New York Jewish Week JTA — For some it was a singles scene, for others, a way to catch up with people they hadn’t seen all year. But for nearly everyone – toddlers on their dads’ shoulders waving flags, moms pushing strollers, teenagers in tight cliques – it was a chance to dance down the bright night streets of New York’s Upper West Side with thousands of their fellow Jews, dancing with the Torah on one of the most joyous holidays of the year.

In today’s fraught and fearful atmosphere in a tense and divided city, it’s hard to imagine a time when the Jewish community convened not to protest or rally over Israel or against antisemitism, but came together to celebrate a holiday: specifically, Simhat Torah, the last night of Sukkot. Starting in the mid-1990s, on one fall night a year, West End Avenue was shut down to traffic while local synagogues of different denominations brought out Torahs to dance with in the streets.

All that ended after 9/11.

“We can’t really guarantee your safety,” Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon, then the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (BJ), remembers being told by the police after the terrorist attacks (which occurred less than a week before the start of the High Holidays).

With the police no longer granting permission to cordon off the street, BJ was moved its celebration indoors, as did most synagogues.

Although many today credit BJ with starting the Simhat Torah tradition of dancing in the street, according to The Echod, the Lincoln Square Synagogue weekly newsletter, the first outdoor Simhat Torah celebration was a joint effort of five Orthodox synagogues in 1993, with 5,000 people packing 84th-86th streets until 1 AM.

Matalon, who retired in June after more than 40 years at BJ, recalls that the congregation first decided to take their celebration outside in the mid 1990s as the congregation grew. “Dancing inside was not a great option because there wasn’t a lot of space,” he said. So, BJ obtained a permit to close West End Avenue between 86th and 87th streets. Those early years, with live music and dancing, drew crowds, and eventually people from other congregations began joining after completing their own hakafot dancing circles in their synagogues.

“Hakafah means to encircle,” Matalon said, explaining the........

© The Times of Israel