Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
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News Reform Judaism is a wounded giant. A historian explains why it got so big.
Amid a seeming avalanche of Jewish organizational cutbacks, closings and furloughs, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) announced last Wednesday, that it would be cutting its staff by 20% due to coronavirus-related stresses. As with so many basic institutions of American life, the economic disruption caused by the pandemic is highlighting existential questions about the…
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News Prayer in the parking lot: Orthodox Atlanta shuls become first synagogues to reopen
Orthodox rabbis in Atlanta have agreed on a framework for how synagogues can safely reopen – and at least one began doing so on Monday. Synagogues across the country shut their doors in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. But three weeks after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp proclaimed that houses of worship could reopen, 15…
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Fast Forward More than 60 teens studying in Brooklyn yeshiva dispersed by New York police
Police acting on a tip found dozens of high school-aged boys studying in a Brooklyn yeshiva on Monday, in violation of state rules that public and private schools must remain closed through the end of the academic year. Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I…
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Fast Forward Kosher eatery Abigael’s on Broadway falls victim to coronavirus
Abigael’s on Broadway, a staple of New York City’s kosher dining scene for decades, will close its dining room as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, owner Jeff Nathan announced on Monday. Founded in 1995, Abigael’s, was hardly the city’s oldest kosher eatery. But its spacious dining room and proximity to Broadway theaters made it…
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Community The new Chancellor of JTS will take up a mantle of both tradition and innovation
This week, the Jewish Theological Seminary will celebrate its 126th (virtual) commencement exercises – the final of Chancellor Arnold Eisen’s tenure. With Eisen’s retirement date set for June 30, JTS will announce his successor in the weeks ahead, perhaps by way of a plume of white smoke from its newly renovated campus at 3080 Broadway….
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Fast Forward GiveKidsSummer: Brooklyn assemblyman pushes Cuomo to open Jewish sleepaway camps
A New York state assemblyman representing a Brooklyn neighborhood with a large Orthodox Jewish population continued to press Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday to encourage local health officials to allow summer camps. Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein of Borough Park noted in a tweet on Sunday that Cuomo had allowed public beaches to be open on Memorial…
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Fast Forward Orthodox mom-and-pop shop owners join movement to let them reopen in New York
Orthodox Jewish business owners have joined in calls for New York to allow small businesses to operate, pushing back against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has repeatedly said he will not risks lives in order to reopen the economy. Orthodox business owners are sharing their personal stories through videos on social media, using the…
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Community A mask is not anti-Trump. It’s pro-life
Yarmulke is such a funny word. Not as funny as phylacteries, which, as 12-year-old I thought had something to do with birth control. The one thing I knew about yarmulkes was I had to wear one in the Conservative synagogue our family attended. The ushers in the sanctuary and the teachers in Hebrew school made…
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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Culture At 95, Shaindel Schreiber is still dispensing babka and advice on the Lower East Side
In Case You Missed It
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News Deportations, lawsuits, increased scrutiny: How the Trump administration could handle campus antisemitism
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Fast Forward Senior Biden aide celebrates Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in call with Jewish leaders
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Fast Forward Uruguay elects a left-wing president who is not anti-Israel, a rarity in Latin America
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News When the bar mitzvah boy’s dad is running for mayor
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