Originally posted at The Jewish Week
A few months before his son Jonah was born, David Bryfman reluctantly told his Australian parents it would be best if they skipped the baby’s brit milah. Their presence in his small Brooklyn apartment would be more helpful a few months later.
His parents came anyway, dining on bagels and lox, tearing up with emotion and toasting the newborn — whose image was projected on a giant screen in a party hall in Bryfman’s hometown of Melbourne, Australia.
Meanwhile, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a mohel held baby Jonah. Thirty friends and family members had joined Bryfman and his wife, Mirm Kriegel, to welcome the child into the covenant. On the living room wall, they watched the projected image of the much larger party on the other side of the world.
“We were watching them react, and they were watching us,” says Bryfman, who linked the two celebrations via Skype, the Internet-based videoconferencing service. Bryfman says that while the technology stunned his older Australian relatives, his Brooklyn friends were not surprised.
By this point, most American Jews have grown accustomed to hearing about, and at times experiencing the magic of online technology: how it can transform one’s world, whether by strengthening personal relationships, offering educational opportunities or expanding venues to conduct business.
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