Opinion

• Opinion

  The media’s latest hypocrisy: Blaming Orthodox victims of coronavirus

  Orthodox Jews don’t use technology on the Sabbath or holidays. When two-day holidays fall on Thursday and Friday, as Passover did last week, it means three days off the grid. But when the peaceful three-day holidays drew to a close on Saturday night, I was filled with a sense of dread. I knew my inbox…

  By Eliezer Brand

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Coronavirus is deepening the divide between Orthodox and liberal Jews

  When my mom-friends and I were discussing where to do our Passover shopping last weekend, one sheepishly asked, “Is it anti-Semitic for me not to want to go to the kosher supermarket because of coronavirus?” Yes, I immediately answered. While some Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn and upstate New York — and Israel! — had been…

  By Jodi Rudoren Apr 12, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Coronavirus is a fire drill for climate change

  This Passover, abandoning bread for matzah will hardly register as a disruptive change. Our experience of the coronavirus has upended everything. It turns out our world is much more fragile than we thought. Things we have always taken for granted — that grocery stores will be stocked with food; hospitals will have available beds and…

  By Rabbi Jennie Rosenn Apr 12, 2020 | 3 min read

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  Opinion

  Less than 1 in 10 doctors survived the Warsaw Ghetto. They, too, lacked for supplies.

  My daughter is a nurse in Teaneck, New Jersey, an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. My daughter-in-law is a nurse in an upstate New York town where hospitals are raided for protective gear and ventilators because it hasn’t hit hard yet. My go-to doctor and my husband’s cardiologist are in Teaneck. My neighbor works…

  By Jeanette Friedman Apr 10, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  We must recommit to helping refugees. We all come from Egypt.

  As we face enormous uncertainties in dealing with COVID-19, we turn to our values to ground us. We confront the thin line between health and illness and we are inextricably connected in our collective desire for safety and health. We share the fragility of existence with an unbowed desire to connect with those suffering from…

  By Aaron Weininger and Robert Aronson Apr 9, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What if Jewish journalism disappears?

  Just hours before the seder, British Jews heard the shocking news that the nation’s leading national-circulation Jewish newspapers, The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish News, were being liquidated. The Kessler Foundation, which owns both papers, has run out of money. When local advertising dried up because of the coronavirus, “voluntary liquidation” became the only alternative….

  By Jonathan D. Sarna Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Please do not host a “Christian seder”

  It’s time to discuss the “Christian seder.” If you are having one this year, or are thinking about doing one next year, here are some helpful tips from Jewish practice: Don’t. Please, we are begging you, don’t do it. I’m not suggesting you not attend a seder if your Jewish friend invites you; take that…

  By Joachim Steinberg Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Sanders lost the democratic primary. But he won the moral argument.

  There’s something deeply symbolic about the fact that the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in U.S. history dropped out of the race on the eve of Passover, our people’s holiday of liberation. And that he’s dropping out at a time when recent news has proven him more correct about our politics than ever before. On…

  By Joel Swanson Apr 8, 2020 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Editorial | Coronavirus claims another victim: Jewish journalism

  There is so much to mourn the loss of these days: our inability to be around communal tables for Seder tonight, our freedom to gather for brises and bnei mitzvah, our confidence in the future — and, most of all, every individual taken by the terrible Covid-19. But save some grief for the Jewish Chronicle,…

  By Jodi Rudoren Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Bernie’s campaign is dead. Long live Bernie.

  On Wednesday, April 8, 2020 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced he was dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary. Many post-mortems on his campaign will likely focus on what it means for his “faction” of progressives. But whether or not it survives as a cohesive faction in the future, there is no doubt that the…

  By Alex Zeldin Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Don’t blame haredi Jews for the spread of coronavirus. Blame their media and leadership.

  In New York and Israel, ultra-Orthodox communities have been among the hardest hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Some community members point to a lack of access to mainstream media outlets to explain how this epidemic came to ravage the haredi community. Community members didn’t know the extent of the virus or the way it…

  By Miriam Moster Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read