Are you wondering what we do, why we do it, and who is behind us?
Find your answer here!
Enough, Already!
Some of our family didn't have a traditional Jewish education.
On Seder nights, they'd sit politely but blankly when we launched into our favorite melodies--just because they didn't know Hebrew.
We couldn't let this go on.
So we translated and transliterated the singing parts into English. We had song sheets, and we revised them year after year.
We invented Singlish™, so they could sing in English to the same tune as the Hebrew. Eventually, we had all the singing parts of the Seder service on our song sheets.
Then came our first family bat mitzvah. We couldn't find a book we liked for Bircat Hamazon (Grace After Meals). So we wrote our own, with
Singlish, so that all our guests -- family and friends, traditional Jews and others -- could join in.
Once we had Bircat Hamazon and the rest of the Seder service, it seemed like a small step to finish up the
Hagadah. It was harder than we expected, but we did it anyway.
Now you can have the Hagadah and the Bircon (Grace After Meals plus assorted songs) that let everyone join in. You'll have complete instructions, provocative commentary, Hebrew, transliteration, and a plain English translation in
Singlish, rhymes, and prose. The Hebrew text is complete, so your festive meals will leave nothing -- and nobody -- out.
About Joe
Joe Lewis was born in England in 1950 and came to the
U.S. in 1972 with his American bride and his B.A. from University
College London. He studied English at Temple University and in 1976 came
to Detroit to teach at Wayne State. In 1979 he left teaching to write
computer manuals. In the next few years, he worked his way up to running
telecommunications and microcomputer software development for a local
insurance company. Then he directed the company's marketing
communications and conference planning functions. Shortly before this
company closed, Joe left to set up his own communications consulting
business and later joined a major auto company. Meanwhile, in 1982 he
finished his Ph.D. from Temple, with the dissertation:
"Unfinished Works of the Sixteenth Century." This contribution
to world knowledge has been read by one researcher, so far as we know.
On the Jewish side, Lewis studied "chazzanut"
(the traditional cantorial style of leading services) under the late
Cantor Louis Klein. He became Cantor Klein's regular substitute at
Congregation B'Nai Moshe; around 1990 he began leading High
Holiday services, first at the Jewish Community Center in Oak Park and
later at Congregation Or Chadash.
In 1989, Lewis, now a member of Congregation
Beth Shalom in Oak Park, began producing Purim musicals for children. He
wrote and directed several musicals that involved as many as 50 children
and their families. Six plays are in "How
to Present a Purim Play."
Lewis started the Singlish Publication Society to
publish Hebrew books: a book of Friday night ceremonies for the home; the Hagadah; several custom books
for Jewish
celebrations (bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings) with the Grace After Meals
and other materials.
In 1997, he was invited to create a siddur (Jewish
prayerbook) for a program in Philadelphia called "Friday Night
Alive!" The program drew 600 to 800 people to different synagogues
in the Philadelphia area. The siddur is now in regular use in several
congregations. Lewis later completed a Shabbat morning
siddur and a machzor for Kol Nidrei. He
has also prepared customized siddurim for congregations Adat
Shalom in Farmington Hills, B'Nai Zion in Key West, and
others.
In 1993, Lewis won the first annual Julia A. Moore
poetry contest, with his poem, "Death of a Manatee." Drawing over 800 entries from all over the world, the
contest is named in honor of "the sweet singer of Michigan,"
widely recognized as one of the worst poets the world has ever known.
For sentimentality and forced rhyme, her like has rarely been found.
He is married and has
three children.
Joe to the World:
The Manner of Joe's Birth
Well, if you really want to know, here's the beginning of Joe's
autobiography.
My birth took
place at home. My mother had twice suffered the iciness of hospital care
and was determined to avoid it for her third baby. In the England of
1950, this was not hard to do; a midwife was easy to find, and domestic
tapwater cleaned the vernix off many a squalling infant.
Marlene
Annette Lewis, my sister, was born on January 29, 1945, nine months and
seven days after my parents’ wartime wedding. For my mother, the
experience was horrible. She knew nothing of the process of birth, the
different stages of labour, the ways to cope with the bitter pain. Alone
in a room in the hospital, cut off from those who loved her and ignored
by the hospital staff, she screamed for six hours, more in terror than
in pain. No doubt a nurse would come to her periodically and say, “Oh
shut up, woman. You’re disturbing the other patients.” Neville was
born on Christmas Day, 1948. Mum knew more or less what to expect this
time, so she could endure the pangs of labour more easily. The doctors
and nurses were having a grand time at the hospital party, and one of
the nurses, beaming with Christmas cheer, said, “You’re behaving
much better this time, aren’t you, Mrs. Lewis.”
Mum didn’t
want any more of that smug self-righteousness, so she had me at home.
My birth
didn’t go all that well. Mum had grown very fat. She wasn’t five
feet tall, but she measured 52” round the hip, and pregnancy didn’t
make much of a difference to her figure. The midwife had her walking
round the bed to shake me loose, but progress was slow. With all her
rolls of flesh, Mum was difficult to examine, so the midwife couldn’t
easily tell if I was coming or not. Finally, she said, “The baby’s
not coming for hours yet, woman. I’m going to have my lunch.”
“Please
don’t leave,” Mum begged. “I can feel it coming. Can’t you check
again?”
“Oh well,
get on to the bed (grope, poke) . . . Good heavens, woman, the baby’s
coming at once!”
Somebody do
something!
And here came Joe. |