18 | MAY 4 • 2023
OUR COMMUNITY
E
very year, the Jewish Bar Association of Michigan (JBAM)
honors a high-achieving law student with a scholarship prior
to his or her final year of law school.
This year, the winner boasts a strong voice — not only as a legal
advocate, but as an accomplished a cappella and synagogue singer.
Loren Shevitz, a second-year law student at Wayne State
University, has been awarded JBAM’S $1,500 Charles J. Cohen
Scholarship. He will be honored at JBAM’s May 22 banquet at the
Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. (Tickets are available at jlive.
app/events/3952 for $36 for JBAM members and $48 for oth-
ers by May 12; after that, the price will be $48/$60. Judges are
invited gratis.)
Shevitz, 50 and divorced, is more seasoned with life experi-
ences than most law students. A native of West Bloomfield,
he grew up at Temple Kol Ami (TKA) where he had his bar
mitzvah, affirmation and religious high school graduation. “
At
14, I put together a Shabbat service to support Soviet Jewry,
adding poems and prose throughout,” he said. “I began my
musical career as the youngest singer in the TKA choir.”
At the University of Michigan, Shevitz was active at
Hillel. He created an online computer conference that
served the entire Ann Arbor Jewish community and
was a leader of the Reform Chavurah. Musically, he was
a founding member of the Jewish a cappella group Kol
HaKavod (Glorious Voice). After college, he volun-
teered for a year serving in Israel with Project Otzma,
a sort of “Jewish Peace Corps.”
Afterward, he attended the University of Chicago,
earning a master’s degree in computer science. But he
did not abandon his musical pursuits — starting a new
Jewish a cappella group, Shircago. They performed
for over a decade, including a 2010 appearance at the
JCC Stephen Gottlieb Jewish Music Festival in West
Bloomfield. He also served for years as the cantorial
soloist at the Hillel Reform High Holy Day services.
Shevitz later worked as a Realtor in Chicago, but
he often returned to Michigan and sang with the
Temple Kol Ami choir on Shabbat. This past fall, he
co-directed and sang in the TKA High Holy Day
Choir.
Honored WSU law student strikes
all the right chords.
In Tune
with the Law
DAVID SACHS CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Details To attend JBAM’s banquet, 6 p.m. Monday, May 22, at
Birmingham’s Townsend Hotel, visit jlive.app/events/3952. It’s $36 for
JBAM members and $48 for others if reserved by May 12; after that, it’s
$48/$60. Judges are welcome at no charge. Also being honored at the
event will be Judge Marla Parker, the late Judge Jamie Wittenberg z”l
and former JBAM President Ellie Mosko.
JBAM honoree
Loren Shevitz