This is the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
COVID-19
The Latest
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Opinion From plagues to Promised Land: Let’s build a world of solidarity
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article I remember a conversation with my son, who is 12 and studying for a Bar Mitzvah that is now in a holding pattern. Last year, at Passover, he told me he didn’t think it was fair that in order to free the slaves regular Egyptians had to suffer…
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Opinion When a new plague exacerbates the old
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Every year at Passover seders around the world, as families gather to recount the story of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt, we recount the ten plagues that befell the Egyptians: Blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, the killing of the firstborn. As they…
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Opinion Resistance to tyranny and longing for Zion, then and now
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Of all the Jewish holidays that could coincide with a once-every-century global pandemic, there is clear divine instruction in its eclipse falling on Passover. It’s been said many times that Pharaoh was the original anti-Semite and that the plagues descended upon the people of Egypt because of his…
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Opinion Even during a plague, choice is destiny
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article In the book of Job, after Job has suffered great losses, his friends come to comfort him. Finding Job sitting on the ground covered in boils, they throw dust up in the air and onto their heads (Job 2:12). A modern Israeli scholar, Meir Weiss, suggests this may…
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Opinion Anti-COVID cleansing gets a lesson from the Torah: We don’t control everything.
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article I’ve slid back into old habits over the past two weeks. I struggle with obsessive hand and body washing, as a way of coping with past sexual trauma. My body feels polluted and tainted, and I wash it obsessively to provide some momentary relief from these feelings. At…
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Opinion This Passover will be different from all others — and there’s freedom in that
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Passover is the birthday of the Jewish people. We went down to Egypt as a family, but we left Egypt as a people. For thousands of years, we have celebrated that birthday, but this year’s Passover will be different from all other Passovers. During the original Passover, Jewish…
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Opinion In the 11th plague, all the world are neighbors
BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Though we will be without guests this Passover, we will remain with neighbors. The eating of the pascal lamb was a collective event, a bonfire frenzy of hungry spiritual brothers (and sisters). But the story of Exodus begins with neighbors. After all, the Egyptians and Hebrews lived side…
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News Burial society organization suggests new rituals; Brooklyn funeral home overwhelmed
An Orthodox funeral home in Brooklyn, where a video shows nine shrouded bodies stacked on the floor, is so overwhelmed that on Tuesday it called for volunteers with minivans and SUVs to ferry the dead to cemeteries for burial. In a message circulated via What’s App, Menachem A. Bloom, who works at the funeral home,…
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News A pioneering Reform synagogue makes way for a booming Iranian Jewish community
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News Hampshire College closure reverberates for alumni who treasured a Yiddishist hub
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Opinion Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer
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Opinion Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Steeped in history, Pensacola Jews celebrate the 150th anniversary of Florida’s oldest synagogue
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Fast Forward Rahm Emanuel joins calls for end to US ‘financial aid’ to Israel
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Fast Forward Michigan Democrats nominate Eli Savit, progressive Jewish prosecutor, for state attorney general
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Fast Forward At soldiers’ graves, the rows keep growing: Israel’s Memorial Day is shaped by new loss
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