This is the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
COVID-19
The Latest
-
Opinion If you want to help Haredim fight COVID-19, help — don’t hector
Rising cases of COVID-19 in New York’s densely Orthodox neighborhoods, and the protests there that followed city and state lockdown measures, have inspired a spate of recent public statements and articles urging the Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community to take the virus more seriously. The authors are generally Jewish, whether Haredi, modern Orthodox, or non-Orthodox, and…
-
Community As the Peace Corps turns 60, we must revisit its lessons
In the early hours of October 14, 1960, 60 years ago, Senator John F. Kennedy arrived at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Union to spend the night, having debated the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon, earlier that evening. Despite it being 2:00 a.m., some 10 thousand students stood assembled waiting for him. Kennedy had not planned to speak,…
-
Community A pandemic Simchat Torah done safely
From the start of the COVID-19 High Holiday season, I dreaded Simchat Torah. I knew that Rosh Hashanah in lockdown wouldn’t be an issue for me. Being a rabbi has its perks — I’m familiar with the prayer service, amused by my own off-key singing and accustomed to blowing the Shofar for my family every…
-
News The ‘Magenta Yenta’ is back, and she’s Heshy Tischler’s defense lawyer
On Wednesdays, Mindy Meyer wears pink. But for court appearances, she wears black. On Monday she donned her usual courtroom attire — complete with a black mask — for the arraignment of her latest client, Heshy Tischler. Meyer, an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, won a measure of tabloid fame in 2012 for mounting a failed…
-
News “There’s no going back’ What rabbis learned from the extraordinary High Holidays of 2020
I am not a rabbi — but am I proud of my colleagues who are. Along with cantors, soloists, educators, executive directors, board donors and laypeople in hundreds of congregations and spiritual communities, they pulled off one of the most extraordinary historic pivots in synagogue life. “This is epic,” Rabbi Steven Leder of Wilshire Boulevard…
-
Fast Forward Report: organizers of five Brooklyn High Holiday gatherings hit with $15,000 fines
The organizers of five Jewish religious gatherings in the Hasidic hub of Borough Park, Brooklyn, received maximum-allowable $15,000 fines for violating state rules limiting such gatherings to 10 people in areas where coronavirus infection rates are highest, sources told the New York Post. The city said that it handed out $150,000 total in fines in…
-
Opinion What the current crisis shows about Haredi leadership and politics
The protests against COVID-19 restrictions by Haredi Jews in Brooklyn last week, which included burning masks and an attack on a Haredi journalist, were shocking. They seemed to represent a blatant defiance of public-health norms and plain old common sense. And they mark a new stage in the evolution of the Haredi community in the…
-
Fast Forward After Borough Park protest leader arrested for inciting a riot, his followers mob home of Hasidic journalist
(JTA) — A dispute that has roiled Borough Park, an Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn, took a dark new turn Sunday night after Heshy Tischler, the man who led protests against COVID-19 restrictions there last week was arrested and charged with inciting a riot. The New York Police Department announced Sunday night that it had taken…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News An Israeli restaurant chain said it closed due to boycotts. Protesters are celebrating.
- 2
Opinion Jews are worried about Zohran Mamdani. Here’s why they shouldn’t be
- 3
Sports It’s so cool that Sandy Koufax was there for that
- 4
Film & TV What the new season of ‘Nobody Wants This’ gets right — and very wrong — about Judaism
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture How Germany’s Holocaust remembrance culture kicked off a democratic crisis
-
Opinion The rabbinic backlash against Zohran Mamdani isn’t about Mamdani at all
-
Culture How a curator and a rabbi joined forces to keep a piece of Boston’s Jewish history alive
-
Fast Forward Alabama man arrested for allegedly planning attacks on synagogues
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
