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Friday September 6, 2002

Stories from minyan give glimpses into Jewish lives, souls

ALEZA GOLDSMITH
Bulletin Staff

When Patti Moskovitz lost both her parents within five weeks of one another, she turned to a minyan to help her mourn -- and later, to help her get on with her life.

In the process she discovered that the Peninsula Temple Sholom minyan in Burlingame was made up of "warm, lovely and interesting people with remarkable lives." Here were Jews from Israel, Europe, the heartland of the United States and Canada who "somehow ended up in this little chapel on Saturday mornings."

They came with their own stories of how they live Jewishly and their own interpretations of Torah. One elderly couple have since passed away, but they spoke to the group about living through the Depression, the Holocaust and the formation of Israel.

Moskovitz, a Jewish educator and author, was convinced that their stories were worth preserving. She decided to write a book based upon the catalyst that brought them to light.

Finally, 10 years later the Foster City resident has released "The Minyan: A Tapestry of Jewish Life." In addition to stories from her own minyan and many others in the Bay Area, Moskovitz has collected those of Jews from throughout the nation who attended minyanim around the world.

"We all share the same thread," explained Moskovitz. "We all come together and weave this tapestry that makes such a beautiful picture of Jewish life."

The stories themselves all relate to the minyan. But like each individual who tells them, each one is unique.

In "The Secret Minyan at Dachau," for instance, Arthur Kerdemen, a San Mateo resident, describes the daily prayer services he attended in 1938 and 1939 as a prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp.

The services were secretly conducted by an imprisoned rabbi at whatever time could be arranged and were "very dangerous" he wrote. "If the [SS] had caught us, we would have been severely punished, and due to the nature of the punishment many of us would surely not have survived."

Kerdemen, the rabbi and the others continued in the minyan, however, because it was "a way of combating the decline of will and staving off resignation to death...I do think that belief is something that keeps people from being despondent and helps them live through hard times."

In "A Shabbat in Sasabo, Japan," Barry A. Shapiro, an accountant living in Beverly Hills, recounts a minyan he attended during the late 1960s, when he was a quartermaster in the Navy. While his ship, the USS Samuel Gompers, was in the port of Sasabo for three to four months, the naval chaplain convinced Shapiro to attend a minyan at the island's Jewish community center.

"About 70 percent of the participants were Japanese," wrote Shapiro. "You haven't heard davening until you've heard Hebrew chanted with a Japanese accent."

But despite the obvious differences, "the oddest thing about the whole experience was that I felt I was back in my own Jewish home. There was an overwhelming sense of community...The prayers were familiar, the feeling of being part of my own people -- even though I was halfway around the world -- was incredible."

Although the minyan is traditionally thought of as a male endeavor, Moskovitz also addresses the inclusion of women.

On that note, the book contains stories called "The East Bay Feminist Minyan" by Marcia S. Brooks of Berkeley; "In the Company of Women" by Marsha Arons of Skokie, Ill.; and "The Women's League Minyan" by Lois Silverman of Utica, N.Y.

Brooks is an active member of an East Bay feminist minyan, Nishmat Shalom, as well as a number of others. Even though Nishmat Shalom has a feminist orientation, she said, it is actually quite traditional, attracting people of all different backgrounds, including men.

"People should create the kind of communities that work for them," Brooks explained in a telephone interview. "There are a lot of Jews who say, 'I like this or that, but not this,' and so they don't go. I say create it for yourself."

There are "different ways of conducting minyans," agreed Moskovitz. "There's not just one way to be Jewish. Let's concentrate on what holds us together rather than those things that pull us apart. Everybody's path to God is valid."

In fact, a friend of Moskovitz's was recently reading from the book during a minyan for residents at a nursing home in Long Beach. All of a sudden, an infirm 90-year-old woman jumped to her feet and said, "This is what I love about being Jewish."

It's a testimony, said Moskovitz, to the "powerfulness and wholesomeness," that allows the minyan "to touch the lives of so many Jews."

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