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Well, maybe that's a stretch. But Miss Rica was a strong influence on us all. She and her husband Sol were from Casablanca - Sol married a Jewish gal from Bay City after WWII and brought his sister Rica with him to Bay City. I have memoies of Sol chaning Maftir Yonah every Yom Kippur in the hauntingly beautiful trop of Morroccan Jews.
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As I look back on my experiences with the rabbi of my youth and of my early adult years (the same man – Rabbi K), I see both an example of the teacher I strive not to be as well as a positive teaching model.
During my early years in religious school, I saw Rabbi K as most others did (children and adults) – as an imposing figure in every respect. Having grown up on a farm in Germany, he was extremely physically fit (you felt his post-aliyah handshake for some time after). He also was an extraordi -
My Bar Mitzvah - Shabbat HaGadol - was also my mentor, Rabbi K's Bar Mitzvah. The smaller chair on the right side of the bimah is the "Daniel S. Gale Bar Mitzvah Chair" donated by my parents for my Bar Mitzvah - so I wouldn't have to sit in a folding chair next to Cantor Sternberg, as previous B'nai Mitzvah did.
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My four years at Ramah played a significant part in the development of my Jewish growth and identity.
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Temple Israel, Bay City, MI
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Pic is of me as Curly in High School production of Oklahoma. Singing from an early age, my interst and abilities such as they were, brought me under Rabbi K's wing. I think he had a plan... Another strong influence was "Miss Pat" my high school music teacher. Though not a specifically Jewish influence, she nurtured my singing talents and helped me developed into a msuician with a respect for the hard work necessary to succeed in the arts - and in any endeavor.
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Rabbi K was the single most imporant Jewish influence in my life. It was he who initially trained me as a hazzan (before he received semicha, he was invested as hazzan at the seminary in Breslau.) Rabbi K's influence was pervasive and lasted not only from my early years until his death in 1982, but continues to this day. I was honored (and not a little intimidated) that my first position as hazzan/kol bo (many yars later was for the very community that Rabbi K served for so many years.
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Though not a Jewish Studies program, I took courses in Medieval Jewish Thought, Talmud, and Post Biblical Judaism, among others. In addition, the program gave me my first introduction to the study of Early Christianity - one of my academic interests to this day. Pic is of me singing at a Holoccaust Memorial concert. My years studying music at Oberlin prepared me for a career in Jewish music and the cantorate.
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Although these years look "empty", these were the years I married, raised a son and continuned my involvement in Judaism as High Holidays cantor and board member of the congregation in which I was raised. My ongoing involvement in synagogue life - and the influence of my continuing studies with Rabbi K - that eventually led me to a career change from the business world to the cantorate and Jewish education in 2000. Pic is of my son, Noah, his mom and me on visiting day Campe Ramah.
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My dear teacher and friend, Rabbi Josef Kratzenstein (Rabbi K) passed away. His life led him to Temple Isrrael, Bay City, MI: from a farm in Germany to the Seminary in Breslau, to Berlin where he was an early critic of Julius Streicher - editor of the Nazi rag Der Stuermer. His criticism of the Nazis led him to Zurich where he spent the war working for the Swiss Red Cross developing Hebrew curriculla for Jewish children in the DP camps. Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg. The Joint brought him to the US.
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I began serving as Cantor and Education Director at the synagouge in which I grew up, and where I developed my Jewish identity from my earliest years. I am an alum of Temple Israel's Nursery School!
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Temple Beth-El, Birmingham, AL
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Midbar Kodesh Temple, Henderson, NV
