passover
Passover:
Detroit Style
SHARON LUCKERMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Downtown
Synagogue
to share its
pre-seder with
community
partners.
ABOVE: From 2017 High Holiday ser-
vices: Rabbi Ariana Silverman, Isaac Agree
Downtown Synagogue, Pastor Aramis Hinds,
Bethel Community Transformational Center,
and his wife, Rosanna Hinds; IADS member
Rick Wiener of East Lansing; and Arlene
Frank, IADS executive director.
42
March 22 • 2018
jn
W
hy is this night different from
all other nights? The Isaac
Agree Downtown Synagogue
(IADS) grappled with the question anew
this year when they learned the Tigers
Opening Day landed on the same day as
the synagogue’s traditional second-night
community seder. The popular game
meant impossible parking and difficulty
getting to the synagogue, a few blocks
from Comerica Park.
But the ever-resil-
ient congregation,
led by Rabbi Ariana
Silverman, turned the
problem into an oppor-
tunity to rethink how
to celebrate Passover
with their Detroit part-
ners. They decided to
Rabbi Ariana
conduct a pre-seder
Silverman
from 4-6 p.m. Sunday,
March 25, and divert
from their traditional Maxwell House
Haggadah. This year, the synagogue
invited members of Detroit’s Bethel
Community Transformational Center
(BCTC), where the synagogue held its
last High Holiday services, to be guests
and to take part in the planning process.
“Our focus this year,” Silverman says,
“is what the seder as a ritual tells us
about who we are as Jews and who we
interact with in the world.”
The powerful Passover story is about
leaving oppression and going to a place
of freedom, she says. “We’re taking
parts of the haggadah and looking at
it through an interfaith lens. We’ll talk
about how we were slaves and became
free. But what do slavery and freedom
mean to our African-American part-
ners” still struggling for freedom?
Vicki Sitron
JCRC/AJC
PARTNERSHIP
Synagogue Program
Director Vicki Sitron,
37, says the synagogue’s
stated values guiding
the seder are to be
good neighbors with
the Detroit community
as well as the Metro
Detroit Jewish com-
munity.
The growing support from the Jewish
community is unique, Silverman says.
While they have a 300-person member-
ship, which is free, their High Holiday
database indicates 2,500 participants.
David Kurzmann, executive director
of JCRC/AJC, explains why his organi-
zation is the other partner of the IADS
seder. He personally was moved by
the 2017 High Holiday services held at
BCTC. Although he’s a third-generation
Detroiter, he says he’d never davened in
the city until that service. And, from a
historic viewpoint, BCTC is housed in
the former home of Temple Beth El, now
in Bloomfield Township.
Kurzmann believes the Downtown
Synagogue is an important hub for
Jewish life in Detroit and a good fit for
JCRC/AJC support.
“With the rise of anti-Semitism and
racism, our community relations work
is more important than ever,” he says,
especially in its quest to find common
ground.
As more young Jews return to the city,
he adds, JCRC/AJC’s work with IADS
will deepen its programmatic outreach
“to help people understand the Jewish
community and what we’re about.”