Catskills Taschlich Breaks Norms

We’re having a moment. It’s Rosh Hashanah morning, and for the first time in its 110-year history, the women of the Hunter Synagogue are being counted. The Aliyah blessings they have heard their entire lives (but have never been allowed to recite), are on the Torah table: in Hebrew, in transliteration and in English. Perhaps, one day, this will seem routine, but today it’s radical. Those called to Torah are truly moved… filled with awe. Voices shaking, hands trembling, tears in their eyes. I had almost forgotten how special this moment could be.

For a long while, time bypassed the Hunter Shul. The stunning, wood-framed, Queen Anne building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. It is lovingly maintained, and has never been modernized. There is no air conditioning, no sound system, no internet. The space feels ancient, unvarying and timeless. But we’re all acutely aware that important changes have finally come to this place.

The new visiting rabbi is a woman. Me! Women and men… whole families… are seated together. The extra-long pull-cord on the Ark curtains (a hard won concession that allowed women to open them without ascending the steps) is officially obsolete. Newly included this year, several women have excitedly offered to blow shofar (two of our five shofar blowers were female). Those who recalled times past cry softly with relief at finally touching their beloved, but distant, Torah. At tashlich, men and women alike symbolically toss teeny bits of the old mechitzah into the water to let go of the sexism of the past. We all cry some more. If Rosh Hashanah represents new beginnings, the Hunter Synagogue just nailed it.

Rabbi Bella Bogart is one of Lilith’s “New 40” writers. This was presented in a Lilith zoom in June 2024.