jews d
AARON GELLER
in
the
Music And Cuisine
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
SHOSHANA JANER
A
Taste of Jewish Lebanon”
on March 26 will be part
of the celebration of
100 years of Detroit’s Sephardic
community. The event is a coop-
erative venture of Keter Torah
Synagogue of West Bloomfield and
Congregation Beth Shalom of Oak
Park, as part of its Cantor Sam and
Mona Greenbaum Musical Event
series.
Nora Natan, wife of Rabbi
Sasson Natan of Keter Torah, will
speak about the life and languages
of the Jews of Lebanon,
which is also the his-
tory of her family.
Rabbi Natan is
scheduled to perform
music from the Mizrahi
and Sephardic Jewish
diaspora, accompa-
nied by a four-piece
band of local Arabic
musicians. The musi-
cal performance will
be accompanied by
a PowerPoint tour of
the Jews of the Middle
East, each community
ABOVE: Albert Ben-Ezra of Egypt lights a candle for with its own musical
his country at a commemoration service in 2015 as and cultural tradi-
other candle-lighters Myrna Doppelt, Nora Natan, tions. Natan will also
Hadassa Kidron and Mary David watch. talk about how Middle
TOP: Rabbi Sasson Natan sings with a traditional Eastern music relates
band after candle-lighting during the program at Keter to Western musical
Torah Synagogue. traditions.
The buffet dinner,
prepared by Jewel
Kosher Catering, will feature the
Keter Torah/
Beth Shalom
event to mark
100 years
of Detroit’s
Sephardic
community.
24
March 16 • 2017
jn
cuisine of the Lebanese Jews.
Natan notes the event will
“not just be reading from a book,
but experiencing the feeling of a
culture.”
LOCAL BEGINNINGS
Jacob and Judith Chicorel orga-
nized services for Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur in Detroit in
1917 for the Sephardic immi-
grants here, people who would
feel out of place in an Ashkenazi
synagogue. Attendees came from
around the Sephardic world,
including Turkey, Spain, Italy and
Greece. And they spoke a variety of
native languages: Ladino (mostly
spoken by Greek and Turkish
Jews whose ancestors came from
Spain or Portugal), Italian, Arabic
and French (spoken by many
Moroccan and Egyptian Jews).
Membership grew gradually,
with the congregation renting
spaces for High Holiday services
and special events.
In the mid-1980s, a small group
of men — Yeshua Katan, Joseph
David, Gilbert Senor, Mario Sevy,
Sam Pinchas, Gabriel Salama,
Sam Papo and David Hazan, with
the leadership of Rabbi Avraham
Cohen and President David
Chicorel — began the organiza-
tion’s first weekly minyan Sunday
services at Yeshivah Beth Yehuda
in Oak Park.
In the early 1990s, President
Shirley Behar initiated Shabbat
services held initially at the Jewish
Community Center in Oak Park.
She recruited Sasson Natan
to help in leading services. He
became hazzan first and later the
shul’s rabbi.
Keter Torah Synagogue in West
Bloomfield was dedicated in 2002
as the Jacob and Judith Chicorel
Building. Rabbi Michael Cohen
served as head rabbi until 2007.
Current Keter Torah President
Rick Behar is a direct descendant
of the founding couple. His moth-
er was a Chicorel.
Throughout the years, the
Sephardic community was
renowned for its wonderful social
gatherings, annual Mediterranean
Night Dinners and holiday par-
ties. The homemade Sephardic
delicacies were legendary.
However, at the root of it all, was
the continuation of the Orthodox
Sephardic traditions of religious-
ness and spirituality.
Rabbi Natan, whose family is
Iraqi, came to Detroit from Israel
in 1990 to work as an electrical
engineer for General Motors. The
first synagogue he found here,
Young Israel of Southfield, follows
Ashkenazi traditions, which felt
so unfamiliar that he was going
to return to Israel for the holidays
the following year. However, he
met Eli Rashty, an Iraqi Jew who
invited him to Keter Torah. On
that first visit, the congregation
invited Natan to read Torah.
MUSIC AND BETH SHALOM
For years, Congregation Beth
Shalom had major musical events
on an irregular basis, every other
year or so. Ten years ago, the con-
gregation began an annual concert
in honor of Cantor Sam and Mona
Greenbaum.
Over the years, the Greenbaum
program has brought notable
artists to the shul. The first year,
the late Debbie Friedman per-
formed in concert. In subsequent
years, artists included Neshama
Carlebach, Joshua Nelson, Sam
Glazer, Yiddishe Cup (a Cleveland
klezmer band) and Aaron Lewis
and the Hot Seats.
In planning for this year’s con-
cert, Behar of Keter Torah pro-
posed combining the Greenbaum
musical event with a Keter Torah
program featuring music of differ-
ent traditions in the Sephardic and
Mizrahi world as well as food of
the Lebanese Jews.
Cantor Sam Greenbaum says he
appreciates cooperation between
the two synagogues and that he
anticipates attracting a wide audi-
ence with the program.
Other sponsoring organizations
include the Jewish News, ZOA and
StandWithUs Michigan. •
For details about the 5 p.m. Sunday,
March 26, event at Beth Shalom,
visit jrefugees1948@gmail.com or
call (248) 547-7970. Cost is $18. RSVP
by March 22.