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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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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News Historic Park Slope synagogue establishes ‘emergency stabilization fund’
Congregation Beth Elohim, a historic Reform synagogue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has established an “emergency stabilization fund” to collect money from congregants and trustees after significant sources of revenue were eliminated during the coronavirus outbreak. “This is the most urgent message I have had to write as CBE’s president,” said president Rob Raich in a…
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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News They texted about Torah and mitzvahs. Feds say they were insider trading
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Culture At Eurovision, Israel’s near triumph shows the limits of tolerance
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Opinion I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
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Fast Forward Rep. Jared Moskowitz becomes latest Jewish lawmaker to reveal antisemitic threats
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Fast Forward Jewish groups denounce fatal shooting at San Diego mosque, say it proves need for security funding
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News Mamdani’s first Jewish Heritage event reveals a narrowed circle
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Culture The Israeli song that almost won Eurovision was about far more than the breakup of a love affair