This is the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
COVID-19
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Opinion The man-made plagues of Gaza
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article The story of Passover and the ten plagues always filled me with awe: Egyptians punished with hunger and thirst, bloody water, blinding darkness and loved ones lost overnight. When I was a young person, those horrifying plagues were unimaginable. Then, I experienced similar, man-made plagues, plagues that continue…
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Opinion The plague’s reminder: We only think we’re in charge
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article As COVID-19 is not the fearsome Yersinia pestis bacterium — the rod-shaped, anaerobic organism that ravages human bodies by way of rat fleas — it is not, strictly speaking, a plague. No matter. If civilization can be said to be plagued by froyo shops or LED light displays,…
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Opinion My great-grandmother survived Stalin and Hitler. I’m thinking of her this Passover.
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article We’re going to be alone for the seders. It was the first thought in my mind that really hit home the severity of the COVID-19 crisis as New York authorities began telling people to stay home. The next one was: Are we even going to be able to…
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Opinion Coronavirus is exposing the plagues of American society
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article If God sent coronavirus to our shores, it isn’t because he’s punishing us. He’s simply forcing us to look into a mirror so we can finally take a good hard look at who we really are rather than what we’ve long pretended. Or maybe it’s because he was…
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Opinion I used to love the plagues – until I lived through one
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article I used to love the plagues. Not anymore. I used to love the plagues until I lived through them. As a child, my most favorite moment of Passover, the otherwise endless family dinner which featured a gelatinous fish dish and an overcooked meat dish, was the plagues. After…
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Opinion Being alone, choosing life: Jewish practice in a plague
Our tradition is predicated on the notion that no Jew should live alone on a desert island
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Opinion In times of senseless tragedy, God manifests through us
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article The situation is devastating. An entire country, the most powerful one of its time, brought to its knees, its vast military and economic might no match for the plague that envelops it. It must have been utterly crushing to be an Egyptian back then. And yet, horrible as…
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Opinion The Seder is a passport to the past and the future
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article In her book, “Illness as Metaphor,” Susan Sontag bans us from using metaphor to describe disease. We need to toughen up, she thinks, and forgo the flight away from the thing itself, the marauding crimes wreaked on the body by maladies too many to count. As Sontag writes,…
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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News They texted about Torah and mitzvahs. Feds say they were insider trading
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Culture At Eurovision, Israel’s near triumph shows the limits of tolerance
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Opinion I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish ייִדן פֿלעגן באַשווערן רוחות און שלאַנגען אויף ווײַסרוסישJews used to conjure spirits and snakes in Belarusian
בײַ ייִדן איז פֿאַראַן אַן אַלטע טראַדיציע צו שרײַבן רײַסישע סגולות מיט ייִדישע אותיות.
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Fast Forward Anti-Israel Republican Thomas Massie ousted from Congress as Trump endorsee wins primary
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Fast Forward Jewish groups rally behind bipartisan Senate antisemitism bill with $1B security allocation
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Fast Forward With AOC backing and anti-Israel message, Chris Rabb vies for open House seat in Philadelphia