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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Opinion Transforming the warmth of the Persian community into something new
Previous Article Next Article As an Iranian Jew, I take pride in the warmth, hospitality, and intense affection and love that is displayed in my community. We greet each other with two kisses and warm hugs. Grandparents do not gently kiss their grandchildren but inhale them with affection, often whispering “gorboonet beram,” — I will…
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Opinion The (Jewish) world is flat(tening)
Previous Article Next Article The first Saturday in quarantine, my family joined a Zoom havdalah led by our synagogue’s cantor. Faces of our friends and fellow congregants filled a couple dozen boxes on the then-novel screen, many holding flames aloft. I told the cantor we should keep doing it long after the pandemic passed: Havdalah…
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Opinion An opportunity to confront white supremacy and create a Jewish, intersectional future
Previous Article Next Article As a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader within the Jewish world, I am rarely shocked by what I hear. But right before the lockdowns came into effect, I was. I spoke with a few colleagues, friends, and clients about their experiences being in a community facing a pandemic. One colleague said,…
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Opinion A wakeup call: You are your brother’s keeper
Previous Article Next Article Kol yisrael aravim ze baze — all of Israel is responsible for one another. Of course, in the era of the current plague, we might better say kol anashim aravim ze baze — all people are responsible for one another. We are responsible for wearing a mask, for ensuring that those…
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Opinion How the pandemic will change Jewish philanthropy
Previous Article Next Article New York, December 1st, 2021 My dear colleague, I understand you’ve been locked up in an Ashram for the last two years and you’ve missed the pandemic. No great loss, believe me. Lucky you to come down from the Himalayas and be vaccinated right away at the Gates Center in Katmandu!…
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Opinion Chabad emissaries are stepping into communal gaps – for good
Previous Article Next Article The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a stone’s throw from my house. I pass its gated entrance on my walks along Eastern Parkway several times a week and promise myself to visit soon. But the last time I strolled under its gorgeous cherry trees was two years ago. It’s a little like…
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Opinion Online Judaism is an echo chamber. Will we ever see those we disagree with again?
Previous Article Next Article I’m hardly the first to observe that the speed with which so much Jewish communal life leaped online in the first weeks of shutdown was head-snapping. I’ve been to more Zoom classes, Zoom Shabbat services, Zoom concerts and ceremonies, more Zoom funerals and shivahs and bar mitzvahs in six weeks than…
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Opinion Our history is full of sorrow and salvation. This won’t change us.
Previous Article Next Article How will the coronavirus outbreak transform Jewish life? I think that’s the wrong question. In our long history we have weathered many storms without being fundamentally changed. We’re still here, as Mark Twain pointed out, after all the great empires of the ancient world were relegated to the history books. We’ve…
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News A Jewish gun club teams up with the NRA, in pursuit of self-defense
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