High Holidays 2024/5785

Days of Awe: Rosh Hashanah, Tashlich, Yom Kippur

October 2-12, 2024 • 1-10 Tishrei 5785 

From JVP Havurah Network, JVP BIJOCSM Network (Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi, Mizrahi), JVP Rabbinical Council, JVP Chapters, Members and Friends

JVP Offerings

JVP Sephardi Mizrahi Rosh Hashanah Virtual Seder For All: Tuesday, October 1, 8pm ET
Join us for our 4th annual Sephardi Mizrahi Rosh Hashanah Virtual Seder For All. As we approach one year of genocide, grief, rage, and action, we take the opportunity to recalibrate with the Jewish new year, recommitting to our political and spiritual calling to build Judaism beyond Zionism and combat despair with hope, and renewing our resolve to end the genocide of Palestinians. Hosted by JVP and INN’s members from the BIJOCSM Networks and across the organizations. Allies welcome.

IfNotNow LA and JVP-LA Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
IfNotNow LA and JVP-LA are proud to invite you to in-person High Holiday services to nourish the soul while providing opportunities to reflect on the fight for liberation. We will be joined by Rabbi Robin Podolsky, Rabbi Brodie Aberson, Rabbinic Candidate Claire Bergen, and Rabbinic Student Sasha Perry to share community, song, and an array of traditional and modern texts that are accessible to both theist and non-theist attendees.

🍎 Rosh Hashanah – Friday, October 4, 9:30-11:30am
Join us on the morning of the second day of Rosh Hashanah for Shacharit and Torah services.

🐏 Yom Kippur – Friday, Oct 11, 6:30-8:30pm
Join us on the evening of Erev Yom Kippur for Kol Nidrei and Maariv services.

Yizkor 2024/5785

A memorial service observed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. This Yom Kippur 2024/5785, October 12, at 3:30pm ET, join us for a mass public Yizkor ritual of remembrance, refusal and recommitment, at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, NY. Wear white clothing. Bring a small stone. All are welcome. It will also be live streamed online. See full details and register here.

This mass public Yizkor is an offering of Rabbis for Ceasefire, Congregation Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, with organizing support from Christians for a Free Palestine.

Offerings from JVP-friendly Synagogues and Havurot

This is a list of synagogues and havurot that have self-identified as non or anti-Zionist in their orientation as a congregation and/or in their practice. This means that it is absolutely understood that all people are equally valued: No nation state prayers are practiced, no Israeli flag is present, and a public statement calling for a permanent ceasefire is a baseline for all.

Please contact them directly for specific information about where and when services will be offered, language access (ASL interpretation and Closed Captioning for virtual services), ADA compliance, COVID awareness and guidelines, and any other questions regarding how the group will observe the High Holy Days.

Beyt Tikkun: A Synagogue without Walls • Oakland, CA
Beyt Tikkun believes in a Judaism of love and transformation, a Judaism beyond Zionism, and a Judaism without Walls. High Holiday services will be a beautiful blend of deep spirituality and prophetic consciousness. We will find a way to navigate this challenging time together, holding our grief, compassion, care, and rage. We will have American, Israeli, and Palestinian speakers to help open our hearts and minds as well as expand our consciousness and vision of what’s possible. Our music will lift spirits and hold our brokenness. On zoom and in-person in Oakland.
See full details and register here.

Cleveland Jewish Collective • Cleveland, OH
Our prayer is songful, interspersed with English poetry, and follows the general structure of Jewish services. We will read some Torah and have 1-2 group aliyot which connect our own lives with the Torah. We are a community full of queer, trans/nb, and neurodivergent folks. We strive to center those on the margins, honor our joy and our grief, and commit to collective liberation. We also offer a variety of other modalities during Elul and Tishrei, including hikes, embodied practice, learning, reclaimed folk rituals, grief space, etc.
See full details and register here.

Congregation T’chiyah • Ferndale, MI
A Reconstructionist congregation of ~200 members. Very intergenerational and queer; predominantly white Ashkenazi space with anti-racist values. Services will be very musical (including musical instruments) and spiritual, with lots of Hebrew with translation and transliteration provided. Day two Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur afternoon feature lay-led learning workshop.
Registration by suggested donation, please email jake@tchiyah.org

Doykayt Kansas City • Kansas City, MO
A non-pluralist, queer & disabled-led, anti-Zionist congregation of 45 members. There are regular Hebrew school classes, Torah study, and Shabbat dinners, with plans for regular shabbat services on the way. The congregation is predominantly white and Ashkenazi, but honest about it.
See full details and register here.

Egal Sefardi/Mizrahi Kehilla of Brooklyn • Brooklyn, NY
Traditional Sefardi Nusach. Left politics. We are a grassroots collective who has been active in JVP/INN/JFREJ coalition for years.
See full details and register here.

Fringes: A feminist, non-Zionist havurah • Virtual, based in Philadelphia, PA
We will be doing an extended Shabbat service on October 5 for Shabbat shuvah. It will have elements of High Holidays liturgy and music. Our services are participatory and lyrical with use of original liturgy and newly adapted liturgy. Our Torah study will be about the situation in Gaza; for us Torah is any text that becomes holy because we use it to seek and to find answers. As a feminist havurah we have always opposed violence militarism, racism, and nationalism.
For more info, email info@fringeshavurah.com 

Hinenu Baltimore • Baltimore, MD
Hinenu is unaffiliated but uses Reconstructionist Kol HaNeshamah. Services are heavy on the Hebrew with English poetry and teaching from the rabbi and members. Lots of song! A loving and casual congregation.
Registration by suggested donation.

Kadima Reconstructionist Community • Seattle, WA
Kadima is a Reconstructionist community with its own machzor/High Holiday prayer book that has a mix of traditional and modern, Hebrew and English. There will be many lay-leaders who participate in service leadership and a group of singers who lead us in song.
Registration by suggested donation, please email office@kadima.org

Kehilla Community Synagogue • Oakland/Piedmont – Lisjan territory of Huchiun, CA
Kehilla is a Jewish Renewal congregation with a Renewal/Reconstructionist flavor. Our davening/prayer is musically stirring and oriented to supporting participants’ spiritual practice, community building and justice making. Our bima team includes queer, trans and BIPOC spiritual leaders. “We affirm that equal respect must be accorded to Jews and to Palestinians—whether they have Israeli citizenship or not—and to all others who currently live in areas controlled by the Israeli government or its military.”
Sliding scale registration.

Kol Tzedek Synagogue • Philadelphia, PA
Kol Tzedek is a multiracial and intergenerational community. We understand that change takes generations. The Days of Awe offer a rare and powerful gift — time to sing, reflect, learn, and connect across generations. Our services are a celebration of Jewish traditions from across our history and diaspora. We are a Reconstructionist synagogue that follows a traditional Hebrew service, lots of liturgy, full of participatory singing, three part harmonies, and contemporary poetry. There will be dedicated time to grieve the horrific war on Gaza and ongoing genocide.
Registration by suggested donation. 

Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives • Brooklyn, NY
Holydays services are open to all but do require registration so we know numbers. There will be an ask for donations to support this independent, progressive, lively, joyful community, where doubt can be an act of faith. One thousand or more attend Holydays services, which are being held at Brooklyn College this year.
See full details and register here.

May WE Become Ready: a Series of High Holy Day Retreats • Ukiah, CA
Our upcoming High Holy Day retreats are centered around Kabbalistic wisdom regarding the cosmic death/ rebirth potencies of the Ya’amin Noraim (Days of Awe). Our spaces are infused with magic, mysticism, song, embodied practice, Earth-based worship, community building, and play. We offer spaces which are trauma-informed & equally centered in joy-work and grief-work. We are devoted to community building & community-care: ushering in Olam ha Ba as we hospice out empire. we are a group of queer/trans anti-zionist Jewish spiritual practitioners who are offering space to pray and practice outside of institutions. Sliding scale registration:

• Rosh ha Shana retreat
• Yom Kippur retreat
• End of High Holy Days Retreat

Please email Elana.june.margolis@gmail.com with any questions!

