The Red Carpet and the Synagogue

 

The hoopla is coming out the TO wahzoo these days as the Toronto International Film Festival gets underway. Roughly 150 of the hundreds of films to be shown during these ten days are making their debut, which is impressive. The red carpet will be busy once again with movie stars from around the world.

It happens that this year the opening weekend of TIFF overlaps with one of the most important Jewish festivals, Rosh Hashanah. Here is the description from the Independent:

 The Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a joyous occasion celebrated by members of the religious community all over the world.
The festival consists of many elements, including prayer services in synagogue and the blowing of an ancient musical horn called a shofar, which is made from a ram’s horn.

However, one of the most anticipated aspects of Rosh Hashanah is undeniably all of the delicious, sweet foods that Jews eat throughout the festival, which starts this year on the evening of September 9 and ends on Tuesday September 11.

The film festival's answer to this coincidence is to create what it's calling a pop-up synagogue for actors, movie mucky mucks and anyone else who would like to attend condensed but traditional services in a chapel at the Windsor Arms Hotel. The hotel will also provide meals which reflect the holiday. The synagogue is the brainchild of Rabbi Meir Dubrawsky, whose congregation is on Avenue Rd.

It's good to see that glitzy, secular TIFF is showing respect and consideration in this way. Now, if we could just get kids' hockey tournament organizers to show similar deference and stay away from Easter weekend. 

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Last night at TIFF Gala