Editor’s Letter: Can’t Rain on Your Parade
STYLE Magazine's editor Kaylene Ladinsky discusses Jewish Atlanta's adaptability in celebrating simchas in the midst of a pandemic. STYLE's summer issue comes out next week.
In addition to being the AJT’s managing publisher and interim editor, Kaylene Ladinsky is the president of Americans United With Israel.
In our second edition of our STYLE magazine, we bring you stories about perseverance and innovation in the face of an epic health crisis. From masks and boxed dinners to tailgating and yard displays, Jewish Atlanta could not be deterred by a global pandemic from celebrating their simchas.
We share creative alternatives to traditional party planning to celebrate lifecycle events at this time, from the brit milah to the wedding canopy, along with b’nai mitzvah and even birthday parties.
Learn from party planners how to cancel, postpone, and re-envision your simcha and what to expect when celebrating during COVID, and read perspectives from others who refused to let health and safety restrictions cancel their plans. To help, we introduce you to caterers and decorators and share dining and venue options.
Zoom is not the only avenue for families to ensure the show goes on. STYLE spotlights imagination inspired and inventive events that combined tailgating, outdoor celebrations, individually packaged edibles and social distancing.
We are striving to offer vignettes from a variety of celebrations. There’s the man who survived a hospital stay and lifesaving measures following a severe bout with COVID-19 to celebrate his 45th birthday and a YouTube video created for an 82-year-old’s birthday in South Africa that included interviews about COVID-19 with her three children, who are doctors. And you’ll surely be entertained by the couple who literally made lemonade from lemons as the theme of their intended wedding weekend, complete with Corona beer as the signature drink.
Another COVID-compliant wedding took place in Congregation Etz Chaim’s newly remodeled sanctuary, otherwise closed to the public. Instead of a veil, the bride – and everyone else attending at a social distance, for that matter – wore a mask.
Read how Classic Tents & Events repurposed its main product for COVID-19 testing sites.
We have reports on restaurants open for business and catering options, popular floral arrangements and how you can still be part of the biannual Bridal Extravaganza of Atlanta, albeit virtually.
From Zoom brit milah to the birthday of a 104-year-old, displays of persistence within these pages prove that Atlanta’s Jewish families refused to let the health crisis get in the way of celebrating life’s milestone moments.
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