To the Editor:
Please give Debbie Friedman her due; she was not "folksy." Rather she cut through the institutional stasis that has characterized and been draining the "organized" Jewish community for decades.
Why did it take the Reform movement until 2007 to officially recognize this? She didn’t just get congregations to sing, she got Jews to thrive, to give us ways to help release our spirits and help them to soar. She gave us prayer tunes that worked in our daily lives, on Shabbos and holy days, not the German tunes or American Protestant-type hymns, such as "God is in his holy temple / Earthly thoughts be silent now / Now, with reverence we assemble / And before his presence bow."
Debbie deserves to be known as a great 20th-21st century Jewish Woman of Valor.
Lauren Deutsch
Los Angeles, Calif.
