photo/david a.m. wilensky
Amid the downtown San Francisco lunchtime rush on April 19, Congregation Emanu-El staged a mock seder billed as “Guerilla Street Theater.” Rabbis Jonathan Singer and Sydney Mintz and two others from Emanu-El sat around a folding table in Justin Herman Plaza singing “Dayeinu,” “Avadim Hayinu” and “Mah Nishtanah” in a repeating loop, interspersed with off-the-cuff discussions on Passover themes. Citing the congregation’s long history (founded in 1850), Mintz told J., “We can’t go with the adage of ‘it’s how we’ve always done it.’ We have to try new things.”