As a non-zionist havurah, our community was founded on the idea that all people are chosen and all land is holy. We therefore celebrate the cycles of our own natural year even as we mark the ritual cycles of an ancient, nearly-imagined homeland contained within Jewish liturgy. In July we honor the berries coming ripe … Continue reading Fringes July 2021: to be holy something must exist in relationship
Our June service for many years now has centered around poems about bees and honey and sweetness. While last year our liturgy had very little sweetness, as we prayed our response to the growing COVID crisis and the murder of George Floyd and the response to that murder, this year we made space for the … Continue reading Fringes June 2021: Tell the Bees
Our May, 2021 service honored the Brood X periodical cicadas that are crawling to the surface in the millions all around Philadelphia. We offered praise to the wonders of the natural world, and grief for the human destruction of that world. The slide show for our liturgy this month is here. We listened to Aly … Continue reading Fringes May 2021: Even skin must crack open
With palpable relief that SOME accountability had happened, and mired in the grief that yet another Black teenager had been murdered by police, we gathered to mark the morning after the verdict of the Chauvin trial Download the slide pack for our morning liturgy here. Resources used in the service: Jericho Brown reading his poem … Continue reading After the Verdict, We Gathered
Again this year, for the 8th time, Fringes and Tikkun Olam Chavurah are creating engaged, political, and creative High Holiday services. Co-led by Rabbi Linda Holtzman and Fringes leaders/members Karen Escovitz, Elliott batTzedek, and Sue Hoffman, the services will this year be held on the Internets rather than in the lovely historic stone Mennonite church … Continue reading High Holidays 5781/2020 with Fringes and Tikkun Olam Chavurah
Prayer For a People Facing DangerElliott batTzedek, Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah download Holy Breath and Holy Name – Today we face a danger we cannot yet fully comprehend. We are frightened, we are confused, we are lost. We need the most basic information, yet we live in a time and in a country where … Continue reading Prayer for a People Facing Danger
Our November service focused on the theme of time - how we pass it, how it passes us, how we live in it or only to the side watching it. Our liturgy is downloadable here. For our torah study we discussed the how nursing and breast milk were understood across the ancient Near East and … Continue reading Fringes November 2019: Prayer is the space we allow it in our lives
This is the kavanah I gave on Yom Kippur 5780 between the al chet we do for racism and the one we do for Palestine/Israel. Our High Holiday prayer community is a collaboration between Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah and Tikkun Olam Chavurah. Download Al Chet Kavanah by Elliott batTzedek Al Chet Kavanah Elliott batTzedek … Continue reading On white supremacy and JOCSM in Jewish communities: an al chet kavanah
For the 7th year, Fringes will be co-creating High Holiday services with Tikkun Olam Chavurah. We meet in the Germantown Mennonite Church, 21 W. Washington Lane in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. You can download our Kol Nidre supplement here, and our all-day Yom Kippur supplement here.
Here's the supplement for the Fringes/Tikkun Olam Chavurah 1st day Rosh Hashanah service.
