Synagogue seats are always in short supply at this time of year — all the more so when one is forced to vie for pew space with visiting dignitaries. This season has brought news of a number of invitations pairing prominent non-Jewish figures with high-profile congregations. Senator Hillary Clinton has agreed to spend Yom Kippur at the Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif., where she will dedicate a memorial candle to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of Tikkun magazine, was so impressed by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan when he heard her speak in Washington recently that he decided to invite her for Rosh Hashanah. Sources at Lerner’s Bay Area congregation, Beyt Tikkun, said that while Sheehan will not be attendance for New Year’s services, she still might make it for Yom Kippur. On the East Coast, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsányi is scheduled to attend Rosh Hashanah services in New York at Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Park East Synagogue. Schneier, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust, said that 60 years ago he “never could have dreamed that… a democratically elected prime minister of a state that was ruled by a fascist and in the grip of the Nazis would attend Rosh Hashanah services in my synagogue.”

And if all these high-profile visitors keep you from getting a seat, not to worry. The Temple of the Arts’s services will be televised on PAX-TV.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT