On the morning of Aliza Kline’s Passover Seder, a message went out to her dinner guests detailing that evening’s plan. Half the note was technical instructions (“We suggest that each person has their own laptop or tablet.”) The other half was a list of traditional foods that would be needed for the ceremony (“But don’t stress if you can’t find anything on this list,” she added. “We're in a pandemic, after all.”) No one was invited to join in person.

Two weeks earlier, Kline had launched Seder2020, an online platform for Jews like herself who found themselves separated from their families by a global pandemic right in time for Passover, the most communal of Judaism’s holidays. She’d