We’re all coming together
For Shabbat at our School ’cause we’re cool
And we know that spending time together
Will bring unity to our community
Our school, the Frankel Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit, is very unique and incredibly different from most of the other schools that participated in the Eimatai conference in Baltimore in November. For starters, we are a non-denominational school, meaning, we have all kinds of Jews ranging anywhere from very observant, to not so observant. Moreover, our community is very spread out; many kids who attend our school drive 45 minutes to get to school everyday. Additionally, in order to convey this point to the rest of the convention we sang the song that is encompassing this article. It is based on the song We’re All in This Together from High School Musical!
With all that being said, our group decided that our initiative should be a community Shabbat dinner, complete with Kabbalat Shabbat and an Oneg. When we decided that this was what we were going to do, we knew we were going to have to overcome many obstacles. How were we going to find a suitable location for our dinner that is centrally located in our spread out community? How were we going to daven together when we have families who will only pray in a traditional minyan with a mechitza and families who only believe in egalitarianism? Well, this is the solution we came up with.
First, on Friday, March 7th we are going to hold our dinner at a middle school that is located within walking distance of a neighborhood with a plethora of shomer Shabbat families who would be willing to house families who need it. We chose this date because on that Friday night synagogues and schools across the country will participate in a program called “Shabbat Across America.” Additionally, we are going to have two separate minyanim, one with a mechitzah and one without. Then, we will all come together to enjoy a lovely Shabbat dinner as a school community. We really hope that we can unify our community and that we can all celebrate Shabbat together.
Jews from everywhere, denominations?
We don’t care!
’Cause that’s the way we do it in DETROIT!
