This year, for the 6th time, Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah and Tikkun Olam Chavurah are co-creating High Holiday services, led by Rabbi Linda Holtzman, Elliott batTzedek and Karen Escovitz.

Our services are a combination of traditional and original liturgy, along with a rich musical experience, and social justice-centered talks and Torah study. We create a spiritual home for politically-engaged Jews who want to do the deep personal introspection of the High Holidays within the understanding that our lives unfold in a wider world. As a community we believe in radical inclusion, and welcome your full Jewish self – questions, doubts, connection to Jewish values and a search for new answers.

Our theme this year is Resistance – honoring it in our traditions, nurturing it in ourselves, and fueling it in our communities:

on Rosh Hashanah, we take the story of Hagar and Ishmael to heart and explore the questions it raises about forced motherhood, refugees, and a God who hears the cries of a child and responds

on Tashlich, when we leave the river and head for the Philadelphia ICE with a communal ritual protest

on Yom Kippur, when, rather than workshops, we’ll head out into the neighborhood to do voter registration/motivation, and when our martyrology will focus on the life and work of Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, lesbian-feminist writer, peace activist, and founder of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

Throughout all our services we’ll be acknowledging just how difficult this year is – the dangers we face, the harm being done to our local and extended communities, and the sense of hopelessness/despair we all confront. We’ll use new and traditional liturgies, music, singing, study, and story to create a space in which we can let ourselves feel the depths of our fears and the deep root of strength and resistance we create together.

Rosh Hashanah
Monday, September 10 at Germantown Mennonite Church.
Services start at 9:30 am. They will be followed by a potluck.

Tashlich
Sunday, September 16, 2:00 pm, Communal protest at ICE, 220 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia

Kol Nidre
Tuesday, September 18, 6:30 pm, at the Germantown Mennonite Church

Yom Kippur
Wednesday, September 19, at the Germantown Mennonite Church
Morning services, 9:30 am
Voter registration, 2:00 pm
Mincha service, 3:30 pm
Yizkor, 4:30 pm
Martyrology/Life of Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, 5:30 pm
Ne’ilah, 6:30 pm