Food pantry reroutes cancelled El Al meals to clients hit by coronavirus economy

March 31, 2020 By Irene Connelly

For kosher food pantries, Passover is already the busiest time of year, a time when many Jewish New Yorkers need help procuring the pricey food that meets the holiday’s dietary restrictions.

But this Passover is unlike any other. As coronavirus takes its toll on family finances, food pantries stretching supplies of kosher-for-Passover food to serve a rapidly-expanding clientele.

Scrambling to meet this increased need, kosher food pantry Masbia found help from an unexpected source: kosher caterer Borenstein, which provides Israeli airline El Al with in-flight fare. Since March 10, Masbia has purchased thousands of premade, kosher-for-Passover meals originally intended for now-grounded El Al planes, said Alexander Rapaport, the pantry’s CEO.

Rapaport first learned about the surplus meals through a contact at the OU Kosher Certification Agency, which certifies both Masbia’s and Borenstein’s premises. With travel severely curtailed by the virus, El Al could no longer use the meals it had ordered months ago. The contact saw an opportunity for Masbia to help Borenstein avoid a financial loss while meeting rising demand for its own services.

“They were trying to be nice to [Borenstein] and nice to us by making this shidduch,” Rapaport said, playing on the name for the Orthodox Jewish practice of arranging marriages.

The meals range from breakfast omelets to chicken with potatoes. Rapaport said they are especially convenient for elderly people who have been unable to kasher their homes, or complete the ritual preparations for Passover that include removing all leavened grains from the house and thoroughly cleaning appliances. Because the meals are double-wrapped, they can be heated in an oven that isn’t kosher for Passover without becoming halachically contaminated themselves.

Sam Levy, Head of Sales and Customer Relations at Borenstein, said that while airplanes are grounded the caterer is marketing its products to hospitals and other community organizations, and will continue to do so in the weeks to come.

“It’s not just for Passover,” he said.

Irene Connelly is an editorial fellow at the Forward. You can contact her at connelly@forward.com.

Food pantry reroutes cancelled El Al meals to clients

A Jewish day school turns its art center into a medical face shield factory

March 31, 2020 By Josefin Dolsten

(JTA) — On a typical day, the art center at Kohelet Yeshiva High School in suburban Philadelphia is filled with students working on a range of projects — from making ceramic bowls on the pottery wheels to creating wooden sculptures. They use the 3-D printer and laser cutter to build parts for the robotics team.

But since the school went virtual more than two weeks ago, the 1,300-square-foot center has been used to make an entirely different project: face shields for medical professionals treating coronavirus patients.

Since starting production last week, the school in Merion Station has made about 200 shields for distribution to doctors and nurses in the community. Now it’s ramping up production to produce that many every day.

“The need is overwhelming. Every major hospital and minor hospital in this area has been reaching out,” said Rabbi Gil Perl, the head of the Modern Orthodox day school, which has 260 students.

A number of schools and other organizations across the country are attempting to alleviate the supply shortage. Some are sewing masks by hand or using sewing machines, while others, like Kohelet, are using more advanced technology.

Just last year, the school refurbished its arts center, adding a fabrication laboratory, nicknamed the “fab lab,” that includes the laser cutter and three 3-D printers.

A little over a week ago, Perl and the school’s art teacher, Daniel Ostrov, learned that other schools were using those same supplies to make lifesaving supplies. They quickly realized his school was well equipped to make face shields — a transparent acrylic that covers medical providers’ entire faces to protect against bacteria and viruses that can be present in droplets when patients cough or sneeze. The lab’s laser cutter could be used to cut the acrylic and 3-D printers could make straps to hold the shield together.

There was one problem: The shield required a certain type of elastic strip to go around the wearer’s head and local suppliers were running short. So Perl put out a call on social media. Within hours he had received responses from people who were offering up elastic they had at home — some went as far as cutting it out of their children’s clothing and cloth diapers.

“The response was stunning,” the rabbi said.

With all the materials in hand, Ostrov and wife Stephanie Cole, a graphic designer, were able to craft a prototype that was approved by a local hospital. On the night of March 24, Perl delivered the first batch of shields to parents of students who work as medical providers. The following day he dropped off shields at a local hospital.

The husband-wife duo, both of whom also work as artists, were able to make about 24 face shields a day using the method. But while the laser cutter could quickly trim the acrylic, production was being slowed down by using the 3-D printers, each of which takes six hours to print the straps for four shields. Ostrov and Cole realized that they could make the straps with a thicker acrylic that could be cut using the laser cutter.

On Friday, they started implementing the new production method, in addition to using the 3-D printers. After making some tweaks, Ostrov and Cole believe they will be able to make some 200 shields a day.

The pair hasn’t taken a day off since they started on the project a little over a week ago. They’ve worked some days as much as 15 hours.

