We met one week after the announcement that Roe would be overturned, and in a way that attacks the bodily autonomy and right-to-love-who-we-love of everyone in our community. And the week that Covid deaths have reached the awful milestone of 1,000,000 in the U.S. In our service we prayed words of grief and worry and … Continue reading Fringes May 2022: make safe her choice

Pesach 2022 Additions to Honor UkraineElliott batTzedek / Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah The Sunflower Seed on the Seder Plate Reader: On our seder plate tonight is a new symbol, a sunflower seed. Why a sunflower seed? Reader: Because, on February 22nd, the 2nd day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a woman confronted the … Continue reading Pesach 5782/2022 Haggadah Additions for Ukraine

Our April, 2022 service pulled liturgy and emotions from both Passover and the slowly budding spring. Using words from many of our favorite liturgists - Dane Kuttler, Alicia Ostriker, Marge Piercy, Denise Levertov, and translator Marcia Falk - we moved from the Song of Songs to today's Ukraine, from the maggid to praising the yellows … Continue reading Fringes April 2022: redemption from every fragment

Fringes met via zoom for what is, for us, a regular March service, honoring the natural world’s awakening from winter here in the holy land where we dwell. We also marked the reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, honoring the shock we all feel and our fear for the people being attacked. Download our … Continue reading Fringes March 2022: we shake with joy/we shake with grief

Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah turned 15 this month. How have 15 years gone past since we started this radical little idea in a freezing cold 2nd floor room in a house in the Germantown neighborhood of NW Philadelphia? We wanted a prayer life that respected our politics, our spirits and our minds, and together … Continue reading Fringes 15th Anniversary Service, February 2022

We did a modified service this month, shorter than our usual shabbat morning, built around the combined themes of winter, secular new year, and honoring trees in anticipation of Tu B'Shvat. We also marked a difficult milestone - the 11th month of saying kaddish for founding member Barbara Granger. Download a PDF of our January … Continue reading Fringes January 2022 – to come back to still water

Ever since Fringes was founded our December service has revolved around honoring the wisdom of the dark time of the year. Founded in part by witchy Jews, we know the dark is part of our natural cycle, not something to fear or dread, and we actively resist the western tradition that associates the dark with … Continue reading Fringes December 2021 – to know the dark, go dark

Our Fringes tradition is that the November service focuses on questions of time and holiness - how shabbat is a temple in time, not space, and how we live within the tension between life-time and clock-time. For our torah study we looked back at our own founding statement about being a non-zionist havurah - something … Continue reading Fringes November 2021

Our liturgy this month centered us in the space where we dwell - balanced between Jewish liturgical history and our lives today in our cities in North America. We moved between the moment when Jewish prayer switches to beseeching the rains to come and the arrival of autumn. You can download a PDF of our … Continue reading Fringes October 2021 – blue-gray sentinels, nearly motionless

In 2021/5782 most of our services will again be online. We'd hoped to have some events in person, but the rise of the COVID Delta variant has made that unsafe. Next year, in person! Our communities don't require tickets of any kind for our services - but we do need donations from those who can … Continue reading High Holidays 5782 with Fringes and Tikkun Olam Chavurah