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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Community Is coronavirus a reason to skip the bris?
My son and daughter had a joint bar and bat mitzvah a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic. The service took place in our temple and was broadcast on Zoom. On the bema, our rabbi stood apart from our immediate family and just a few congregation staffers were physically present. Everyone else, including grandparents, watched…
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News Chicago’s Federation nailed its COVID-19 response. Now it wants other cities to follow its lead.
More than half a year into the global COVID-19 pandemic, much of the world is still figuring out how to adapt to a new way of doing things, including attending religious services, going to school, shopping and eating. But one Jewish community is reporting remarkable success in how it helps local organizations meet their community’s…
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Community What will you write in the Book of Life?
For more than two decades, we have served as congregational rabbis in some of the largest synagogues in the United States. We’ve faced all sorts of challenges throughout our careers but we’ve never experienced anything like the present moment. Just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-at-home orders in our communities, the…
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Fast Forward Brooklyn Jewish officials warn of new COVID cases amid rising fear of a second wave
(JTA) – With cases of COVID-19 rising over the last several weeks in Orthodox communities in the New York City area, a synagogue in Brooklyn and a Jewish ambulance group issued warnings for people to continue taking precautions against the virus. Hatzoloh of Rockland County, which serves a number of large Orthodox communities in Monsey,…
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Life It’s the ‘biggest, queerest Jewish wedding’—and you’re invited
Chaya Milchtein’s dream wedding would have hundreds of guests. Her fiancée JodyAnn Morgan’s dream wedding would be just her, her partner and their officiant. In Morgan’s ideal world, she said, “I would just go to Vegas and call it a day.” Now, thanks to the coronavirus, they are both getting their dream wedding. This weekend,…
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Life Legacy Bintel: 1922 Montreal sisters quarrel over nothing
The original Bintel Brief column was founded at the Forward in 1906 and ran through the 1980s. Written in Yiddish, letter writers sought advice on heartbreak, poverty, religious quarrels, family disputes, love triangles and more. Legacy Bintel revisits these original Bintel Brief letters. Many appear here in English for the first time. They have been…
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Life Does God punish us?
Still Small Voice is a collection of 18 interviews with rabbis tackling 18 questions about God, published during the month of Elul, a time of Jewish reflection and accountability. Click here to read the introduction to the series. It’s hard to watch God’s wrath and not feel alienated. God’s punishments in the Torah seem disproportionate….
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Life Does God need us?
Still Small Voice is a collection of 18 interviews with rabbis tackling 18 questions about God, published during the month of Elul, a time of Jewish reflection and accountability. Click here to read the introduction to the series, and here to browse the collection. I both believe it and resist it — the idea that…
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News An Israeli restaurant chain said it closed due to boycotts. Protesters are celebrating.
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News Should synagogues remove the Israeli flag from bimahs now? How a New York shul made the decision
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Opinion Jews are worried about Zohran Mamdani. Here’s why they shouldn’t be
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Film & TV What the new season of ‘Nobody Wants This’ gets right — and very wrong — about Judaism
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion Does that Trump Time Magazine cover really reference a Nazi war criminal?
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Opinion Demanding loyalty of the U.S. military, Trump hungers for ‘the kind of generals that Hitler had’
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Culture Leonard Bernstein wrote a love song to the White House; now it’s an elegy
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Fast Forward As 1000+ rabbis sign anti-Mamdani letter, others decry mounting ‘red lines’ in Jewish communities
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