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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News Influenza 1918, a look back: Homes Must Now Be Heated, Says Board of Health
FYI: Reading the Forverts of early winter 1918, with the influenza epidemic ramping up and an election forthcoming, the paper sounds eerily like today’s news. The Forverts reported nearly 3,000 cases of influenza in the city and a commissioner who thought it wasn’t serious (10/10/18). At the tail end of the article, they placed an…
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Opinion The coronavirus is transforming Judaism
If you attended religious school, you’ve probably heard this story: It was the first century of the Common Era. The Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, and with it, Judean independence. In utter despair, the Jews smuggled their leader, Yochanan ben Zakkai, out of Jerusalem in a coffin. He leaped out of the coffin, and hailed the…
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Culture Daily distraction: Ben Platt’s dance party, the Folksbiene online and ‘West Side Story’
As the novel coronavirus outbreak continues, social distancing remains the cool thing to do — just listen to Mel Brooks. Luckily, our favorite cultural figures and institutions continue to find creative ways to keep us entertained. In case you missed our first installment, as the country enters an unprecedented period of isolation to stem the…
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News We had to cancel the party, but the Bar Mitzvah will go on
March 21, 2020. That’s the date of my son Leo’s Bar Mitzvah. Aside from having one of the hardest and most boring Torah portions, it seemed like a pretty good date. My wife, Jill, Leo and I had put a lot of work into making the day really special. And I know that every family…
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Life Diary of a Day-School Mom: ‘My daughter doesn’t see the need for pants’
Our kids’ school, the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, is very on top of things. The attention to detail is really something fine, and it’s reflected in the number of emails they send me, some of which I manage to read. It sometimes makes me, a working mom with average organizational skills, feel…
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Israel News Quarantine Diary Day 12: The final day!
Z ack Dinerstein and Lisa Tauber, both 35, moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Tel Aviv a year ago for her job at Fiverr, an online marketplace for freelance services (he is a web developer and former podcast producer). Newlyweds, they recently went for a romantic getaway to Paris — only to find on their…
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Fast Forward Former leader of Milan Jewish community dies of coronavirus
(JTA) — Michele Sciama, a former secretary-general of the Jewish Community of Milan, has died of the coronavirus. Sciama, known to his friends and family as Micky, was 79 when he died Monday morning. He is survived by his wife, Viviane, and two daughters, Dalia and Stefania, the Italian-Jewish Moked news site wrote in an…
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Culture Mel and Max Brooks’ father-son coronavirus PSA is a must-watch
“World War Z” author Max Brooks makes a living selling stories of the zombie apocalypse. But today, he’s enlisting his followers to help stave off the apocalypse at hand. On Twitter, the writer teamed up with his father, the veteran comedian and director Mel Brooks, to demonstrate proper social distancing techniques in the confusing era…
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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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News Rep. Dan Goldman urges ‘no’ vote on proposed Brooklyn Israel boycott, warning of antisemitism
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Fast Forward Itamar Ben-Gvir draws criticism from Netanyahu for video taunting detained flotilla activists
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Fast Forward What Tuesday’s primaries tell us about Democrats, Republicans and the Israel issue
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Fast Forward AOC and other leading Democrats condemn Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo over antisemitic rhetoric