After 15 months of pandemic and social distancing, California is reopening. So, too, synagogues and Jewish community organizations, which have been operating primarily online for more than a year, are resuming in-person gatherings.
As we reopen our buildings and prepare for in-person services and events, there are many questions to address.
Covid response teams and reopening committees are asking: How many people can attend an indoor event? Can we require proof of vaccination? Is communal singing safe if people are masked?
Jewish organizational leaders grapple daily with the exhausting work of adapting our operations to the continually evolving public-health protocols.
Beyond these kinds of safety protocol questions, there are also the spiritual and emotional questions: How do we celebrate reopening while also making space for the pain and losses over the past year? How do we return to the previous formats knowing how much this past year has changed us? Does Jewish tradition guid