Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

America’s biggest yeshiva closes as multiple COVID cases confirmed in Lakewood

Multiple coronavirus diagnoses have been confirmed in Lakewood, N.J., The Lakewood Scoop reported Thursday.

Lakewood has one of the highest concentrations of Jews in the United States, with an estimated 59% of the population Jewish, according to a 2011 study.

While many of Lakewood’s synagogues had shut down as the coronavirus pandemic spread throughout the state and country, not all of them did: at least one attempted to stay open while complying with regulations by staggering multiple service times in order to avoid having more than 50 people gather at once, and public safety officials have had to break up at least two weddings that had more than that many guests.


As a public service during this pandemic, the Forward is providing free, unlimited access to all coronavirus articles. If you’d like to support our independent Jewish journalism, click here to make a donation.


But in the past day, according to the Scoop, much of Lakewood’s remaining Jewish life has shut down, according to the Scoop, such as wedding halls and yeshivas — including Beth Medrosh Govoha, the biggest yeshiva in the United States with more than 6,700 students.

A sign on the door of the yeshiva read “Stop! Do not enter!” and urged students to pray and study at home, the Scoop reported.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.