Metro Under construction Jews part of Community House project
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JULY 26, 2012 AV 7, 5772
Vol. 56, No. 11
Pittsburgh, PA
Spiritual music
$1.50
Social justice forum educates voters on controversial voter ID law BY LEE CHOTTINER Executive Editor
Beth El photo
Ron Samuels (left) and Paul Silver, musicians with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, perform spiritual music Thursday, July 19, at a concert at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills as the moderator, Helen Faye Rosenblum, looks on.
PSO musicians touch souls with sounds at Beth El BY ANDREW GOLDSTEIN Staff Writer
People swayed in their seats at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. Some tapped their feet; others sat mesmerized by the music that touched their Jewish souls. No, this wasn’t a Shabbat service; it was a concert. The near-capacity crowd came Thursday, July 19, to listen to “Music of the Spirit,” a free concert at the synagogue social hall put on in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Paul Silver, a violist, who also played keyboard during the concert, and Ron
Samuels, a clarinetist, both from the PSO, performed instrumentals based on Jewish stories. “Music of the Spirit” began in 2004 when the PSO became the first American orchestra to play in the Vatican for a pope. The concert celebrated the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s papacy and his commitment to interfaith understanding. From that beginning, a partnership developed between the PSO and religious communities in Pittsburgh, where they continue to hold concerts to celebrate the spiritual and universal message of music. “I think if you talk even in a universal
sense, music is a language that everybody can understand at some level without any real schooling or knowledge,” Silver said. “There’s an innate understanding it can communicate at the most simple and deepest levels of consciousness and even subconsciousness so that the music always seems to speak to the spirit.” The duo played selections based on “Eli, The Fanatic,” by Philip Roth, from the book, “The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection”; and “The Little Shoemakers,” by Isaac Bashevis Singer, from Singer’s book “Gimpel the Please see PSO, page 19.
Joyce Block has voted in every election since 1944. But Pennsylvania’s new voter identification law could end her streak. Under the law, the 89-year-old Bucks County resident, like all Pennsylvania voters, must show an acceptable photo ID at the polls to vote in the November election. Having never driven, Block asked for a nondriver photo ID from PennDOT, but agency officials wouldn’t issue one because her maiden name on her birth certificate and social security card didn’t match her married name on her voter registration. The only proof of marriage she could present? Her ketuba. It wasn’t enough. “The Department of Motor Vehicles clerks could not understand the ketuba and refused to accept it as proof of a name change,” said Arlene Levy, a past co-president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. Block, who eventually got a temporary voter ID with help from her state senator, is one of an estimated 750,000 eligible Pennsylvania voters who could be disenfranchised this fall because of the new law, according to the Department of State. So much so that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division announced this week it is investigating the law to determine if it discriminates against minorities. Levy recounted Block’s story, and that of several other at-risk voters, Monday during a public forum at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. She joined a panel, which included State Please see Voters, page 19.
B USINES S 15/C L AS SIFIED 17/C OMMUNITY 13/O BITUARIES 18 O PINION 6/R EAL E STATE 16/S IMCHAS 12/S TYLE 10
Times To Remember
KINDLE SABBATH CANDLES: 8:21 p.m. DST. SABBATH ENDS: 9:25 p.m. DST.