Groups welcome unaffiliated Jews to High Holy Day services without the price tag.
by Randi Sherman Editorial Assistant
Paul Reisch had been at odds with his Judaism for decades before he began attending High Holiday services at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah five years ago. He had been raised “Reform, Conservative and a little bit Orthodox,” but with the realization that he was gay, acceptance became a barrier.“For an unaffiliated Jew on the High Holy Days, to walk in and hear ‘You’re a Jew, welcome,’ or ‘You’re a Jew, you’re home,’ is exactly what you want,” said Reisch, 72.He and his partner, Bret Adams, an Episcopalian, felt accepted at CBST, attending Yizkor together to honor the memory of all those they had lost, both Jewish and gentile.“Bret had a Jewish soul and sensibility — the emotion of a Jew and the clarity of an Episcopalian,” Reisch said. When Adams passed away in late July, CBST’s cantorial intern David Berger officiated at the funeral.Acceptance becomes a major theme during the High Holy Days, especially for the large numbers of unaffiliated Jews looking for services. CBST takes as many people as it can fit into Town Hall for Rosh HaShanah, and the Javits Center for Yom Kippur, incorporating prayer traditions from all points on the Jewish spectrum as well as music in Yiddish and Ladino. In 2001 — when the Jewish holidays came on the heels of 9/11 — the Yom Kippur service drew 6,000 people.While money was never an issue for Reisch, it is for many others and CBST understands that. “Since 1973, the beginning of our synagogue, High Holy Day services have been free,” said CBST’s Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. “It is our commitment that tickets and money should not be a barrier.”CBST is not the only place in New York with free services.Rachel Posner, a teacher in her early 30s, would have to forego High Holiday services if they were not free. “I don’t have money for membership or tickets. I’m uncomfortable with the fact that people are expected to pay to pray,” she said. Posner currently attends the Ohel Ayalah minyan’s Rosh HaShanah services, which are specifically aimed at those in their 20s and 30s. Ohel Ayalah’s services follow a traditional egalitarian track and are led by Rabbi Judith Hauptman, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary who actually refuses donations from participants.For those who need to learn the basics, Congregation Emunath Israel in Chelsea offers beginner services, led by Rabbi Larry Goldstein. Conducted mostly in English, the services appeal to the unaffiliated as well as those, such as Marion Saulig, who don’t read Hebrew. “There is a question-and-answer period and everything is simplified, Americanized,” Saulig said. While Rabbi Goldstein says his services follow the Orthodox tradition, all are welcome.Some unaffiliated Jews opt for free services because of commitment issues, with a synagogue that is.“I’m in a period of transition, I’ve just started a family,” said Paul Schaeffer, director of the Master Child Index for the City of New York. “For the past eight to 10 years I’ve been between my parents’ synagogue in Brooklyn and non-affiliation. New York City breeds the kind of people that move a lot.”For the past two years, Schaeffer has attended the Wall Street Synagogue’s High Holy Day services, which have been free since 1993, spurred by a desire to serve transient New Yorkers.“We are in the area that young people move in to get jobs,” said Wall Street Synagogue’s Rabbi Meyer Hager. “They don’t know how long they’ll be here, and it’s hard for them because they don’t feel they have roots yet.” Free services appeal to them, Rabbi Hager said, as do the synagogue’s traditional services with English readings and explanations, mixed with Hebrew prayer.Schaeffer was intrigued by the hospitality at his initial visit. “The first time I was there, I was asked to [have an] aliyah, to hold the Torah and help close the Ark,” he said. “I wouldn’t be asked to do that at my parents’ shul where I’ve been going many years.”For a transdenominational holiday experience, the East Side Synagogue has offered services especially for the unaffiliated for 24 years. Sibling rabbis Perry and Leah Berkowitz draw from all Jewish denominations and incorporate movement, music, the arts and liturgical dance in addition to varied commentary.“God’s sparks of divinity are to be found everywhere,” said Rabbi Perry Berkowitz. “ A religious leader’s job is to lift up these sparks, no matter where they appear.” The services are designed to appeal to Jews of all backgrounds.For the past 40 years, the New York Metropolitan Conference of the North American Federation of Temple Brotherhoods has offered free services to young adults, bringing together as many as 2,000 Jews a year in their four High Holy Day services, said Craig Mende, assistant chairman of the High Holiday Services Committee. Bernie Silverman, the conference’s president for 25 years, launched a tradition in which participants who met there and ended up marrying were promised two bottles of wine. Silverman died last week, so this year services promise to be poignant. Silverman was in charge when Mende attended his first services here in 1988 as a broke first-year law student at New York University.At Yizkor services this year at the Javits Center, Reisch, now a CBST member, will remember his partner and all those lost along the way; the New York Metropolitan Conference of the North American Federation of Temple Brotherhoods will honor Bernie Silverman; and the participants at the East Side Synagogue will say Yizkor for their personal and collective pasts, invoking memories of friends and loved ones as well as those who perished in the Holocaust and on 9/11. nFor information on free High Holy Day services:Congregation Beth Simchat Torah: www.cbst.orgOhel Ayalah: (212) 678-8905 or go to www.ohelayalah.org.Congregation Emunath Israel: Rabbi Larry Goldstein, (212) 633-9065.Wall Street Synagogue: (212) 227-7800, Ext. 11.East Side Synagogue: (212) 209-6801.
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