Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt was the Life/Features editor at the Forward. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, and Tablet, among others.
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt
By Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt
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News More schools discouraging COVID-19 testing in New York, New Jersey despite spike
Some Haredi yeshiva day schools in Brooklyn and the New York and New Jersey suburbs are discouraging COVID-19 testing for both teachers and students to try to avoid school closures despite an uptick in cases in Haredi communities broadly. At Bais Yaakov of Borough Park, for example, administrators called teachers individually and asked them to…
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Life ‘During Unesaneh Tokef, we all wept’: How we worshipped together in person
The pandemic forced many Jewish communities to hold their services online this year, but Orthodox synagogues had to find a way to gather in person. To capture the experience of those Jews trying to balance safety and spirituality, in-person, we asked readers to tell us more about their experiences. How did people feel, sitting in…
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Fast Forward Jared Kushner got rabbinic pass to work Shabbat due to pandemic. Did he make good use of it?
During the early days of the pandemic, Jared Kushner apparently received rabbinic dispensation to work late into Shabbat, Vanity Fair’s Katherine Eban reported — A meeting between White House officials and entrepreneurs, business executives and venture capitalists took place on Friday March 20, according to the report. “The meeting began at 6:30 p.m. Kushner is…
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News Infighting, turnover buffet the Joint Distribution Committee, American Jewry’s storied aid and rescue organization
Infighting at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, one of American Jewry’s oldest, biggest communal organizations, has broken into public view again with the release of a letter signed by 16 board members lamenting “breaches of trust” between the board and its current leadership. There are “existential issues” afflicting the board, including a “lack of…
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Opinion Is there room in Orthodoxy for satire?
A joke was lately making the Orthodox WhatsApp circuits, via voice-note: “A guy went to daven mincha in Borough Park,” it said, meaning to say the afternoon prayer in one of Brooklyn’s religious neighborhoods. “And he walked into a shul, but he was embarrassed to put on a mask because no one else was wearing…
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News What coronavirus? Haredi indoor weddings are booming in New York
Guards are installed at the doors, entrance lights are turned off, and guests are asked not to share on social media: That’s how some Orthodox weddings are being organized today, taking place indoors. “Most problems of weddings end with hiring a guard who stands at the door and watches that more than fifty people shouldn’t…
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News U.S. Surgeon General exhorts Orthodox rabbis to keep their communities safe during the High Holidays
If you’re sitting in the front row of a synagogue holding in-person services this year on the High Holidays, make sure there is plenty of distance — or, even better, a piece of plexiglass— between you and the shofar blower. That’s one of the things the hundreds of rabbis learned on a Sep. 1 call…
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News Portland’s Jews know their state’s racist history. Now the chaos has some beefing up security.
No one knows better than Portland, Ore.’s Jewish community that their state has a history of racist hate — indeed, that it was founded by white supremacists. As the state grew, it evolved into a place of extremes on both left and right. Now, those groups are confronting each other directly, on a daily basis,…
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