HEADLINES | 8
BIG THANK YOU Local teacher receives gratitude
HOME DESIGN & REAL ESTATE | 16
SHORT-TERM RENTALS Community thinks through housing legislation
FEBRUARY 19, 2021 | ADAR 7, 5781 | VOLUME 73, NUMBER 11
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Schools and Phoenix-area residents start new synagogues adapt businesses during pandemic Purim celebrations A to Zoom NICOLE RAZ | STAFF WRITER
SHANNON LEVITT | MANAGING EDITOR
R
enee Joffe had to do a double take when she walked into one of Congregation Kehillah’s classrooms recently. Preserved on the white board was a lesson about Tu B’Shevat — the students’ last pre-pandemic lesson. “That blew my mind when I looked at the whiteboard, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God! That’s the last thing they taught in person,’” said Joffe. Purim planning this year coincides with the first anniversary of COVID-19, and Joffe said seeing the remnants of that lesson left her with a “weird feeling” realizing that a year has already passed. Typically celebrated with costumes and parades, this year Purim’s preparations may seem a bit subdued. But across Greater Phoenix, people are planning to keep things festive where they can. Purim is a difficult holiday to do over Zoom, according to Rabbi Alicia Magal of the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley. Other holidays can be adapted, but for Purim, “you need that raucous energy in a room looking at each other,” she said. Adapting that feeling to the small rectangle of a computer screen takes some doing. “This year it’s about finding the essence of the Purim celebration and saying what’s really needed here,” Magal said. “Purim’s a little mad; it’s upside down and backwards,” (and in that vein she’ll write her name backwards on her Zoom screen). She’ll encourage her congregants to wear funny hats and unmute themselves at critical moments. There might not be groggers, but people can put beans in a tin can, bang a pot with a spoon or honk a horn. Magal has a wooden frog with a bumpy back that she will turn into a percussion instrument by gliding a stick over it. She’ll choose sections of the megillah to chant, sections when people should SEE PURIM, PAGE 2
rin Finger was ready for the biggest youth sports league season yet: 2,500 kids had jerseys and were assigned to different sports teams. They were on rosters and scheduled to compete. It was April of last year, just when the COVID19 pandemic began to wreak havoc and “everything came crumbling down.” Then, people wanted their money back. “This is my sole source of income for my family,” he said. “I’m sitting in my office saying, ‘This is not going to work. I have to do something, and I have to do something fast.’” Today, Finger still runs the i9 Sports Arizona franchise he started seven years ago, but he also sells wood-fired pizza from a pizza trailer. Business is going so well that he is looking to turn it into a franchise. It’s no secret the pandemic devastated businesses across Greater Phoenix. Arizona had the fourth-highest rate of business closures in the country relative to the number of total businesses in the state between March and July of last year, according to a Yelp survey. But Finger, like several people in the Jewish community, was able to change course by starting a new business since the pandemic started. Finger got the idea of operating a pizza truck after seeing one in a park in the Sky Crossing neighborhood. He asked a few questions of the pizza truck operator and learned business was booming. Finger knew his lead soccer instructor at i9, Codey Stetler, had a background in SEE BUSINESSES, PAGE 3 the culinary world and asked if
Marina Awerbuch sings Shabbat songs with her daughter, Sophie, to children ages 3 months to 5 years old at Cactus Park in Scottsdale, as part of a weekly Friday morning tot Shabbat. PHOTO BY REBECCA FEINMAN
Celebrating Jewish holidays at home has silver linings Na’amah Segal Karas lights Shabbat candles on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Since the pandemic started, she has become more observant. To read more, go to p. 19. PHOTO BY BRADLEY KARAS
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