In Jerusalem

Grapevine: Singing God’s praises

12/20/2012 16:53 By GREER FAY CASHMAN

At the start of each Hebrew month, Maureen Kushner hosts an all women minyan at her Jerusalem apartment.

• By PEGGY CIDOR Members of Women of the Wall

Photo by: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

ON THE eve or first day of every new Hebrew month, former New Yorker Maureen Kushner hosts what is usually a women’s minyan in her penthouse studio apartment overlooking Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market. When the weather is good, she takes her guests up to her roof garden to sing Hallel. When this happens, she can also invite men, because the way in which the roof is built allows separation between the two groups. It also attracts interest from passersby in the street below.

Last Friday, the weather looked overcast, so Kushner had everyone crowd into her kitchen-cum-dining room-cum-living room, with some of her guests sitting on the staircase that leads to the roof. Leading the singing was the amazing Rachel Rubin, a young, untrained singer with a voice reminiscent of Joan Baez’s but with a wider vocal range. Rubin sings in the Carlebach genre, and like the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, she takes brief pauses in her singing to utter prayers in English for all to understand.

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Grapevine: Singing God’s praises

At the start of each Hebrew month, Maureen Kushner hosts an all women minyan at her Jerusalem apartment.

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