Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah is again doing two High Holiday services this year: Shabbat Shuvah on Saturday, September 19th, and Sukkot/Sh'mini Atzeret on Saturday, October 3rd. Fringes was founded on a commitment to rejecting all nationalism and militarism and to being a broad, diverse community of Jews who want a different kind of prayer … Continue reading 5787/2026 High Holidays with Fringes

Since our very first year, Fringes' July liturgy has celebrated the berries that come ripe here in the summer. This came about in part because of our commitment to non-zionism - we believed that all land is holy, and that our lives as Jews in Philadelphia should be centered in our prayer life. And in … Continue reading Fringes July 2026: there’s a dream I have in which I love the world

We met on what was a stunning summer day for those of us here in the Northeast U.S. - the start of summer, when life in past times felt possibilities growing as strawberries ripen with other fruits and berries soon to follow. This year, of course, is different - surrounding that beauty, pressing it down, … Continue reading Fringes June 2026: I am most fragrant in June

We met on what should have been a lovely May Saturday except of course it is the week white supremacy regained even more power with the destruction of the Voting Rights Act. And the U.S. is ramping up its death machinery within the country and across the globe. So in the midst of praising the … Continue reading Fringes May 2026: a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm

We met, metaphorically, on the far side of the sea of reeds, trying to breathe after acts of horrible violence, unsure what more violence might be coming. Pulling from the metaphors of Pesach, we felt the danger and risk of our own age, but still paused to set down worry, fear, and fury so we … Continue reading Fringes April 2026: to tell each other stories that freedom is possible

We met on Shabbat morning at a perilous moment, caught between the our lives in a violent empire where hope can be hard to hold on to and the coming of spring, when rises along with the sap and the warming of the earth. Our liturgy helped us move between those poles of our daily … Continue reading Fringes March 2026: Because what is a blossom?

We gathered for our 19th birthday, the start of our 20th year, in a time of so much danger and possibility. Our service included songs being sung as wild resistance in Minnesota, and for our torah study we were joined by Minneapolis Jewish activists Sharon Jaffe and Jessica Rosenberg to share what their experience has … Continue reading Fringes February 2026: pain-dark horror and profound, daring hope

We met for shabbat morning service after a devastating week of living in/watching cities invaded by heavily armed, violent, murderous thugs who have been given permission to terrorize and murder. In this storm, we gathered within the power of our community, the welcome of a space where our grief and fear are holy, and the … Continue reading Fringes January 2026: to make hope possible

We met for our annual service to honor the dark. As always, our liturgy explored the richness and necessity of the dark in all natural cycles, and to honor this time of when we go can inward, rest, and prepare for new growth. As Jewish liturgy doesn't encode this understanding, we draw even more heavily … Continue reading Fringes December 2025: without darkness nothing comes to birth

We met for our November tradition, a service about time, growing from Heschel's writing about how shabbat is a cathedral in time. This year we focused more about living in this time - in this moment of so much fear and grief and uncertainty, with the need to avoid surrendering to despair. You can download … Continue reading November 2025: you must go away from the screech of dissonant days