Community beyond construction at 899 Charleston Songwriting ...

The songwriting group has written more than 80 songs and performedthem at events at the Home and at various venues in the community. Theyhave also recorded their music on an award-winning CD, Island on a Hill,which is for sale in the Home’s gift shop, with proceeds going to the Home.The group initially began writing songs about whatever subject occurredto them, but in the last years it has focused on creating musical psalms.With the help of the Home’s Rabbi Sheldon Marder, the group studies apsalm and then composes the music to the words, or writes their ownlyrics based upon their interpretation of the psalm.In a powerful moment last June, at the dedication of the Home’s newsynagogue, two songwriters carried the Torah to the ark and the groupperformed songs they had written based upon their study of the psalms.“When our elders write songs ... they becomeproductive members of a community andcontribute to the repertoire of the Jewish Home.”– Dr. Theresa Allison“In that moment they became part of the creation of sacred space,”says Allison. “They spent four years with the rabbi and Judith-Kate, wroteenough songs, including those based on psalm study, to fill an entire CD,and now they were using their work to consecrate a synagogue.“At the Jewish Home I have found people who said, ‘I never thought Icould,’ and are proving that they can. There are extraordinary stories ofgrowth and development.”Left: Dr. Theresa Allison and Gloria Houtenbrink, a member of the Home’ssongwriting group, talk about the process of writing music and lyrics.Above: Singer/songwriter Judith-Kate Friedman and the songwriting groupperform at the dedication of the Jewish Home’s new synagogue.summer 2008Jewish Senior Living17