Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

The dreadful loneliness of Ramadan during coronavirus

Every year, I await Ramadan’s colorful yet reverent atmosphere and touching spirituality. Islam’s holiest month has always been a time of kindness, self-reflection, and communal solidarity. Daytime would be filled with worship, reciting Quran, contemplation and charitable work.

But though we grieve the loss of Ramadan’s delights, we remain obliged to carry out its virtues of self-cleansing, devotion, and solidarity.

Muhammad Shehada | artist: Noah Lubin

In my family, iftar, the breaking of fast, always meant gatherings of relatives and friends for a beautiful, multi-colored feast. Here, eating wasn’t just a matter of sustenance, but a ritualized and memorable communion.

We would all exchange hugs and handshakes. Everybody would lend a helping hand to set the table. Together, minute by minute, we would await sunset. Then, as soon as dark fell, voices and laughter would ring throughout the room. The night was passed with heartwarming conversations and hanging out, huddling around a fireplace to roast chestnuts.

Despite all the hardships we’ve endured in Gaza, we’ve maintained these traditions as part of our identity. It’s such communal moments that help us remain steadfast, help us transcend sorrows and reinvigorate our souls.

This year, however, Ramadan will be different. In times of social distancing, there can be no visitations, no hanging out or strolling around.

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.

Prayer services have been suspended and mosques around the globe have closed. Even Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque will be shut down to Muslim worshippers throughout Ramadan.

Public banquets, group iftars, and “Tables of the Compassionate” — charity meals offered to the poor — are banned or restricted. The very atmosphere of celebration and festivity will be hollowed out at a time when people worldwide are struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic.

Everything will have to be done in isolation. The personal interactions that bind us to one another are temporarily severed. Chairs and tables will be empty. Families and friends will be cut from one another except those holding virtual iftars over the internet. Evening Tarawih prayers will be performed individually and separately at home. Lectures and sermons will only be watched online.

Even for an introvert like myself, the claustrophobia of such confinement, uncertainty and loneliness is dreadful.

There has been no greater challenge to our identity and way of life than today’s pandemic. Even during the 2014 war in Gaza, we observed the holy month and managed to salvage some of its spirit and atmosphere. We still gathered when bombs fell.

We held onto each other and embraced our loved ones every night, reassuring them they’d be safe and well. We shielded each other from danger then.

Now, we have become the danger ourselves.

But though we grieve the loss of Ramadan’s delights, we remain obliged to carry out its virtues of self-cleansing, devotion, and solidarity. Now more than ever, we need to be at our most selfless. We need to stand with those in need and make sure we pull through this together.

Muhammad Shehada is a contributing columnist for the Forward from Gaza. His work has also appeared in Haaretz and Vice. Find him on Twitter @muhammadshehad2.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  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.