Yom Kippur begins tonight

For Miriam Ornstein, Yom Kippur is both personal and professional.

Ornstein plans to teach a class about the Jewish Day of Atonement to her students at the Kehillah Jewish Preschool on Thursday morning and will sit down later with her husband and two children to discuss what the holiday means.

“There is a lot of introspection and reflection,” she said.

Yom Kippur will begin tonight with a prayer service followed by a 25-hour fast, said Melissa Segal, executive director of the Chapel Hill Kehillah Synagogue.

The prayer service will resume Thursday morning and continue until sunset. Segal said that some people will stay all day and others will return periodically as they can.

“My husband is there till the end,” said Ornstein.

Segal said a normal Shabbat service sees 20 to 60 people, but Yom Kippur, the most holy day in the Jewish faith, brings 300 to 450 people to the synagogue.

“These are the most important holidays of the year,” she said. “People who wouldn’t regularly attend on Shabbat attend the high holidays.”

Lois Alpern, madrikha, or spiritual leader, at Triangle Congregation for Humanistic Judaism is expecting 150 to 200 people.

Segal said Yom Kippur is not only a day of prayer, but a day of passing along family traditions.

“Different families have different traditions,” she said. “In my family we go around in a circle and ask each member of the family for forgiveness for something said or done in the past year.”

The Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation estimates the Chapel Hill-Durham Jewish population is 6,000, with about 2,500 Jewish households. But not all Jewish families in the area are active in local synagogues.

“There are a lot of nonmembers who come during the holiday,” Segal said. “They feel like it is important.”

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have taken steps to accommodate the high holy days.

Stephanie Knott, spokeswoman for the school system, said this is the third year the school board has approved school delays to accommodate Jewish holidays, including a two-hour delay for all schools on Thursday morning for Yom Kippur.

“We ask teachers to be sensitive to make-up work and also not to have tests or big projects due on that day,” Knott said.

Ornstein said she looks forward to the holiday.

“It’s a challenge not having food for a day, but I look forward to it because of what it means,” she said. “I feel a sense of closure about the year.”



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