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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News In this Florida synagogue, 5 people committed suicide in 4 months. Here’s how the rabbi is coping.
Rabbi David Steinhardt of Boca Raton, Fla., confessed that he had never dealt with anything remotely comparable: in the last four months, five congregants or their close relatives have died by suicide. All were single men aged 20 to 60. In contrast, during his nearly 38 years in the rabbinate, Steinhardt – spiritual leader of…
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News ‘Historically ludicrous’: Jewish leaders speak out against comparing vaccine passports to Holocaust
Conservative politicians, including former Trump cabinet member Richard Grenell and the freshman congressman from North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn, drew fire on Tuesday from prominent Jewish leaders for comparing a potential vaccine passport system to the Holocaust. In Israel, a country that has implemented a system of “vaccine passports,” documentation allows vaccinated individuals entrance to public…
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Opinion Entering Passover under the plague of vaccine guilt
As I unpack my Passover dishes and prepare to host a Seder that includes my aging parents — an enormous luxury compared to last year’s Zoom-only reality at the start of the pandemic — I find myself facing waves of an unfamiliar feeling. Vaccine guilt: That’s the guilt you get when you’re vaccinated and other…
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News For many synagogues, live-streamed services are here to stay after the pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered synagogues across the nation a year ago, many congregations that previously avoided technology use on Shabbat embraced live-stream and video conferencing as the only viable and safe solution to maintaining community. Now, for many, the needle has moved, and post-pandemic, synagogues intend to keep those options available indefinitely. “I have…
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Community What I hope we learn from two Passovers in social distancing exile
Last year, as we prepared for our first physically distanced Seder, I wrote a poem, my first ever, about the ritualistic importance of U’rchatz: handwashing, in times of a pandemic. It ends with: To remember all those who have lost or have been lost. Tonight, we wash our hands for ourselves, and for others, We…
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Opinion Biden’s COVID relief plan is a balm for Orthodox Jews
It’s highly unlikely that members of Congress had Jewish education, advanced Torah study or even Orthodox Jews in their minds when forging the ambitious American Rescue Plan that, after being signed into law by President Biden last week, will infuse nearly $2 trillion into the economy to counter the effects of the past year’s COVID…
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Opinion Isolating our grandparents – medically necessary, but devastating for Jewish continuity
Read this article in Yiddish It’s been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed us all. During this time, more than half a million people in the United States have died of the virus. You’d think that a devastation of this kind would have thrown our society into shock. Last spring and summer,…
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News They moved home for just a few weeks, fleeing the coronavirus. They’re still there.
When the pandemic began last March, with New York quickly becoming the epicenter, there was an immediate exodus to the suburbs. As offices went remote within the span of a week — including the Forward, my third day on the job — 2.6 million young adults fled apartments for their parents’ homes, where they could…
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Culture Inside the ancient Christian theology driving modern antisemitism
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News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
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Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
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News Mamdani to attend Passover Seder as he navigates ties with Jewish groups amid rising antisemitism
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Culture Two women race to save Persian Jewish music before it fades
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Opinion Passover liberation and US liberty both summon us to remember and renew
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Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
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Culture Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
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