Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Simchas Continue — With Modifications
Not everyone looks into their backyard and sees the spot where they’ll be married. And perhaps fewer still see an empty synagogue as the...
History’s Lessons: Jewish Couple Wed in Graveyard to Stop 1918 Flu Pandemic
The wedding of Harry Rosenberg and Fanny Jacobs was unusual for several reasons.
For one, the bride and groom didn’t know each other prior to...
With Zoom Singing a Bust, Choirs Get Creative About Joining Voices
After 52 people in Washington state became infected with coronavirus during a choir rehearsal in March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published...
Opinion | What Synagogues Can Learn from the Political Conventions
By Steve Rabinowitz
For months now, the rituals that mark our lives have been disrupted by the coronavirus. As the pandemic grinds on and the...
Opinion | Seeing the Synagogue in 20/20
By Rabbi Jason Bonder
For so many of us, the pace of our lives before 2020 was like a runaway train racing forward on a...
No Mikvah, No Problem — Converts Head to Camp Ramah
By Josefin Dolsten
On a typical summer day, hundreds of kids can be found around the lake at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires splashing around...
Torah Akin to Modern-Day GPS
Parshat Mattot-Mas’ei
By Rabbi Robert Layman
In this era of GPS and Waze, road maps, which are still available, have basically become a relic of the...
Eruv Maintenance Tricky in a Pandemic
Maintaining an eruv in Philadelphia before the COVID-19 pandemic was already a juggling act.
Those charged with overseeing the various eruvs throughout the city had...
Synagogues Ponder Yellow Phase Changes
Philadelphia-area synagogues examine their options as the region moves into the yellow phase.
A Daf a Day, in Quarantine
South Philadelphia Shtiebel’s Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter and a coterie of students — numbering more than a basketball team, but fewer than a minyan —...