H eadlines
OMICRON Continued from Page 1
Abrams’ safety measures
are keeping the community
safe, according to Budow.

“They’re 98% back to
normal,” the rabbi said of his
students. Judy Groner, the head of
school at the Perelman Jewish
Day School, also said that
masks have become normal.

Last week, students even wore
ones with Chanukah designs.

Groner reopened her
pre-K-5 buildings in August
2020. Over a school year-and-
a-half, Perelman has seen no
COVID case transmissions.

Rabbi Abe Friedman has welcomed congregants back to Temple Beth
Zion-Beth Israel this year. His COVID policies have emphasized masking
inside. Courtesy of Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel
Rabbi Marshall Lesack has emphasized vaccines in his approach to
dealing with COVID at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy.

Photo by Jordan Cassway
They’re 98% back to normal.”
RABBI IRA BUDOW
The head of school
attributed that to policies
that are more cautious than
the recommendations of the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

Perelman students mask
both inside and outside. They
only unmask to eat lunch, and
they eat lunch outside unless
12 DECEMBER 9, 2021
the weather is inclement.

The school staff has a 98%
vaccination rate. Any vacci-
nated Perelman community
members who travel abroad
must take a test to return to the
buildings. Any unvaccinated
individuals who travel inter-
nationally must quarantine for
7-10 days upon returning.

Like Abrams, Perelman
celebrated Chanukah last week.

Also like Abrams, Perelman has
no plan to change its COVID-era
operating procedures.

“It does seem to be working,”
Groner said. “Everyone has
adjusted.” The Jack M. Barrack Hebrew
Academy faces a different
challenge. Abrams and Perelman
primarily serve pre-K and
elementary school kids. Barrack,
based in Bryn Mawr, educates
students in grades 6-12.

People 12 and up have been
eligible for vaccinations since
September. So Barrack, led
by Head of School Marshall
Lesack, has focused on shots.

Getting a COVID vaccine is
“part of being a staff member at
Barrack,” Lesack said. Vaccination
is “highly encouraged” to students,
and the “vast majority” are inocu-
lated, Lesack added.

Barrack requires masks in
its building, too. But no other
major restrictions are neces-
sary, according to the head of
school. Lesack is monitoring the
JEWISH EXPONENT
omicron news. But it’s “not
affecting any change in our
policy,” he concluded.

Local synagogues are in a
similar position as schools:
Nothing really needs to change
for now.

Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel
in Center City has returned to
in-person congregational life. The
only restrictions are that, indoors,
BZBI maintains masking and
does not yet serve food.

In the spring, the synagogue
reopened. For a while there-
after, Rabbi Abe Friedman met
regularly with a COVID task
force of doctors in the congre-
gation. Now, he just consults
them as needed.

After dealing with COVID
for nearly two years, BZBI
even has its own contact
tracing protocol.

Friedman and his staff put
member names in a book.

When congregants attend
services, they put stickers next
to their names.

That way, if someone at
the service comes down with
COVID, everyone knows if
they’ve been exposed.

“This is just what we have
to deal with,” Friedman said.

“Sometimes it’s this, sometimes
the electricity goes out.”
Congregation Kol Emet in
Yardley follows similar proce-
dures. Inside, the synagogue
requires masking and does
not yet serve food. It also
maintains physical distancing
during services.

Rabbi Anna Boswell-Levy
wants to bring food events
back, though, by Tu Bishvat in
January. Omicron may deter-
mine whether that happens.

But otherwise, unless it’s more
severe than the delta variant, it
won’t change much else.

“We don’t have to backtrack
if we just keep it conservative
and simple to follow,” she said
of her pandemic policies.

COVID may not be causing
Kol Emet to backtrack, but it
is pushing the synagogue to
move forward.

Boswell-Levy started
offering multiaccess services
when the virus first broke out.

She has continued offering them
because about 50% of attendees
now prefer to join online.

Kol Emet also raised money
recently for an outdoor sanctuary
on its 11-acre property.

“We need to live with it and
figure out what changes we
need to make in the long term,”
she said. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



F TAY-SACHS
R F R E E E E
H eadlines
NMAJH Continued from Page 1
well as create an additional
eight-figure Stuart Weitzman
Endowment to fund future
endeavors. “This was a way for him
to not only help, but also to
lay a very strong foundation
for a secure financial future,”
WNMAJH CEO
Misha Galperin said.

