Published: 3 September 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Paula talks to the Melbourne founders of an online experience designed to give people a High Holy Day service in more ways than one
DURING ITS 2020 LAUNCH, The Online Shule had around 800 people attending over the High Holy Days. “At least 400 were there the whole time – with another 400 popping in and out, maybe coming just for Yom Kippur,” says Yoram Symons, writer, storyteller and one of the three-member team that organises the shule’s services.
The others are Mark Symons, one of Melbourne’s leading Torah readers, and Rabbi Yaron Gottlieb, who has led High Holy Day prayers for numerous congregations throughout Australia and overseas.
So how did this project start? “We were in lockdown. It was getting close to Yom Tov and I had been doing a bunch of Facebook live streams, talking to my people, and I thought – if we’re in lockdown over Yom Tov, I’ll just do the davening and Facebook-Live it,” says Yoram.
“Then my dad (Mark) and friend Yaron said they’d come on board, which made it more formal, and more in line with the halacha [Jewish religious laws],” says Yoram. “They were very fastidious that it be done in a certain way – they both take halacha very seriously.”
Yoram is also passionately Jewish but says “I do it in my own way”.
Though all three are Melbourne-based, and last year’s followers were mainly Melburnians, some were from Sydney, as well as “some people in America, Canada, Israel and South Africa who tuned in,” Yoram says.
In addition to Zoom, the Online Shule services - which only operate over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - will be available on YouTube and Facebook Live for those concerned about their security. The latter may also be preferred by those who are more stringent in keeping halacha.
One of the biggest issues the Online Shule deals with is the use of electricity on Shabbat and holidays while still observing halacha. “We believe that the Halachic concept of Sha’at HaDchak (an emergency) is what we’re going through,” Yoram explains.
