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UPDATED: Oct. 8, 2020 at 12:09 p.m.

During the summer months, Syracuse University junior Morgan Salomon and her family were already looking ahead to the High Holy Days and worrying about how they would have a meaningful celebration in the fall.

Salomon usually sees her grandma and attends big services, and she wasn’t sure what the holidays were going to look like due to the pandemic and its restrictions.

“As it got closer and I wasn’t able to go home and everything, I was really nervous,” Salomon said. “I think a lot of students who would usually go home or attend big services were feeling that stress of ‘what are we going to do.’”

Salomon serves as co-president of Syracuse Jews, an off-campus Jewish organization for SU and SUNY-ESF students. Hosting socially-distanced Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services and outdoor events for Jewish students wasn’t what she was used to, but it all came together for Salomon.

Syracuse Jews is one of several Jewish organizations for SU and SUNY-ESF students, including two campus organizations, Hillel Jewish Student Union and Chabad House.

Esty Rapoport (left) and Dara Doft recite prayers over the etrog and the lulav. Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor

For Sukkot, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the autumn harvest and runs from Oct. 2 to Oct. 9, Chabad built a traditional sukkah, an outdoor structure where Sukkot celebrations are held, on the Quad. They also drove a wooden sukkah around Syracuse on a pickup truck so they could bring the Sukkot celebration to students, said Shawn Lewis, an SU senior and co-president of Chabad.

“It was definitely something I’ll always remember,” Lewis said. “If you were to tell me 10 years ago that you’ll be spending this holiday outside and whatever I don’t think I would’ve picked Syracuse as the place that would be.”

Hillel also has a sukkah outside their building for students to use to celebrate Sukkot.

Syracuse Jews, which Salomon and Honey Herman founded during the fall 2019 semester, hosted High Holy Day events outdoors for students on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish new year, Syracuse Jews hosted a brisket dinner on the night of Sept. 18. The dinner had about 50 people in attendance, said Herman, a SUNY-ESF junior and co-president of Syracuse Jews.

“It was a really beautiful event because even though everybody was six feet apart wearing a mask, it was still like everyone was interacting (and) people were meeting people that were Jewish,” Herman said.

In addition to the brisket dinner, Syracuse Jews also offered services throughout Rosh Hashanah weekend to celebrate the new year.

Although Salomon said that it is hard to stay optimistic, she added that Syracuse Jews engaged more students than it had in the past. The group was able to reach Jewish students who usually went home for the holidays and weren’t involved in Jewish life on campus, Herman said. And even though it was cold outside during the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur celebrations, Salomon said that the “warmth of everybody’s spirit was radiating.”

“The services, yes you’re six feet apart, but it kind of created your own little bubble of prayer and finding your space and your own personal connection to God,” Salomon said.

Hillel Rabbi Joel Goldstein also provided SU students a place to celebrate the High Holidays this year, offering services in the tent outside of the Hillel building.

Hillel held both its Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in this tent, which holds 25 people with social distancing. The tent’s capacity has caused logistic problems and frustration, but Goldstein said overall, in person-services and Hillel activities have gone better than he anticipated.

During his services, Goldstein has tried to give attendees opportunities to safely interact with the people around them. Though he describes himself as a “traditionalist,” he has also tried to bring more creative and interactive aspects into his services, such as having attendees write poems about that week’s Torah portion and using movement to understand Jewish text.

“I’m a traditionalist in general, but I’m not always serving a traditional population, and I think that the ability to think creatively about how we celebrate, how we greet the holidays, is really something that I’m going to keep doing,” Goldstein said.

Hillel offered pre-packaged Rosh Hashanah dinners to students that they could pick up at the Hillel building or Hendricks Chapel. The organization also provides pre-packaged meals to students every Shabbat, on Friday night. Goldstein said that when people pick up their pre-packaged meals, they are also getting more interaction time with others.

SU Hillel members create decorations for the sukkah, an outdoor structure where Sukkot celebrations are held. Allie Rosen | Contributing Photographer

Still, there is a sense of sadness among students who weren’t able to go home and spend the holiday with their families, Goldstein said. He has also experienced this sadness personally because he wasn’t able to have his wife and two kids attend services at Hillel because of social distancing regulations, he added.

“I’m serving people more than I’m serving myself,” he said.

Lewis said that it’s been harder to engage students because they may not feel comfortable gathering in person. The organization experienced a “hit to the attendance” of High Holiday events, said Kate Berman, SU junior and the other co-president of Chabad.

Chabad is a Jewish organization on campus that works to expand the scope of Jewish awareness, consciousness, knowledge and observance. For Rosh Hashanah, they hosted services Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as a Shofar sounding on Sunday.

Like Hillel, Chabad is also offering pre-packaged meals to students. The Chabad rabbi’s wife makes the meals in advance. Berman said that because the rabbi’s wife is making the meals beforehand, she has more of an opportunity to talk to the students.

“There’s a benefit to this in terms of we’re able to be more engaged during the dinner,” Lewis said. “We’re not worried about we’ve got to get this food on this place and everything.”

SU sophomore Madi Weinmann (left) and SU freshman Dylan Fox (right) hanging handmade decorations for the sukkah. Allie Rosen | Contributing Photographer

For Yom Kippur, Chabad offered services on Sunday, Sept. 27, when observing Jewish individuals begin a 24-hour fast. They also offered services all day during Yom Kippur on Monday, Sept. 28 until the break-fast on Monday night.

Chabad held its services and events in the backyard of the Chabad house on Ostrom Avenue. Lewis said that the seating, which was set up to adhere to social distancing guidelines, encouraged people to be more engaged in the services.

For Goldstein, the High Holy Days mark a new year and a chance at hope. It is a chance for people to reflect and potentially be angry with the way the universe is working right now, he said.

“This is a chance for us to kind of reset and I think that’s the important thing, is to reset and to have a year where we hope that things will be better, that illnesses will be gone, that racial relationships will improve,” Goldstein said. “I will say it is also a time of a lot of fear for a lot of people that the next year will be worse and there is that element of it that hopefully, we can give people some meaning and some hope.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misidentified Esty Rapoport as the Chabad House rabbi’s wife. Esty Rapoport is the rabbi’s daughter. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on October 7, 2020 at 9:59 pm

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu