Last spring, Bob Kaiser, a member of Nusach Hari B’nai Zion and Olivette resident, spoke with a Muslim neighbor who had just finished celebrating Ramadan. Kaiser learned that they both missed the same thing: community.

“There are lessons from COVID, and one of them is that we were all made to be communal because you really felt after a year and a half the absence,” said Kaiser, an attorney. “It was a universal pain.”

Jews from the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform streams shared similar sentiments to Kaiser as they prepared to celebrate Sukkot, a holiday when many Jews build the temporary huts and gather under them with friends and families for meals. But in 2020, many people who normally invited guests over for dinner didn’t do so — or invited fewer people.

Even though COVID-19 remains a threat, local Jews were more relaxed this year and eager to celebrate.

The Jewish Light tried to capture their excitement through photos and by asking them about their sukkahs and what they enjoy about the holiday. (To read the entire caption on your phone, swipe upwards in the text.)

Gallery • 8 Photos

Eric Berger

When Bob and Joani Kaiser moved into their Olivette home in 2005, they decided they no would no longer go to a hardware store before Sukkot, Bob recalled. "It's the one time of the year when you can find a Jew in a hardware store," Kaiser said. Instead, they purchased a prefabricated sukkah. The couple, neither of whom grew up celebrating the holiday, first ate a meal in a sukkah when they were engaged in 1984. "We never knew that people had such a thing," Bob Kaiser said. "I'm not sure if we knew the holiday." "It was charming," said Joani Kaiser. "It's such a beautiful time of year and such a warm, homey holiday."