“We’ve basically been eating, sleeping, dreaming about face shields,” Cole said.

But they say seeing the responses from health care providers makes it all worth it.

“As tiring as our side is, what they’re doing is just so much beyond that because they’re really the ones putting their lives at danger,” Ostrov said.

The couple is constantly tweaking their design, which they are sharing online so others with similar tools can use it.

Kohelet Yeshiva has raised $10,000 online to fund the materials, which Perl says will be enough to make shields for another five weeks.

In speaking about his school’s work, the rabbi invoked the oft-cited Jewish teaching from the Mishnah: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

Perl called the work “overwhelming.”

“We’re not going to finish it. We’re not going to solve the shortage,” he said. “But if we can do something, if we can make a dent, then that’s our responsibility.”

The post A Jewish day school turns its art center into a medical face shield factory appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A Jewish day school turns its art center into a medical face shield factory

Videoconference seders are taboo, Israel’s chief rabbinate says

March 31, 2020 By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Videoconferencing a seder — that’s a no-no.

So say Israel’s chief rabbis, who issued a list of Jewish religious legal rulings for “Passover in the shadow of corona.”

A group of Israeli Sephardic Orthodox rabbis last week issued a letter approving the use of a videoconferencing program such as Zoom to bring families together for seders during the health crisis. Traveling to the homes of extended family for the holiday rite is now prohibited by the government.

But many Orthodox rabbis slammed the letter and many of its signers removed their names after it became public.

The use of electronic devices is forbidden on yom tov, or religious Jewish holidays, the statement issued Tuesday by the Chief Rabbinate says.

“The loneliness is painful, and we must respond to it, perhaps even with a video conference on the eve of the holiday before it begins, but not by desecrating the holiday, which is only permitted in cases of ‘pikuach nefesh’ [to save a life],” the rabbis said.

The list also said that burning the chametz, food not kosher for Passover, can be skipped this year due to the prohibition against a person being more than 100 meters (about 110 yards) from his home. Instead, the chametz can be placed in the garbage with bleach poured on it to make it inedible.

The rabbis called on individuals to pray in their homes and recommended that a uniform time be set, so everyone would be praying at the same time.

The post Videoconference seders are taboo, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate says appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Videoconference seders are taboo, Israel’s chief rabbinate says

French Holocaust survivor, fashion tycoon Maurice Bidermann dies at 87

March 31, 2020 By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — Maurice Bidermann, a French textile magnate and Holocaust survivor, died in Paris at the age of 87.

Meyer Habib, a French-Jewish lawmaker, wrote on Twitter that his late friend Bidermann had died Monday of the coronavirus — a claim that was denied, according to the PurePeople fashion news site, by Bidermann’s relatives, who cited a host of medical complications as the true cause of death.

Bidermann, who was born in Belgium, survived the Holocaust as an illegal alien in neighboring France. A family of non-Jews hid him at their home near Marseille for 1.5 years, but he was eventually found by local French police. However, instead of handing Bidermann over to the Germans, the police officers took pity on Bidermann, who was ill as a boy, and put him in hospital.

He survived the war there.

Bidermann later left France and fought in the Israel Defense Forces during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 before returning to Europe. He began working at a small textile shop owned by his family in Paris, called Bidermann. Within 20 years, he transformed it into what PurePeople described as France’s no. 1 maker of men’s fashion for a time.

In 1994, Bidermann became a suspect in a corruption probe that ended with his conviction in 2003 for corporate maleficence. He provided personal favors to a head of an oil firm, Elf, that invested heavily in Bidderman’s businesses, in violation of French securities laws. Bidderman was sent to jail for one year but ended up serving two months.

His firm went bankrupt.

The post French Holocaust survivor and fashion tycoon Maurice Bidermann dies at 87 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

French Holocaust survivor, fashion tycoon Maurice Bidermann dies at 87

Western Wall stones sanitized after notes removed

March 31, 2020 By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Western Wall stones were cleaned and sanitized ahead of Passover.

Every year, the prayer notes tucked between the stones in the wall are removed at Passover and before the High Holidays, and buried with other sacred papers according to Jewish law in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

This year, according to a statement from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, “the Western Wall stones, visited and touched by thousands of people from Israel and around the world all year round, were sanitized and cleaned in order to protect those who come to the Western Wall even now.”

The cleaning took place Tuesday morning. The notes were removed with gloves and disposable wooden tools.

The statement noted that since Rosh Hashana over 8,000 prayer notes sent from around the world were via the Western Wall internet site have been placed between the stones.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites, supervised the cleaning and prayed there for the recovery of all those who have become ill with the coronavirus, according to the statement.

The post Western Wall stones sanitized after notes removed appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Western Wall stones sanitized after notes removed

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