(Steve Ackermann is the congregation's new president.) The platform, Ustream TV, I later learned, is a live, interactive broadcast format available to "anyone with an internet connection and camera" who wants to share content, and Rockdale Temple leaders had chosen it in order to support their own members who could not worship with them because of illness or distance. Bene Israel, known as Rockdale Temple, in Cincinnati through /channel/sackermann. I might have stayed for the duration of the service, but I was curious to see what my other two options had to offer. I knew this because the changing camera shots guided me around the sanctuary, focusing tightly on the rabbis reading and praying, showing the congregation from the rear, and moving to the singers. I stayed with these folks long enough to sing the familiar "Hinei Ma Tov" along with their lay choir, which stood, with the director, along the right aisle of the sanctuary. Two rabbis in street clothes, standing behind a blond wood lectern in what appeared to be their social hall, followed a liturgy from a prayer book unfamiliar to me. The setting was unadorned - no flowers or other embellishments - but the vibe was warm and inclusive. Then the service seemed just for the worshippers and me. Once the service started, this became a distraction, so I maximized the video screen and the interactivity disappeared. Meanwhile, online participants were exchanging comments through an interactive dialogue box. Clicking on before the service, I enjoyed watching congregants milling about, visiting and chatting. At the appointed hour, I returned to my computer swathed in a bathrobe and sucking cough drops and entered the world of e-Rosh HaShanah.įirst visit:, self-described as offering Progressive Judaism. This proved to be a great revelation! I discovered that live-streamed services would be available in real time and made note of three, all in the Eastern Time Zone. ![]() In the deep South where I live, synagogues do not offer broadcast services as churches do, so I moved on to Possibility B: searching the Internet to see if, perchance, I could "attend" a streaming Rosh HaShanah service somewhere else. ![]() "We haven't done that for several years now," he told me regretfully. Possibility A: I asked Rabbi Jordan Goldson, my rabbi at Congregation B'nai Israel in Baton Rouge, LA, if he might be broadcasting services to connect with shut-ins, as he used to. ![]() But the thought of missing the first of the High Holiday services was as distressing to me as my coughing and wheezing. Last Rosh HaShanah morning, I was forced to admit it: my bronchitis was too severe to allow me to make the evening rounds of dinner and services.
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