Mending Minyan • New Haven, CT
Mending Minyan practices joy based Jewish ritual decoupled from zionism and in service of collective liberation. Mending Minyan is an explicitly anti-Zionist congregation that works closely with JVP New Haven, and is explicitly partnering with JVP New Haven this high holidays for “Ten Days of Resistance” between Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Our services are communally-led, songful, and egalitarian. Expect a mix of Hebrew & English prayers, with full transliteration and translation.
See full details and register here.

Nehar Shalom • Boston, MA
Nehar Shalom is a small, intimate community.  Our community includes people of all ages and we value building cross-generational relationships. Our members have a wide range of observance and practice. Our davenning (prayer) is traditional in form and filled with spirit and song, and we are committed to making our ritual life accessible to all. For High holy day services we use the Lev Shalem (Conservative movement) mahzor (prayer book) and do a fairly full liturgy, with lots of kavanot (intentions and interpretations) and poetry in English.

We connect to and express our Judaism in many different ways, including through study, prayer, working for social justice, food, history, music, and art. Our community includes and is led by queer and trans Jews; Jews of color, mixed-race, and white Jews; Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews; people from all different class backgrounds and access to money; and folks who are disabled and chronically ill. Our community includes interfaith families and households. We work to build a community that reflects our anti-oppression values, a place where all know and feel that they belong.
See full details and register here.

New Synagogue Project • Washington, D.C.
NSP is a welcoming, multiracial Jewish community committed to building a world of justice, equity, and liberation. Our services are soulful, songful, and aim to be accessible to all. We join in community, in the presence of one another and the Divine, finding grounding and calm through the High Holidays. Full High Holidays theme and schedule can be found here. 
Registration by suggested donation.

Nichola Park Minyan • Chicago, IL
Grassroots, lay-run, Traditional-egalitarian: full, Hebrew liturgy and Torah reading with no tech component (no mics or streaming), all gender inclusive at every level. The core people who lead most things are publicly anti-Zionist/anti-Apartheid/pro-Palestinian liberation/pro-ceasefire and numerous other regulars have been present at actions and movement spaces toward those ends. The minyan doesn’t have an official stance, but the culture leans hard left politically, including on I-P. We do no prayers for nation-states. COVID conscious. 
Registration by suggested donation.

Or Haneshamah: Ottawa’s Reconstructionist Community • Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Our services are highly participatory, filled with music, followed by delicious food (Rosh Hashanah morning and break-fast potlucks), attended by folks at all ages and stages of life, supportive of a deep openness to questions about God/Torah/Israel-the-people. 
Fixed ticket price registration.

Q/T Carport Minyan • Seattle, WA
High Holiday services that are full of singing, spirit, slightly abbreviated but rich traditional liturgy, and also queer, unapologetically lefty about everything including Israel/Palestine. We will invite people to consider Palestine in their teshuvah processes. COVID conscious.
See full details and register here.

Taste of Olam Haba • Little Rock, AR
A progressive, pluralistic, cross-denominational Jewish community for all ages, backgrounds, and relationships to Judaism in Little Rock, AR. We are deeply rooted in social justice and ancient tradition. We are a small-knit, ragtag group of non-Zionist Jews committed to building a new Jewish future in the South. Services are community-led. We will be live streaming a service from Kol Tzedek for Kol Nidre.
Sliding scale registration.

Temenos Center for the Arts • Brooklyn/Hudson Valley, NY
Our ceremonies are woven with transportive music, philosophical depth, breathing and meditative quiet, playfulness, tenderness, moments for healing, mourning, vulnerability and transformation. Everyone is welcome — Jewish, not Jewish and everything in between — to celebrate the ceremonies of the New Year (in-person or live-streamed). We include the highlights of the tradition, our hearts attending to the repair of the personal and the collective. We will welcome Palestinian voices including Hala Alyan (poetry), Najla Said (theater), Zafer Tawil (musician), and doctors who went to serve in Gaza. 
See full details and register here.

