Pandemic Doesn’t Stop
Family Reunions
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
T hey came from Russia and the state of Georgia, New
York and Israel. From France and New Jersey they
arrived, ready to gab. And in Northeast Philadelphia,
Jeanne Kolodner got to see all 100 or so of their faces: the
extended Aronow/Patkin family, spread across the world,
together again for a reunion.

This time, though, it was via Zoom.

Kolodner’s family typically hosts an in-person reunion
every four years, gathering near the ancestral homeland of
Camden, New Jersey, for feasts, music and commemorative
ceremonies. The 2012 reunion was able to proceed in spite of
the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy, and the 2016 iteration went
well, too.

But 2020 was deemed too risky for an in-person reunion
so, rather than wait for a safe time to meet in person again,
the family decided to create a Zoom reunion, complete with
breakout rooms for specific ages and interests, a slideshow
memorializing lost family members, two sign language inter-
preters and a party DJ to keep things moving.

It was hard to replicate the feeling of an in-person reunion,
and to have a conversation with just one person was impos-
sible. But for Kolodner, the chance to hold some version of the
reunion was well worth the headaches.

Cheryl Friedenberg (highlighted in yellow) has held Zoom calls with her mother (top left) and
siblings (top middle, top right and middle right) five nights per week since the pandemic began.

Photo by Cheryl Friedenberg
Name: Chain Mar
Width: 9.25 in
Depth: 5.5 in
Color: Black plus one
Comment: Jewish Exponent/Mazel tov
899 1599
1399 599
1499 1199
10 MARCH 25, 2021
MAZEL TOV!
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



“Altogether, it came out very good, I think,” she said.

Kolodner’s family is hardly the only one to make use of
Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms in the last year
for a family reunion. Though family reunions aren’t typically
perceived as particularly “Jewish” — that’s what Passover and
the High Holidays are for — many have taken the isolation of the
pandemic as a chance to connect, or reconnect.

Some reunions, like Kolodner’s, are new twists on old tradi-
tions, but other families, like that of Chani Baram, took the
chance to start new ones.

Baram, who lives with her family in South Philadelphia, said
that her extended family hadn’t gotten together since the early
’80s, when earlier generations remained in a tight circle. Since
then, as branches grew and new ones were added, such reunions
became a distant memory. For a long time, the idea of another
reunion wasn’t just geographically impractical, but emotionally
fraught. “People don’t feel as connected to each other,” Baram said.

“That’s the truth.”
After the pandemic began, a couple of cousins decided to try
and make something of everyone’s newfound downtime and
computer literacy, collecting emails and gauging interest for a
Zoom-based reunion. In the end, more than 200 people convened
in several different time slots on a Sunday in December.

A screenshot from a slideshow displayed during the Aronow
and Patkin family reunion shows some Philadelphia ancestors.

 Courtesy of Kerith Aronow
Name: Cong. Tiferet Bet Israel
Width: 5.5 in
Depth: 5.5 in
Color: Black plus one
Comment: Mazel Tov
Name: TerraVida Holistic Centers
Width: 5.5 in
Depth: 5.5 in
Color: Black plus one
Comment: JE - Mazel Tov
Though such conditions precluded intimate conversation —
there was the size of the group, plus the fact that many were
distant strangers to Baram and her family — Baram was pleased
the event was organized. Only in the pandemic, she believes,
would it have ever happened.

“It was really cool,” Baram said.

Betty-Ann Izenman of Wynnewood hasn’t been able to bring
her family together for a reunion in more than a decade. That’ll
happen when your family, once concentrated in Canada, is now
spread between Australia, England, the U.S. and the Great White
North. And yet, in 2019, a reunion was planned, with a city (Boston)
and a date (April 2020), ready to rock and roll. That original date
became an early casualty of the pandemic, and so, too, did a
hopefully conceived fall 2020 makeup. “And then it got canceled
entirely,” Izenman recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, that’s ridiculous.

Why don’t we just get together on Zoom?’”
That’s exactly what Izenman and 16 family member did last
summer, with the Australians rising early, the Brits staying up late
See Reunions, Page 12
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM MAZEL TOV!
MARCH 25, 2021
11