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Sundown: The Loneliest Congregant

‘Six Feet Under’ is in, day school’s out, and kashrut’s on the rise

by
Hadara Graubart
August 19, 2009

• A synagogue in Maryland canceled High Holiday services because it’s down to one remaining member. “Most of our funds are donations (in memory) of people who have died. When that’s your biggest fundraiser, that’s not a good thing,” he says. [AP]
• As the cost of sending kids to Jewish day school grows, a drop in enrollment could be “an important wake-up call” about the “culture of affluence that somehow got tangled up with American Jewish identity.” [Jewish Week]
• The rabbi of the ultra-Orthodox Lithuanian community in Israel cautions not to visit Jerusalem’s Western Wall on the Sabbath, when security cameras there violate the law against using electricity. [Ynet]
• But while the Kotel may be compromising its kashrut, supermarkets in Moscow are increasingly carrying kosher products. [FJC]
• A writer explains how a class on Judaism, death, and HBO’s Six Feet Under changed her perception of television as an “ethical wasteland.” [Forward]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.