Ebola-Stricken Cameraman With Jewish Roots Arrives in U.S.
Image by facebook
An Ebola-stricken NBC photographer with Jewish roots has arrived in the U.S. for treatment.
A private plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman for who contracted Ebola in Liberia, landed in Omaha en route to the Nebraska Medical Center, NBC reported. The plane was met by an ambulance manned by worked in yellow protective suits, NBC video showed.
Mukpo was raised in Colorado by Tibetan Buddhist leader Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche; his mother was one of his several wives. His biological father, Mitchell Levy, one of Trungpa’s followers, is Jewish, the Associated Press reported. Mukpo’s mother and Levy married after Trungpa’s death.
Mukpo was expected to arrive at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha on Monday.
As an infant, he was identified as a reincarnated Tibetan lama, a role he did not embrace though he is still a practicing Buddhist.
Mukpo has worked at Human Rights Watch and spent two years in Liberia working as a researcher for the non-profit Sustainable Development Institute, to help workers in mining camps outside Monrovia.
Mukpo, who visited Providence in May, returned to Liberia in August to cover the epidemic. Levy told the AP that his son was filming inside and around clinics and high-risk areas but didn’t know how he got infected.
With JTA
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
