I have a little chronology here. That's great. I can. I could briefly go through. Yes, yes. About how we as the Jewish community or the, um, engaged Jewish community. I think there's a lot of Jews in Bellingham that are not involved in the synagogue. So we so, um, you may already know this, but, um, there's only two Jewish formal Jewish kind of organizations here. There's us, um, Beth Israel and there's Chabad. And so the majority of people that are jewishly engaged are members of the synagogue, or at least, um, attend services with some, you know, holidays and then maybe for some events or whatever. Um, And so I speak for those folks. And not Chabad. I'm not that familiar with what they've done. Um, but, uh, so the last we had two final events really, before everything just really shut down. Um, Purim was happening. So that was spring of 2020, right? Right. Spring of 2020. Um, we had a big we always have a big Purim celebration. They read the Megillah. Everybody comes in costume. There's hamantaschen and bourbon and, you know, um, people just hanging out, yakking. There's a costume contest and, um, always a debate about hamantash and latkes, I think, is the debate, uh, formal debate up on the up on the bema. Um, and so we had that event, but we were already aware that things were not looking so good, so they served the food. People served the food to you. You didn't take it out of the plate. Um, they had gloves. Um, a couple pieces of hamantaschen put in plastic bags and tied up. They gave you, you know, the food. You'd go over to the beverage table and whatever you wanted, bourbon or otherwise, was served to you by people who were gloved. Um, and they did. They did. Oh, and we do a, um, Purim spiel. So they did the Purim spiel. Um, it's absolutely hysterical. Always is. And, um, and then they did the Purim costume costume contest and all of that. So we did all of that. No masks at that at that time. And, and that was the last big communal event that we had. We also about a week later. Or someone who was a very beloved member of the congregation, passed away and they decided to do her Shiva A1A1 event Shiva in the synagogue. And so again, it was um, uh, you know, it was not a large group of people. Food was prepared ahead of time, brought on platters served, served to everyone, packaged, etc. and they, you know, people got up and and spoke and it was like a memorial service. And that was it. Um, and then everything went dark. Uh, the rabbi, nobody even came into the office and, um, uh, so that that went on through a good part of the summer and, uh, because zoom became so Ubiquitous so quickly, we were able to shift onto zoom for Shabbat services on Friday nights. The rabbi kind of trimmed it down 45 minutes. Um, he, you know, he did it from his house. Our cantorial soloist was in her house, and they figured out how to switch back and forth, and they would do Friday night services, which, interestingly enough, was better attended on zoom has been better attended on zoom than in person, that I remember. Um, sometimes it wasn't clear that we'd get a minyan on Friday nights in person. And now, you know, sometimes 30 people, 40 people show up for Friday night. Um. So we were doing that, and then, um, sometime, uh, in the I think it was in the fall of 2020. We put together a Covid Covid task force. We brought in a nurse. We brought in people that are on our facilities committee. Um, the, um, a representative from the board, um, I was on it for a while and then it was like too many committees I dropped off. But, uh, they, um, they started researching what it, you know, it was starting to look like maybe at some point down the road, we're going to reopen a little bit. And how can we do this? What do we need supply wise? What do we need to put in place in terms of contract contact tracing? Um, do we want to check, um, do we want people to have been tested? How frequently? How soon before they show up at the door? Do we want to limit the number of people they were dealing with? All of these questions and getting recommendations from the CDC, you know, following CDC guidelines and State of Washington guidelines and any mandates that were coming down from the governor. And, uh, you know, kind of putting a very elaborate plan in place, which ultimately we didn't have to implement as elaborately, but they met kind of on an as needed basis as things changed, um, as mandates changed, as the, um, volume of cases changed, um, etc., and, uh, would put out communiques, if you will, in our weekly newsletter for people, um, no services yet. Um, uh, you know, building is still closed. Oh, the rabbi and the, um, office administrator are now in the building on Fridays period. If you need anything, you can go into the building. They'll let you in, wear a mask. So it was kind of like this, um, progression of slowly opening up that they were orchestrating, uh, by. Last spring. Um, so, so, so, um, the rabbi and the cantorial soloist were conducting b'nai mitzvah classes on zoom with the kids. Um, they were doing the Sunday school on zoom. They said they got that set up so they could do Sunday school classes on zoom. I think each teacher from their own home and their classes, you know, logging in, um, and by last spring, I guess, when things were starting to lift a little bit and look better before the delta variant, um, we decided to do hybrid services so people could log in by zoom, or they could come to the synagogue. We would. We did them outside on the pad. We have a large patio set up the sound system and the video out there, and, um, did services that way. And people did come to the, to the in-person services. And, you know, they had to sign in. They had to wear a mask, um, where people were starting to get vaccinated. We I think we put out a request that nobody attend unless they've been vaccinated and just were taking people's word for it. Um, and then there was the first in-person bar mitzvah. I think it was a bar mitzvah. I was trying to remember who it was, but what I, I didn't go, oh, because the first ones were just the rabbi, the cantorial soloist, the bar mitzvah kid. They're their family, and they're their bar mitzvah class could attend in person. So, uh. And that was it. No friends. Um, if extended family had come in, they could come, you know, into town. But, um, I remember, uh, I don't remember if it was at that event or at the first high holiday service. The rabbi was so ecstatic about being back in person that you could see it in his face. He was practically in tears. Um, he, you know, it was just really an emotional event for everybody. So, um, so, you know, they came to the service, there was no reception, there was no, you know, party afterwards, blah, blah, blah. Um, and what families did on their own, I'm not even sure, But then. So that was happening. And then slowly they were opening up those events to, um, more extended family and friends, I think. Um, and I started going actually, uh, and then over the summer, uh, the we had a, we have an audio visual committee, uh, task force, whatever it is that came to the board with a proposal for actually doing a whole streaming and sound system setup, like we're now a TV studio. And so the board authorized the money. They had gotten a ton of input from experts. Um, and they got to work because we wanted to do a full streaming event for the High Holidays. So they put cameras on the walls, they set up the, um, electronics so that everything could be maneuvered from computers that were either in actually in the sanctuary or in a little room behind the bema. The sound, the video, and they could manipulate everything so that whoever was getting and it was all funneled through zoom. So anybody who was getting on to zoom could see the full Bema rather than just the rabbi's face. And they and they could see people walking with the Torah around the sanctuary and, um, and it, you know, tacked from the rabbi to the cantorial soloist and to whoever was in the middle doing, uh, you know, haftorah or whatever. Um, so that was a huge step forward. We had probably for High Holidays, we probably had 50, 60 people in person. It's a 230 family unit membership. we have, and I may be actually underestimating it. And it varied, you know, er of um, of course were heavily attended first day of Rosh Hashanah. Um, uh, but we had a good solid attendance in person for the High Holidays. And we can now continue to use that technology and we continue to have hybrid, um, uh, Friday night services. And Saturday we only do Saturday morning services if there's a mitzvah. So, uh, so when we do, then we use that technology and we're we're teaching. We are they are teaching, um, some high school kids and some local college kids how to use the technology so that they can come and volunteer and go to the service and manage the technology. So it's been very successful and we're very pleased that we made that investment. It was not cheap, but um, it also the other thing about it was that it, it it'll, it'll meet the needs of people who ordinarily anyway, wouldn't make it to services because they live too far away, because they're infirm, because they happen to be ill this week, or, you know, just people who otherwise would be significant barriers to getting to the synagogue, um, can now get on zoom. And because I didn't meet more than half the congregation before all this happened, because not that many people come to services. Um, now, I see on zoom, I know people's names. I know who they are. So so that's great.
