ABSTRACT
A prolific composer, performer, and educator, Deborah Lynn Friedman was an instrumental figure in the growth of the Jewish healing movement and the establishment of a corpus of repertoire for spiritual healing. Friedman was born in Utica, New York, and lived most of her childhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. From a young age, she and her family were involved in the Reform movement. The Reform movement in the 1950s and '60s was on the verge of a significant transition. The Reform movement issued a new prayer book in 1975. Gates of Prayer incorporated significantly more of the original Hebrew text and offered a variety of services in order to accommodate multiple approaches to worship. Nascent attention to gender neutrality manifested in the English, and additional liturgy addressed the Holocaust and Israel. Yet, although Gates of Prayer reflects increasing concern for engaged devotion and the return of previously discarded liturgy, the Mi Shebeirach remains absent from this publication.
