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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Opinion Wearing a face mask? You’re doing a mitzvah. Make a brachah!
Among the Jewish tradition’s most cherished values is the sanctity of human life. With a few notable exceptions, one must not endanger their life in order to fulfill a religious obligation. And one must violate even the most significant commandments in order to save another person’s life. Saving one life is regarded as the equivalent…
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Opinion The media’s latest hypocrisy: Blaming Orthodox victims of coronavirus
Orthodox Jews don’t use technology on the Sabbath or holidays. When two-day holidays fall on Thursday and Friday, as Passover did last week, it means three days off the grid. But when the peaceful three-day holidays drew to a close on Saturday night, I was filled with a sense of dread. I knew my inbox…
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News Life in the time of corona: L.A. portraits
No one has been left unscathed from the effect of the coronavirus, from storeowners to rock-and-roll guitarists. Los Angeles-based writer and photographer Ayala Or-El captured some of the stories shared by members of the L.A. Jewish community. Sean Hurwitz, guitar player for the band Smash Mouth The news that his livelihood is in jeopardy caught…
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Opinion Coronavirus is a fire drill for climate change
This Passover, abandoning bread for matzah will hardly register as a disruptive change. Our experience of the coronavirus has upended everything. It turns out our world is much more fragile than we thought. Things we have always taken for granted — that grocery stores will be stocked with food; hospitals will have available beds and…
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News Meet the rabbi, military chaplain and Jewish educator who wants to thank you for your service
In less than a week, Larry Freedman was called to fight the coronavirus epidemic on two different fronts. As a religious school director in Pittsburgh, Rabbi Freedman was tasked with moving an entire curriculum online after most public spaces were shuttered due to the virus in late March. Just a few days later, he was…
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Culture Daily distraction: National poetry month
Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. A quarantine haiku: Out of my window The streets below are empty Good; flatten the…
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Community It’s all about relationships, especially in a pandemic
I write this sitting in a Hilton hotel room in what is known as “Med City,” Rochester, Minnesota. My wife Susie and I have been in this same room since February 6 when we arrived to enter the world-famous Mayo Clinic kidney transplant center. That amounts to nearly 60 days, isolated from most family and…
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News Laughter is deemed essential as hospital clowns continue to work during corona
Back when I was in high school in New Rochelle, N.Y., I would transform every Tuesday during religious school at Temple Israel into “Oscar Lasagna.” It was my clown name, which I earned by enrolling in the goofiest elective possible: Jewish medical clowning. I went on to clown regularly in children’s hospitals, both in the…
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Fast Forward DNC finding: Biden’s Israel backing cost Harris votes for president
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Antisemitism Decoded After Minneapolis, a YouTuber comes for Jewish ‘welfare queens’
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News What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Childhood
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News An Arizona cemetery now requires mourners to leave before burial. A rabbi plans to sue.
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News Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s exiled crown prince, has a plan for his people’s future — if they’ll have him
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Culture Before I became an orthodontist, I was my good friend Neil Sedaka’s saxophonist
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Opinion A war with Israel, not for Israel
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Fast Forward Many American Jewish groups throw support behind joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran
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