On January 20, Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills will host their 23rd annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy with an Interfaith Shabbat service.
The event, “Voices of Freedom: The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King,” starts at 8 p.m. This year’s theme is, “60 years since ‘I Have A Dream.’ Where are we today?” It features distinguished representatives of the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist communities of the West Valley and from across Los Angeles.
The event’s purpose is to bring communities together to share music, spirituality and inspiration.
“We celebrate Dr. King, not only for his leadership in the civil rights movement and his struggle for racial justice, but for his significant role as an interfaith leader,” Congressman Brad Sherman (D – Sherman Oaks) told the Journal. “[Dr. King] strove to actively engage people from all faiths towards the common good and who provided a strong vision of how interfaith cooperation can lead to the creation of a more peaceful and just world.”
The service starts with the liturgy and features music from LIFE choir (H.B. Barnum, director); WOE Worship Team; Mizmor Shir Adult Choir (Temple Aliyah); Ven. Master Shantha Sobhana; Hazzan Mike Stein and Family; Gospel artists DeBorah Sharpe-Taylor, Charlotte Crossley and Toni Malone; Kolot Tikvah Choir (Our Space LA); the Miracle Project; DeToledo High School and Imam Mahomed Khan.
“We begin with the voices of our youth and our neuro-diverse community, then, we sing our prayers in original gospel style,” Hazzan Mike Stein of Temple Aliyah told the Journal. “In between our different faith leaders talk about Dr. King and how he affected their communities.” The service wraps with a benediction chanted by a Buddhist monk.
This year’s speakers include Pastor Michael J. Fisher of the Greater Zion Church Family in Compton, Pastor Najuma Smith-Pollard from the Word of Encouragement Church, Pastor Ben Banner of Woodland Hills Presbyterian Church, Rabbi Richard Camras from Shomrei Torah Synagogue, leader of the Ezzi Masjid in Woodland Hills and Temple Aliyah’s Rabbi Stewart Vogel.
Prepandemic, between 800 and 1,000 people attended the festivities. Last year, attendance was around 400. People from local churches, Compton and other parts of the city bring their families and come to sing.
This annual celebration is the brainchild of Neal Brostoff, who was musical director of Temple Aliyah before Stein arrived in 2000. “We started working with Andraé Crouch z”l with his church and choir to create a community event,” Stein said.
While it was originally a regular Friday night service with additions by Crouch’s choir, when Stein arrived, they began to integrate the choir into their liturgy.
“After a number of years, I decided to write original gospel music that mixed Middle Eastern and gospel styles,” Stein said.
When asked what it means to be part of this event, faith and community leader Imam Mahomed Khan told the Journal, “God loves unity. It’s a great statement of support to attend a Shabbat interfaith service. The haters will never divide us.”
An event like this serves to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood between faiths, he believes.
“Moses was put in the middle of a desert to die a slow and torturous death; divine intervention saved him,” Khan said. When he returned from exile, Moses came to Pharaoh not to take revenge but to wake up Pharaoh’s moral conscience.
“The message of MLK and Moses is what we want to promote,” Khan said. “Through our bonds we work together by defending the other. If the Jewish community is a victim of antisemitism, the Muslim community stands up and vice versa. The faith community stands up together and finds ways to serve each other’s community.”
Stein said for this gathering what means the most is showing up, standing in solidarity with other faith communities and showing that you care about one another.
“It is up to us as faith leaders to show our community that we can live in peace and understanding and have each other’s back.”
– Mike Stein.
“It is up to us as faith leaders to show our community that we can live in peace and understanding and have each other’s back,” Stein said. “For me, it fulfills the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Tikkun Olam, to repair the world.”
Stein explained that these interfaith communities delight in getting to know each other; they maintain relationships throughout the year. They work together to help the hungry by making sandwiches and also express support when a house of worship is attacked.
They find out that they have a lot in common.
“The more we get together and know each other, the more we distance ourselves from stereotypes, language and actions that create boundaries,” Stein said. “The dream is that we walk out of the synagogue full of hope, and that we carry that hope throughout the year. When we hear about acts of hatred we feel that the hatred is directed not just against others, but that we are all victims. And that we must stand together.”
To learn more about the MLK interfaith Shabbat, go to TempleAliyah.org or call 818.346.3545 x105.
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