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New Year, New Look

Beth Ahm's renovated sanctuary achieves
a calming, contemplative place for worship.

Barbara Lewis

I Contributing Writer

embers of Congregation
Beth Ahm in West
Bloomfield will celebrate
the New Year in a completely reno-
vated sanctuary
The sanctuary was built after a
fire in January of 1983 destroyed a
large part of the synagogue building
on Maple Road, west of Inkster. The
construction generated interest at the
time because Beth Ahm became the
only non-Orthodox synagogue in the
Detroit area to have its bimah in the
center of the congregation rather than
at the front of the room.
The sanctuary hadn't been refur-
bished since then. The recent effort
was the final part of an overall build-
ing remodeling process that took
nearly 15 years.
Planning for the sanctuary reno-
vation started more than a year ago. The
actual work began May 18 and was complet-
ed in time for Shabbat services July 25. The
sanctuary was formally dedicated on Aug. 22.
Dina Kawer, a photographer and artist
from Huntington Woods and a third-gen-
eration Beth Ahm member, did the interior
design for the sanctuary, as she had for sev-
eral other congregational spaces, including
the chapel, memorial room, social hall and
foyer.
Kawer says she approaches any new proj-
ect by heeding the words of photographer
Minor White: "Be still with yourself until the
object of your attention affirms your pres-
ence:'
"I asked the room what it needed and it

M

Beth Ahm's newly appointed sanctuary

8 September 10 • 2015

told me she said, adding that she considers
the work "a huge art installation project:'
Jeff Silver, the congregation's president,
said the sanctuary was showing a lot of wear
and tear and the color scheme was dated,
with peach-colored walls and dark red car-
peting that was faded and shabby.
The layout of the room has been pre-
served, except for the removal of several
seats to create new two new aisles on either
side of the bimah, said the congregation's
rabbi, Steven Rubenstein. But almost every
surface has been changed.
Kawer said the color scheme was partly
dictated by the purple metal of the seats,
which was not replaced; she also wanted to
coordinate with the color of the adjacent
social hall, which had been refurbished

earlier. The seats were reupholstered in a
medium-purple fabric that matches the new
carpeting.

Design With Meaning
Kawer noted that she considered more than
aesthetics in creating her design. She also
strove for materials and colors that had
some Jewish meaning.
She added tambour wood facing to four
large columns at the corners of the room to
represent the four poles used to carry the
Mishkan, the Israelites' traveling sanctuary
during their 40 years in the desert.
She used copper in the door leading to the
social hall and copper-colored metallic paint
elsewhere in the room to recall the copper
used in the Temple in Jerusalem.

In front of the ark in Beth Ahm's sanctuary: Executive Director
David Goodman, Rabbi Steven Rubenstein, artist/photographer
Dina Kawer and Jeff Silver, Beth Ahm president.

The walls are painted stone gray
but the 60-foot-high cove in the
center of the ceiling is an iridescent
cobalt blue.
"It's not only the color of the sky, it
represents the heavens, and blue has
the psychological effect of allowing
for creative and intellectual thought,
fitting for this space Kawer said,
adding that the blue makes the two
stained glass windows in the cove
really pop.
Several congregants told her they
never realized there were stained glass
windows in the ceiling, because they
never looked up, she said.
As the light changes throughout
the day, it changes the feeling in the
sanctuary," she added.
In designing the ark area at the
front of the sanctuary, Kawer sought
to draw the eye.
"I was very particular about the
stone around the ark:' she said. She
chose grainy quartz, a mineral said to create
synchronicity between individuals and the
heavens. "It increases spiritual connection:'
she said.
Quartz is also connected to the Temple
because it was one of the 12 stones in the
breastplate of the high priest.
The carved wooden ark doors by Arthur
Schneider of Franklin were created after the
1983 fire. Kawer made a new wooden arch
to surround them, to recall the "wooden
chamber" where the Temple high priest
stored his vestments and lived for the week
before Yom Kippur.
The $325,000 renovation project was cov-
ered by the congregation's Our Home, Our
Future campaign, which has so far raised
more than $2.6 million. David Goodman,
executive director of the 360 family member
congregation, is coordinating the campaign,
which includes an endowment component.
"The reaction from the congregation has
been very gratifying," Kawer said. "People
are saying that they not only enjoy the aes-
thetics, but also feel the sanctuary calms
them down. That's pretty cool because that's
what we were hoping for:'
According to Jewish tradition, since
the destruction of the Temple, which was
regarded as the House of God, the Shechinah
(God's holy presence) goes from synagogue
to synagogue, Rubenstein said.
"Where Jews are, God goes:' he said.
"We created a space that's appropriate for
God:'

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