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prayer without necessarily knowing all
the words.” In fact, she said, the musi-
cal structure of many niggunim, A-B-
C-B, mirrors the written structure of
the unpronounceable name of God,
Y-H-V-H in Hebrew. “The niggunim
are meditations on the Divine name.”
Song & Spirit Institute for Peace,
jointly founded by Hazzan Steve
Klaper, his Catholic wife Mary
Gilhouly and Brother Al Mascia, a
Franciscan monk, reflects the philos-
ophy and intent of Jewish Renewal
as well as its core practices, without
being formally affiliated with the
movement.
Jewish Renewal leaders are aware
of Song & Spirit and “understand us
to be partners with them in spreading
this new outreach of Jewish authen-
ticity in the 21st century,” said Klaper,
65, of Oak Park.
SooJi Min-Maranda, 49, was not
born Jewish. A native of Korea, she
came to the United States at age 3
and was raised without religion in
Evanston, Ill.
After graduating from Barnard
College, she learned about Judaism
from listening to scholars like Rodger
Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the
Lotus, Susanna Heschel
and Rabbi Joseph
Telushkin. She convert-
ed to Judaism when
she was in her early 30s
— but she doesn’
t like
the word “conversion.”
“I like to think my soul
was always Jewish and
it was finally being revealed,” she said.
A nonprofit manager by profes-
sion, Min-Maranda attended a lead-
ership program through Bend the
Arc, a Jewish partnership for justice,
and realized she could combine her
professional and spiritual lives. She
landed a job as executive director of
Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor,
where she now lives with her hus-
band, who is not Jewish, and two
school-aged sons. She started as exec-
utive director for ALEPH a little over
a year ago.
Jewish Renewal, she said, is
trans-denominational, enfolding
many who also affiliate with anoth-
er branch of Judaism, from Reform
to Modern Orthodox. She knows
Renewal devotees who keep Shabbat
and kashrut, and others who do very
little in the way of traditional obser-
vance.
Renewal services are often long. In
Min-Maranda’
s congregation, they do
the full Torah reading with the addi-
tion of much singing and meditation.
The service, which can take up to four
hours, is “very prayerful, very soulful,
very soul-searching,” she said.
And it’
s not a performance. “There’
s
lots of dancing in concentric circles.
People are part of the fabric of the
service; there’
s a palpable energy of
aliveness.”
Jewish Renewal is “an enormous,
wide-open tent for a new generation
of seekers who want the deep roots of
Judaism but also innovation,” she said.
She said she found it ironic that
many of those whose synagogues and
temples have incorporated the singing
of niggunim, dancing and meditation
have never heard of Jewish Renewal.
Neither ALEPH nor its seminary
has a physical headquarters, so Min-
Maranda is able to work easily from
Ann Arbor. The organization has
40 affiliated communities across the
country; the largest are Kehillah in
Piedmont, Calif., and Romemu in
New York City.
In the future, Min-Maranda hopes
to incorporate more Earth-based, eco-
logical practices into Jewish Renewal.
She also wants to work to make the
movement more multicultural and
welcoming to Jews by choice and Jews
of color. ■
Min-Maranda
jews d
in
the
on the cover
Jewish Renewal is “an enormous,
wide-open tent for a new generation
of seekers who want the deep roots
of Judaism but also innovation.”
— SOOJI MIN-MARANDA
continued from page 14