also became involved with Feed the Hungry,
delivering food once a week to a rural com-
munity called San Francisco. Soberman
also volunteers for an organization called
Computadoras Pro Jovenes (CPJ), which
works to put donated computers into rural
schools. The computers, which didn't have
Internet access, are loaded with Spanish
Windows and other Spanish-language
software. CPJ, through Soberman, donated
computers to the primary school in San
Francisco.
He began teaching schoolchildren how to
use the computers, but he became frustrated
when he realized "the kids weren't learn-
ing enough:' Working with CPJ, he helped
to develop the curriculum for a six-week
course. At the end, he would take these rural
students to San Miguel where they would eat
at a restaurant, enjoy ice cream and get on
the Internet — often for the first time.
"I was teaching about four kids every six

San Miguel on page 14

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September 10 • 2015

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