Unlike Passover, with its tradition of at-home Seders that translated well to Zoom in the spring, the Jewish High Holy Days have a strong emphasis on hours spent inside of a synagogue. Good news: Because of the pandemic, conservative, reform and nontraditional synagogues are streaming services — available free, and to nonmembers — from their mostly empty sanctuaries. But if formal prayer isn’t your thing, there are plenty of other ways, some of them virus-inspired, to celebrate safely. “Crisis is painful, but I think we’re seeing the Jewish community reconfigure,” says Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish group in North America. First, about those services: If you’re not a fan of whatever local synagogue you attended in the past (maybe because its real appeal was free High Holy Day tickets), this year you can go global.

Source: New York Times September 06, 2020 04:52 UTC