The World to Come – Twin Cities, Minneapolis • St. Paul, MN
Each day of High Holidays are led by different members of our community and will have slightly different flavors. All of them will be songful, heymish, and politically grounded. Different services will have different ratios of Hebrew ~ English, traditional to creative liturgy. We are Twin Cities Jews who identify as leftist, anti-racist, feminist, anti-Zionist queers and those who love us. 
Registration by suggested donation, please email the-world-to-come-twincities@googlegroups.com

Tikkun Olam Chavurah • Philadelphia, PA
We are a radically welcoming community that is both deeply spiritual and solidly political. We have been working with Jewish Voice for Peace for years. We are open to all, are warm and low key, and are glad to welcome everyone. Our services are a blend of music, traditional liturgy, and thoughtful divrei Torah. Our leadership is queer and our community is open and diverse. We love having folks with us in person and on Zoom! Join the Rosh Hashanah service.

Yom Kippur Service:

• In person at the Germantown Mennonite Church and on Zoom*
  • Kol Nidre: Friday, October 11, 6pm
  • Morning Service: Saturday, October 12, 9:30am. Yizkor will be part of the morning service

In person only:

• Visit the goats at Awbury Arboretum for an atonement ritual at 2:30pm. The power of placing all that we want to leave in the past on a goat cannot be overestimated. Join us at Awbury to discover a sweet and powerful ritual!
  

On Zoom only:

• Neilah and Havdalah, 6:15pm. Havdalah will end at 7pm
• Click here to join on Zoom

Triangle Chavurah Minyan • Durham, NC
We are traditional egalitarian and gender inclusive. We use the Lev Shalem machzor and all of the prayers are in Hebrew. We do a complete avodah service on Yom Kippur and have lots of singing. During the Torah service, we say a prayer for peace and a misheberach for *all* who are in captivity. We do not say communal prayers for countries or militaries. Members have a range of views on Israel/Palestine. Our minyan is lay-led.
No registration required, contact durhamminyan@gmail.com with questions. 

Tzedek Chicago • Chicago, IL
We are a justice-focused Jewish congregation that includes anti-Zionism in our core values. We are not affiliated with any Jewish denomination; our rabbi is ordained Reconstructionist. Our High Holiday services will include a mix of traditional prayers, contemporary songs and readings/poetry — and will reflect our core values throughout. 
Sliding scale registration, please email Eitan Barkow at admin@tzedekchicago.org

Washington heights Mask Minyan • Manhattan, NY
Traditional-egalitarian. Our minyan is non-Zionist and pro-liberation. Full liturgy, Lay-led. Organized by Ari Bloom, Rye Danko-Blum, Eta Feuerman, Avi Garelick, Dassi Karp, Diya Moushahwar.
Registration by suggested donation, contact Avi at persnicketyfinicker@gmail.com

Yachad • New Paltz, NY
We are an emerging congregation that honors the diverse and rich diasporic Jewish wisdom traditions. Guests will experience contemporary liturgies, songs, music, Torah cantillations, elements of hasidut and Kabbalah, engaging t’filah, social healing, presencing for ending the occupation of over seven decades, with teachings, music, conversations with each other, dance and speaker/activists from our local Palestinian and Jewish community who stand weekly in solidarity, calling for the justice and an ethic of care for each other, because of teachings from Torah and Jewish wisdom tradition. We are excited to offer meaningful Yamim Noraim that supports an immediate ceasefire and continues to build and grow community in our area with a Jewish prayer/learning/creative/healing community that honors diasporic Jewish community.
Sliding scale registration, email wyntersl@newpaltz.edu

Yeshivat Gadol v’Kadosh • Baker, NY (typically virtual)
An emergent yeshiva that believes in Talmud learning for those in the margins that is big and holy. We are a nominally antizionist yeshiva. We aren’t a congregation, but we are a chavura! From October 10-13th join us for Release, an in-person retreat. Talmud learning about releasing vows happens Friday during the day, leading us into a renewal-inspired traditional-ish community led YK day of services. 
Sliding scale registration.

JVP Haggadah 2024/5785