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

