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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Fast Forward Jared Kushner relative solicits coronavirus tips for him on Facebook
(JTA) — A physician with family ties to senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said he solicited advice on Facebook for Kushner on how to deal with the coronavirus. Kurt Kloss, whose daughter is married to Kushner’s brother, on Wednesday asked a group of fellow emergency room physicians on the social network for the advice…
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Opinion Community. Ritual. Joy: That’s how we survived AIDS, and how we’ll survive coronavirus
We in the Jewish LGBTQ community are feeling some déjà vu from our worst years of trauma. Starting in 1981, the surreal became real. What had been imaginable only in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, the annals of medieval and Renaissance history, or in the most terrifying pages of Torah, became the day-to-day reality…
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News The loneliest Shabbat: Bracing for another holy day in quarantine
Vera Koppel, 84-year old Holocaust survivor and resident of New Rochelle, is something of a local community organizer. She was born in Budapest, moved to the United States after the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and today is an active member of the Young Israel of New Rochelle, where she runs the “Ruach” weekly group for senior…
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Opinion Editorial | Coronavirus is the new normal. Let’s make it Jewish.
Our office gathered for drinks at 5 p.m. on Thursday. By “gathered,” of course, I mean we all clicked on a Google hangout link at the same time from the homes where we’d been holed up all day. I poured a little glass of Maker’s Mark; our newest employee hugged a big ceramic mug of…
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News Shabbat services go virtual as governors across U.S. ban large gatherings
Synagogues across the country have taken steps to limit Shabbat services and other religious events after governors of three of the states with the largest Jewish populations announced bans on large gatherings. View an updated list of streaming services here. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a ban on gatherings of 500 or more…
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Life With the corona virus afoot, don’t be foolishly pious.
Judaism has never been a tradition that privileges meticulous religious devotion over self-care and personal health. In a famous Mishna, Rabbi Joshua states that a “foolish man of piety”, or hasid shoteh, causes the world to be destroyed. While the Talmud gives the specific definition of a man who refuses to save a drowning woman…
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Fast Forward Rabbis cancel Shabbat, Jewish life in Teaneck to help stop coronavirus
Rabbis in Bergen County, N.J. have canceled Shabbat, and communal life altogether, in order to help public health officials slow the spread of coronavirus, according to a statement released Thursday. They have ordered that their community stay home with their immediate families, forbidding any gatherings larger than that. From services in synagogues, to classes in…
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News In containment zone around synagogue, National Guard serves amid eerie stillness
New Rochelle High School was almost lifeless on Thursday. A school normally filled with more than 3,000 students was empty, the front gates tightly shut with a chain and a lock. But around the back of the school was a sign of life that is emblematic of these strange times — men and women in…
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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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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
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Opinion The profound internal contradiction that could spell doom for Hillel
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