Those with Internet connections could watch the Havdalah ceremonies with San Diego connections move west on Saturday from Israel to New Jersey en route to San Diego.
In Israel, Cantor Hanan Leberman, who serves for specified holidays as a cantor at Tifeeth Israel Synagogue in San Diego, provided songs and traditional chants in the ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of the regular week. As is customary, he drank wine, smelled spices, and watched the flames of the havdalah candle flicker shadows from his fingers to the palm of his hand. Hours later, in Vorhees, New Jersey, Cantor Alisa Pomerantz-Boro of that township’s Congregation Beth El, was accompanied by her daughter Rebecca as she marked the end of the Sabbath. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]