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Is COVID Still Shaping High Holiday
Plans at Synagogues?
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
B efore the High Holidays last
year, when 5781 became 5782,
Philadelphia-area synagogues
planned to return to in-person ser-
vices after the remote COVID year
of 2020. But the delta variant altered
those plans.

Many synagogues were in-person but
with restrictions, and with many congre-
gants choosing the virtual option.

Now, going into this year’s High
Holidays, when 5782 becomes 5783, shuls
again plan to gather in their sanctuaries.

At the same time, they are offering a vir-
tual option, though not because we are
past COVID and into the hybrid future.

They are offering it, along with requir-
ing or suggesting other safety measures,
because the pandemic lingers.

As Rosh Hashanah approaches on
Sept. 25, hundreds of Americans per day
are still dying from COVID.

Rabbi Abe Friedman of Temple Beth
Zion-Beth Israel in Philadelphia com-
pared this stage of the pandemic to the
recovery stage between the beginning
and end of an illness. There is that space
of recovery in between, he said.

“A lot of people are out of it, and a lot
of people are very much in it,” Friedman
added. “We’re trying to stay cognizant
that these High Holidays will not be the
same for everybody.”
BZBI has about 400 households in its
congregation. They fall into roughly two
categories concerning COVID more than
two years in, with a vaccine available and
society back open. Friedman hears from
some members who are immunocom-
promised and much more vulnerable
than the average person. Then he hears
from others who are no longer concerned
about it.

Even last year, though, the Philadelphia
synagogue did not cap its in-person
attendance number. Its sanctuary is
big enough to accommodate adequate
spacing, Friedman explained. But it did
require vaccinations and masks. This
year, those are open questions that the
rabbi and other synagogue leaders will
figure out in the coming weeks.

One thing they know is that they will
Rabbi Abe Friedman of Temple Beth
Zion-Beth Israel in Center City said
many of his congregants are still
worried about COVID.

Courtesy of Rabbi Abe Friedman
hold two services, in separate places
in the temple’s Center City building,
for Kol Nidre. BZBI’s ritual committee
expects peak attendance on the eve of
Yom Kippur and wants to make sure that
people feel comfortable coming in.

“If people feel like there are more
people than they are comfortable with,
they’ll have another room to check out,”
Friedman said.

Other synagogues have similar con-
cerns. At Ohev Shalom of Bucks County,
leaders welcomed about a third of the
normal, 1,000-person, pre-COVID, High
Holiday crowd last September, according
to Rabbi Eliott Perlstein. This year, the
rabbi hopes to increase that in-person
number to about 50 or 60% of the pre-
COVID crowd.

The rest, like in 2021, will be able to
gather online. And in person, social dis-
tancing and masks will be optional.

“So I wouldn’t say we’re totally
post-pandemic, but we’re moving in the
right direction,” Perlstein said. “It’s a real
balancing act.”
Down the shore at Shirat Hayam
Congregation in Ventnor, New Jersey, a
large in-person sanctuary will allow peo-
ple to spread out from each other, Rabbi
Jonathan Kremer explained. But even
in that safe space, attendees who are not
vaccinated must be masked.

Shirat Hayam’s 300-family congrega-
tion is older, and “it’s not worth taking
the risk,” Kremer said.

“We’re told in the book of Deuteronomy
to choose life, and we’d rather err on the
side of being overly cautious, just as we
do with security,” he added.

Perhaps no synagogue in the region is
being more cautious than Or Zarua on
the Main Line, an 80-family congrega-
tion made up primarily of baby boom-
ers. The older members decided to take
the risk this summer to travel and see
their families, according to Rabbi Shelly
Barnathan. But then there were “a lot of
incidents of COVID,” she added.

Since Or Zarua gathers in the Old
Haverford Friends Meetinghouse, which
is small, congregants can’t spread out
during services. So when Barnathan and
her members looked ahead to the High
Holidays in the fall, they decided to go
virtual for the third straight year. Last
year, there were more than 100 screens
on Zoom.

“We found ways to do the social con-
nection,” she said.

Not all synagogues are operating with
restrictions. Several rabbis said they
would be back in person for the High
Holidays with virtual options, yes, but no
other limiting safety measures. But most
are offering the online option because
they acknowledged that many congre-
gants are still worried about COVID.

“Beth El is fully back but, we are mak-
ing accommodations for people who
aren’t quite comfortable coming into the
building,” said Rabbi David Cantor of
Congregation Beth El in Yardley. JE
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