COMMUNITY NEWS
The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia mobilizes
financial and volunteer resources to address the
communities’ most critical priorities locally, in Israel and
around the world.

Three Ways to Celebrate Purim With
Your Jewish Community
T he sweet smells of hamantaschen coming
out of the oven, the raucous sounds of
graggers cranking over the reading of the
Megillah, the vibrant sights of children in costumes
— you guessed it, Purim is just around the corner!
This year, Purim will take place on the evening of
Wednesday, March 16 through Thursday, March 17.

To get into the spirit of the holiday that commem-
orates Queen Esther saving the Jewish people, the
Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s neigh-
borhood Kehillot have planned pre- and post-Purim
festivities for your whole family to enjoy.

“Right before the pandemic began, I attended the
Kehillah of Old York Road Purim carnival. How
joyous that now, two years later, we get to once
again have in-person, community-wide Purim cel-
ebrations once again,” said Addie Lewis Klein, the
Jewish Federation’s senior director of leadership
development and community engagement. “Safety
protocols are in place, and we can’t wait to welcome
you back to Kehillah celebrations.”
See below for three in-person events to safely
celebrate this beloved holiday:
Old York Road Purim Carnival
with an Israeli Twist
Sunday, March 13
Pre-K: 11 a.m.-noon | General: noon-2 p.m.

$10 per family advance/$20 per family at the door
Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
Join Old York Road for a festive Purim Carnival
that the entire family will love! Enjoy delicious
kosher food, exciting inflatables, Israeli-themed
fun, a Magic Mirror photo studio, music, haman-
taschen and prizes. Cost includes all activities.

Food and drink available for purchase. Advanced
online registration will close on Friday, March
11 at 10 a.m. To register, visit jewishphilly.org/
purimcarnival. The Jewish Federation’s Kehillah groups have fun and safe ways for your family to celebrate Purim this year.

Courtesy of Getty Images
ly-fun day of crafts, games and activities,
theatrical performances and mask-making.

Plus, there will be a moon bounce. Can’t
you smell the hamantaschen already?
To register, visit jewishphilly.org/purimfest.

Purim Car & Walking Parade
itable gifts to the poor. Please bring kosher
canned or packaged non-perishable foods and
toiletry items for a contactless donation to the
Mitzvah Food Program. Advance registration
closes on Friday, March 18. To register, visit
jewishphilly.org/purimparade. PurimFest ’22
Sunday, March 20, 2022 | 1:15-3 p.m.

Parade starts at Beth Ami;
9201 Old Bustleton Ave.

*** See the full Purim roundup at jewishphilly.org/
purim2022. Don’t you love Purim? The Lower Merion
Jewish community sure does! Put on your
costumes, and join the Kehillah of Lower
Merion and Kaiserman JCC for a fami-
Don’t put your costumes away just yet! Get
dressed up — maybe even decorate your car
— and join Northeast Jewish Life for a Purim
car and walking parade. The day will include
community, music, shalach manot goodie bags
and even more fun. There will also be a con-
tactless opportunity for matanot l’evyonim, char-
The Kehillot are part of the Jewish Federation’s neigh-
borhood initiative to foster a vibrant Jewish community
throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. To learn
more about your Kehillah or community group, please
contact Senior Director of Leadership Development
and Community Engagement Addie Lewis Klein at
alewis@jewishphilly.org. Sunday, March 13, 2022 | 1-4 p.m.

$18 per family
Kaiserman JCC; 45 Haverford Road
16 MARCH 10, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

BY SASHA ROGELBERG
J osh Weinberg, 29, had his first
big break on the set of Amazon
Prime Video’s “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel,” not as an actor, but as the
CEO behind the app Run A Better Set.

RABS is a web application that
functions two-fold: It acts as a digi-
tal check-in system for extras on set
and is an accounting tool, tracking
when extras on set clock in and out
and providing all payment paperwork
digitally. When the app was tested on the set
of season three episode two of “Mrs.

Maisel” during a scene with more than
700 extras and background characters,
everything went off without a hitch.

Weinberg remembers a production
assistant saying to him at the end of the
day, “You saved my wrists. Will you do
this again tomorrow?”
The Fairmount resident, who grew up
in Wynnewood and was bar mitzvahed
at Beth David Reform Congregation
in Gladwyne, didn’t expect to build a
software company for a living, but now
he can’t imagine doing anything else.

In 2022, four years after RABS’ 2018
genesis, Weinberg hopes to have 100
simultaneous clients at RABS and con-
tinue to expand services the software
can offer to industry businesses, such as
creating a database of extras for casting
companies and doing proprietary soft-
ware development for studios.

Courtesy of Josh Weinberg
You initially wanted to be a
screenwriter or producer grow-
ing up. What was your first
experience in the industry?
My first real experience was, when
I was in college, I took a few of what
they call “day player” jobs; you come
on as a temporary worker as a PA
(production assistant).

The first real job that facilitated
RABS’ creation was facilitated by
my cousin, another good Yid from
Lower Merion, Scott Rosenbaum. He
was filming a show called “Queen of
the South,” which is actually still on
the air, and it was shooting its first
season in Dallas.

And so I get this job through good
old-fashioned nepotism, living in
Josh Weinberg
Dallas. And they said to me, “Josh,
you are going to be what’s called
the extras PA, which means, here
you go, kid: Here’s 80 extras; here’s
480 pieces of paper; here’s a fold-
ing table and some highlighters and
Post-It pads. Figure it out.”
So, really, day one, I just looked
at this process, and I thought it was
horrible. I went up to the producers a few
days later and said, “Do you mind
getting me the app that deals with all
of this?” And they looked at me like,
“What? What are you talking about?”
They basically said that doesn’t
exist, so I said, “OK, I’ll make it exist.”
Where did your interest in the
film industry come from?
My family would watch “Curb [Your
Enthusiasm]” together, we would
watch Mel Brooks movies … We’d
watch Eddie Murphy on “SNL”
(“Saturday Night Live”). Those expe-
riences are moving in a lot of ways.

I was always an excellent per-
former, really good in front of a
crowd for whatever reason. So it
seemed like the right fit because
when I was on stage, I could really
make people laugh.

And then when you get older, you
sort of get kind of caught in the idea
of, “This is how I can impress people;
this is how I can make money; this is
how I can get famous.” All that stuff,
in a way, created the beginning of
a trajectory for me to go into show
business. When did you realize RABS
had taken off?
There’s a financial moment when
that actually happened, and there
was also an attitude.

The attitude was there from the
beginning. I just believe that if you
want to create something, there has
to be a strong intention — let’s just
call it a spiritual sacrifice.

But the financial moment … COVID
genuinely altered the trajectory of
the business because suddenly
I had a proven service that was
COVID-safe and solved a lot of
new production problems, and it
was already there and reliable. And
shows needed to go paperless; they needed to be COVID-safe;
they needed to connect the remote accounting offices to the
productions; they needed to be more efficient because there
was a lot more payment information to track.

So COVID, in that first wave of July 2020 — after the pandemic
had been around for a few months and the productions came
back — that’s when, suddenly, we had the accelerated growth
of what some would expect to come five years down the line
happening within the first two years.

Why stay in Philadelphia?
I’ve chosen to stay in Philadelphia because the economy has
changed. The business is totally remote. Business is all over the
country. Philadelphia is not a show business town. The reality is
that shows are in Atlanta, New York, British Columbia, Toronto,
Calgary. They’re everywhere, so you might as well be where you want
to be. That’s why I’m here. JE
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 17