H eadlines
Rituals Continued from Page 1
their loved one deserves,” said
Seth Goldstein, a vice presi-
dent at Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s
Raphael-Sacks. The host of Jewish rituals
performed from when a person
is dying to when they’re buried
is meant to retain that person’s
dignity. “It makes me feel good that
we are bringing comfort to the
families and the loved ones that
they left behind,” said David
Kushner, a member of the
burial society Chevra Kadisha
B’nei Moshe. “It’s a very good
feeling to know that we’re
playing whatever small role
we’re playing in the continuity
of sacred Jewish rituals that go
back thousands of years.”
Still, the pandemic has
added challenges to completing
this role.

The pandemic delayed
funeral homes receiving neces-
sary burial permits for timely
funerals. Some families had to
delay funerals or give up on
traditions they wanted to take
part in, such as viewing their
loved one’s body or the ritual
cleansing of tehara.

“In this day and age, you
kind of have to be a little bit
more flexible,” Goldstein said.

10 NOVEMBER 4, 2021
Chevra kadisha members
who complete tehara donned
full personal protective equip-
ment — disposable gowns, face
shields, masks, booties, gloves
and hoods — during the height
of COVID, Kushner said.

At the beginning of COVID,
when it was unclear how COVID
was transmitted, Goldsteins’
Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks
had trouble arranging tehara
for deceased who had died of
COVID complications.

The Reconstructionist
Chevra Kadisha is just now
resuming teharas, having
suspended operation during
most of COVID, feeling unable
to make appropriate safety
accommodations. “We were getting in a small
room all together,” said Rabbi
Linda Holtzman, member and
founder of the chevra kadisha.

“There’s no windows; there’s
no anything. We’re there for
about an hour, and it just felt
uncomfortable.” Yet burials over COVID
continued, tehara or no, and
Joseph Levine & Sons has long
been prepared for adapting
funeral services, having used
digital streaming services for the
past 15 years, following a trend
of many other funeral homes.

“When kids, grandkids were
in college, or when people were
Adam Levine (left), Brian Levine and Jon Levine of Joseph Levine &
Sons Memorial Chapel
Courtesy of Adam Levine
overseas — especially in Israel
— they could log on to [Zoom].

It was really the way that our
world was moving,” Levine
said, “and we’ve had some
big services where we’ve had
hundreds of people logging on.”
Though sometimes funerals
felt palpably different — at
times, only Levine and a rabbi
would be present — Zoom has
some added benefits. When
loved ones are speaking at a
funeral over Zoom, Levine has
found it easier to focus on the
speakers. But the presence of
technology has not made all
rituals easier.

For Rabbi Tsurah August,
JEWISH EXPONENT
the staff chaplain at Jewish
Family and Children’s Service
of Greater Philadelphia,
adapting the intimate practice
of counseling a hospice patient
before their death to a virtual
space was hard.

“I was a mess,” August said.

“The most important thing is
just showing up, being present:
holding someone’s hand,
looking in their eyes, breathing
with them ... And it was gone.”
August, who works primarily
with patients at Abington
Hospice in
Warminster and Nazareth Hospice in
Philadelphia, adapted anyway,
conducting the vidui, confes-
sions also completed on Yom
Kippur, over the phone, asking
a nurse to hold up their phone
to the patient.

August incorporates more
sensory exercises into her time
with patients, asking what they
can smell, hear and look at,
trying to recreate the feeling of
a physical presence.

Having created new rituals
to honor patients’ specific
needs, August is no stranger
to making changes. She once
held a Havdalah for a patient,
bringing the braided candle,
wine and spices to a patient
before the pandemic, adjusting
the end-of-Shabbat customs to
an end-of-life ritual.

“We just keep incorporating
ancient ways into what we have
available to us now,” August said.

But even with the myriad
Rabbi Tsurah August, the staff
chaplain at Jewish Family and
Children’s Service of Greater
Philadelphia Courtesy of Tsurah August
logistic differences in the jobs
of those who work with dying
and deceased Jews, additional
rituals or liturgies that address
COVID aren’t a part of their
routines. “There’s been people that
went through the Spanish flu in
1919. There’s been people that
were Holocaust survivors, and
there’s been tragedy, but we’ve
made it through,” Levine said.

“The sadness is part of who we
are, and it makes us stronger, or
at least that’s the hope.”
Jews have always had to
weather tragedy and strife,
with COVID being no excep-
tion, Levine said. Jewish ritual
and liturgy already accounts
for Jewish strife and resilience.

