Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel Natan Sharansky Image by Getty Images

By Aiden Pink March 13, 2020

Students at SAR High School and SAR Academy, private Jewish day schools in New York, are under home quarantine and learning remotely after at least 29 people associated with the school were diagnosed with coronavirus. In order to help the students cope with being unable to leave their homes, the schools brought in a virtual guest speaker to offer them advice about their very particular predicament: Natan Sharansky, the Soviet Jewish activist who spent nine years in prison, half of it in solitary confinement.

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Here’s what Sharanksky had to say Thursday, according to Shlomo Zuckier, an academic who listened in on the talk:

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Sharansky himself has also been affected by the coronavirus, though not because of his health: A talk scheduled Sunday at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia with Sharansky and the State Department’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, was turned into an online event.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

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