Yom Kippur Service to Be Held in Beer Garden; Orth.Rabbi Says Yom Kippur Needs Shaking Up

Yom Kippur -- the most solemn day of the Jewish year -- is going to be observed in a beer garden on September 30 by more than 100 Washington, D.C. area Jews, the Religion News website reports today (September 28, 2017).


Aaron Potek, an Orthodox rabbi of a 20- and 30-somethings Jewish group called GatherDC, thinks it's a fitting setting for a Yom Kippur service. Despite the fact that Orthodox Judaism is the strictest of the three major Jewish denominations -- Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism -- Potek, as an Orthodox rabbi, has no qualms on conducting  his Yom Kippur service in a beer garden.


For about two hours on Yom Kippur morning Saturday (September 30), Potek and former first lady Michelle Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz will co-host an "alternative Yom Kippur" service at Sauf Haus Bier Hall and Garten in Washington's hip Dupont Circle neighborhood.


The GatherDC service -- for which at least 110 people have already paid the $18 ticket fee -- is designed to shake things up, because fasting and prayer have been overemphasized on Yom Kippur, said Potek.