Though the pandemic has
exposed more people to more
death, questions and compli-
cated feelings about death are
no more clear, August said.

The mystery of death remains
a focal point of the Jewish
tradition. “Sometimes [patients] will
ask me about Jewish beliefs
about death,” August said. “It’s
so varied; ask any Jew you’ll get
a different answer.”
August’s job isn’t to provide
the answer.

“People just want affirma-
tion of what they hope,” she
said. “I am there to help lift
what’s on their heart.” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Schools Continued from Page 1
head of school at the pre-K-
eighth grade Abrams Hebrew
Academy in Yardley.

Last year, Abrams students
stayed in their classrooms
all day, and teachers came to
them. There were no lunches in
the cafeteria, no art or music
classes and no sports or clubs.

Abrams had one basic
mission: get through an in-person
school year. Everything else was
secondary to avoiding the virus,
Budow said.

None of the COVID
vaccines had Food and Drug
Administration approval until
December. Even after they
gained emergency use autho-
rization, they weren’t available
to teachers and teenagers for
several months.

“So everybody was under
pressure,” Budow said. “We’re
going to school; we’re not
protected at all.”
This year, it’s the opposite
feeling. Vaccinations have brought
peace of mind. Cafeteria
lunches have restored loud,
lively lunch tables. Activities
have revitalized student
interests that transcend class
subjects. Only the masks remain as
the obvious, undeniable sign
that COVID is still alive.

“Everything else is back to
normal,” Budow said.

Christie Chiantese, who
teaches second grade and
middle school language arts,
explained that it’s vital for
Abrams to be a community
and not just a school.

“When you feel like you’re
part of a community, you tend
to do more, be more, give
more,” she said.

But local Jewish schools
wouldn’t be able to pull this
off without sound protocols,
mostly developed during the
uncertain 2021-’21 school year.

After the pandemic spring of
2020, which forced schools into
the digital space, the Kellman
Brown Academy had one chief
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM When you feel like you’re part of a
community, you tend to do more, be more,
give more.”
CHRISTIE CHIANTESE
director of school and commu-
nity relations for the Lower
Merion School District.

But, as Barrack’s head of
school, Rabbi Marshall Lesack,
put it, even inoculating the
younger age group may not
lead to the end of the pandemic.

Local districts are prepared for
COVID “to be with us for a
while,” he said.

At the same time, school
leaders think students can
handle that. Administrators
are not seeing restriction
fatigue among students — like
kids ripping masks off.

According to Besie Katz, the
head of school at the Politz
Hebrew Academy in Northeast
Philadelphia, COVID is no
longer consuming the life of a
school. “It’s part of our life,” she
said. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
Kellman Brown Academy students enjoy recess outside on a recent
fall day.
Courtesy of Toby Miller
priority for the following fall.

Open, and stay open.

“To teach students in the
safest way possible and also in
the most normal way possible,”
said Rachel Zivic, KBA’s head
of school.

The pre-K-8 institution in
Voorhees, New Jersey, came up
with a strategy that it still uses
in 2021-’22.

Have parents fill out a health
questionnaire every morning
on an app. Keep students at
a 3-6 foot distance. Enforce
masking. KBA has not had a COVID
case since reopening in the fall
of 2020. Over the last two years,
it also has welcomed more than
100 new students.

Zivic attributed some of the
increase to the school’s ability
to pull off a safe, in-person year
during COVID. She said some
of those new students came
from public schools.

“Everything was new last
year, so we were inventing the
wheel,” Zivic added. “This year,
we have a template.”
The head of school is
prepared to continue her
approach for as long as she
needs to, and other admin-
istrators said the same. But
just like the initial approval
of vaccinations, there is now
another possible “light at the
end of the tunnel.”
That would be vaccinations
for children ages 5-11, which
the FDA approved Oct. 29,
according to media reports.

The federal agency only
granted emergency use autho-
rization to the Pfizer vaccine,
not the other two.

Local school leaders plan on
encouraging vaccinations for
young students. Several insti-
tutions, including Abrams,
KBA and the Jack M. Barrack
Hebrew Academy in Bryn
Mawr, are even going to host
vaccine clinics.

“Vaccinations are one of the
key mitigation efforts that will
enable us to return to normal,”
said Amy Buckman, the
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