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Laughter is deemed essential as hospital clowns continue to work during corona
Back when I was in high school in New Rochelle, N.Y., I would transform every Tuesday during religious school at Temple Israel into “Oscar Lasagna.” It was my clown name, which I earned by enrolling in the goofiest elective possible: Jewish medical clowning. I went on to clown regularly in children’s hospitals, both in the…
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Letter from Palm Beach: Santiago Lopez goes from the counter to the front lines
It is Wednesday at noon, just hours before the Passover holiday begins, at the Reserve Shopping Center in Boca Raton, Flor. Inside the cars lined up in neat rows outside Ben’s Deli, masked customers patiently wait for their kosher Passover Package — matzo, roasted chicken or brisket, haroset, the works. No one dares enter the…
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What Jewish medical ethics can teach us about coronavirus
COVID-19, the disease outbreak caused by the new coronavirus, has already pushed health care systems to their limits. Overburdened American doctors may have to rely on triage, a system of prioritizing patients — and ultimately, lives — over one another. Looking from the outside, triage medicine can appear heartless and arbitrary. For doctors, it can…
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Share your story of how this Seder was different
In every generation, we tell the same story, sing the same songs, eat the same ritual foods. But this year, we did it while sheltering in place, with our small family units or by ourselves. Many of us connected to far-flung relatives and friends by Zoom or some other platform, or dialed into a public…
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Layoffs force JCC leaders to ponder post-pandemic future and leave employees in the lurch
In a tidal wave of pandemic-related layoffs, hundreds of employees at Jewish community centers across the United States have been let go as the institutions, central organizing forces of Jewish life, have had to close their doors due to the coronavirus. The early numbers are staggering: Bay Area JCCs have furloughed some 700 people. Philadelphia’s…
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Helène Aylon, 89, feminist artist whose work reflected evolution as a woman and Jew
NEW YORK (JTA) — When Helène Aylon was a girl in Borough Park, Brooklyn, it was impossible to imagine she would one day become a barrier-breaking fine artist. After all, the principal of the Shulamith School for Girls, where Aylon was a student, persuaded her parents not to allow her to attend an arts high…
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Irving Carter, 76, British philanthropist who funded emergency medical services in Israel
(JTA) — If there was one institution with whom Irving Carter was most closely associated, it was Magen David Adom, the Israeli affiliate of the Red Cross. The vice president of MDA’s British fundraising arm, Carter’s donations over three decades funded the procurement of dozens of ambulances, 12 bikes, two mobile blood banks and a…
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Michael Goldmeier, 73, led largest British Jewish health care agency
. (JTA) — When Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet became rabbi of London’s Orthodox Mill Hill Synagogue in 1993, he entered into a congregation rich with communal leaders. Among them was Michael Goldmeier, a man once described by the head of the British chief rabbi’s office as “one of the most prominent members of Anglo Jewry.” Schochet…
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How to sit shiva while social distancing
For centuries, sitting shiva has provided Jewish mourners a meaningful ritual to gain closure after the death of a loved one. When you’ve just suffered a loss, it’s supremely comforting to have other people around — people to keep you fed, people to play with your kids, people with whom to share treasured family stories….
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In Sarajevo, a small community draws on its wartime experience to survive COVID-19
When war came to Sarajevo in 1992, Vladimir Andrle was only a child. But he remembers the synagogue and Jewish community center as a refuge in a city besieged by violence. A generation later, Andrle is a leader of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo, mobilizing relief against the novel coronavirus. While Jews around the world…
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Orthodox family ‘fallen through cracks’ in fight to get experimental drug
Michael Goldsmith, 34, is the person everyone always called to shlep something heavy, like a piece of furniture. An IT consultant, he’s always been robustly healthy, but on March 11, he started showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus. He had no underlying conditions, and his family has no idea how he caught it. Yet he’s…
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