Welcome to 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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News (Not) all Jewish camps are cancelled (yet) (maybe). Here’s how some are trying to stay open.
After the Union of Reform Judaism, which operates North America’s largest network of Jewish summer camps, sent an email last week to thousands of families announcing that all its camps were cancelled, an independent camp in Pennsylvania issued an email announcement of its own. “Camp Zeke is not a URJ camp” it declared, in bold…
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Fast Forward She survived the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and COVID-19. What is her secret?
(JTA) — After Marilee Shapiro Asher was admitted to the hospital in mid-April sick with COVID-19, her daughter got a call from the doctor telling her she ought to get down there right away. Her mother likely had only 12 hours to live. “Well, he doesn’t know my mother, does he?” Joan Shapiro said. What…
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Fast Forward Deep layoffs at organization tasked with helping Jewish nonprofits through the crisis
(JTA) – The nonprofit organization leading an emergency coalition to coordinate the Jewish response to the pandemic-induced financial crisis has itself slashed its staff. Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group of communal fundraising and programming organizations across the country, announced layoffs and executive salary cuts in a message to board members and federation…
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News Highest number of nursing home deaths in New York State is at ‘Parker Jewish’
Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation in Queens is the nursing home with the highest number of COVID deaths in the state, according to data released from the Department of Health Monday. The institute, which receives funding from the Jewish Communal Fund and UJA-Federation of New York, has had 71 COVID deaths since…
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News Jewish summer camps close, stranding kids with disabilities – and their families
Stacie Funk is afraid to tell her son that there might not be summer camp this year. Jonah, 21, has severe autism. Funk playfully calls him “one and done”: He’ll talk incessantly about a movie he wants to see, for example, and as soon as he sees it, he never mentions it again. But for…
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News Meet the people bringing food to hospitals on National Nurse’s Day (and on all other days)
Emerging from the hospital for the first time in hours, the nurse needed to talk to someone. A young woman, she’d trained hard for her career, with full knowledge that it would be a difficult one. What she hadn’t prepared for was saying the shema with dying coronavirus patients, comforting them through final moments that…
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Community ‘Without emptiness, where would we find room to grow? Without hollowness, how could we breathe?’
It seems like every year, as the annual cycle of Torah reading reaches Leviticus; the third of the five books, congregational rabbis tense up. By now, we’ve finished investigating the human psyche courtesy of the rich characters that inhabit Genesis and we’ve emerged with bated breath from the adventures of the Exodus. Suddenly, our focus…
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News The pandemic is forcing synagogues to reinvent themselves
The Forward is taking an ongoing look at the future of synagogues in America in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have information or insights, please contact [email protected] The start of May means different things to different people, but for most synagogues, it means it’s time to start planning for the high holidays. And…
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Fast Forward Trump says Jews would deserve much of the blame if he loses
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Culture Hitler is trending on TikTok again — and they’re trying to make him seem like a nice guy
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Opinion This GOP candidate has always been antisemitic — so why are Republicans only panicking about him now?
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Fast Forward Potential Trump visit to iconic Gottlieb’s deli has Hasidic world aflutter
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward New poll shows sharp differences in how Modern Orthodox and Haredi will vote
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Fast Forward From Hostages Square, High Holiday prayers aim to transcend Israel’s fractured politics
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Fast Forward Museum of the Bible unveils world’s ‘oldest Jewish book’ in new exhibit
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Fast Forward Rare document that shows contributions of Jewish financier to American Revolution up for sale
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