On Sept. 17, WNMAJH
emerged from a March 2020
bankruptcy after former
trustee Mitchell Morgan made
a $10 million commitment to
the museum, offering to buy
the building and loan it to the
museum for $1,000 a month for
three-and-a-half years until the
museum could find the means
to buy the building back.

The museum’s bondholders,
many of whom are board
members, agreed to collec-
tively forgive the $14 million
of WNMAJH’s debt accrued
after the construction of its
Independence Mall location.

Galperin reached out to
several friends of the museum
in September in hopes of
them helping the WNMAJH
repurchase its building, and
Weitzman was the first to
respond, Galperin said.

“He is himself a Jew, an
American — that’s very much
part of his story,” Galperin
said of Weitzman’s interest
in the museum. “He was first
attracted to the museum, in
part, because of the George
Washington letter [in the 2012
“To Bigotry No Sanction:
George Washington and
Religious Freedom” exhibit],
which truly legitimized the
entire concept of freedom of
religion in this country.”
Weitzman, a graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School, was featured
in the museum’s 2013 Dreamers
and Doers Speaker Series and
contributed financially to the
2018 “First Families” Gallery,
which profiled American
Colonial-era Jewish settlers.

Weitzman also attended the
December 2019 induction of
Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg in the Only
in America Hall of Fame. He
periodically designed shoes for
Ginsburg. “I have been inspired by the
NMAJH since my first visit in
2012,” Weitzman said in a press
release. “I was drawn to their
iconic artifacts that demon-
strate the very foundations of
religious freedom in America.

We are truly thrilled to be able
to make this gift to the museum
and humbled that this support
will help to ensure that stories
of American Jewish history are
told and preserved for genera-
tions to come.”
In addition to buying back
its building with Weitzman’s
gift, WNMAJH will be able to
fund a host of new programs
and initiatives.

Galperin touted WNMAJH’s
online fundraising efforts
during the pandemic, which
attracted 180,000 audience
members to a single event, he
said. Their virtual program-
ming has brought in 4 million
people to the museum’s site in
20 months.

Most recently, the museum
digitized its core exhibits
and made them available for
free online, by virtue of a gift
from philanthropist George
Blumenthal with digitization
work by Israel-based photogra-
pher Ardon Bar-Hama.

The museum will expand
the virtual tour with auditory
guided tours along specific
routes. It is considering
installing screens in the facade
windows of the building that
face Independence Mall.

Galperin also hinted at a
potential collaboration with
the newly-renovated ANU
Museum of the Jewish People
in Tel Aviv, ultimately to make
the museum more interactive.

“It’s a concept where the
visitor becomes not a passive
participant and observer, but
a co-creator of the experience
by putting themself and the
family into the museum,”
Galperin said.

Though only open for
private events, the museum,
which is operating under
“strict and very conservative
COVID-19 precautions,” will
be open to the general public
in the spring.

Miracle on the Mall was
WNMAJH’s first in-person
event since the pandemic began.

At the sold-out event, Galperin
announced Weitzman’s gift
and the museum’s new name
to WNMAJH’s board and
benefactors. It took place on the last
night of Chanukah, which was
no coincidence.

“Chanukah is, first of all,
a holiday celebrating religious
freedom and throwing off the
yoke of oppression,” Galperin
said. “In our case, the oppres-
sion was the debt.”
& & TAY-SACHS
CANAVAN CANAVAN
SCREENING SCREENING
CALL (215) 887-0877
FOR DETAILS
e-mail: ntsad@aol.com;
visit: www.tay-sachs.org
■ Screening for other
Jewish Genetic Diseases
also available.

This message is sponsored by a friend of
Nat’l Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases
Association of Delaware Valley
As the museum makes
plans to reopen to the public,
Galperin is looking forward to
new beginnings.

“I have a personal connec-
tion and affinity for the
museum because it’s the story of
American Jewish immigrants,
and I am one of them,” Galperin
said. “For me to be part of the
turnaround from being in deep
financial trouble to being on
a solid footing with a bright
future has just been one of the
most joyous moments of my
career.” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
Chanukah Around Chester County
L OCA L
THE CHESTER COUNTY
Kehillah celebrated Chanukah
with menorah lightings at
the Historic Chester County
Courthouse and Wilson Farm
Park. l
Right: Dave Gold, chair of the
Chester County Kehillah, and
Scott Zukin, along with Rabbi
Yossi Kaplan of Chabad of Chester
County, light the first candle
at the Historic Chester County
Courthouse. Far Right: Chester County
Kehillah members light a
menorah at Wilson Farm Park.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
DECEMBER 9, 2021
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