Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and its affect on Jewish communities around the world.
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…
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…
It is Wednesday at noon, just hours before the Passover holiday begins, at the Reserve Shopping Center in Boca Raton, Flor. Inside the cars lined up in neat rows outside Ben’s Deli, masked customers patiently wait for their kosher Passover Package — matzo, roasted chicken or brisket, haroset, the works. No one dares enter the…
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. Shabbat shalom. I hope the first days of Passover have brought you a renewed sense…
After a spike of coronavirus infections in Haredi Orthodox Jewish areas, Israel is now experiencing a flareup of a more familiar ailment in the socially fractured country: religious tension. “It’s like a barrel of oil,” said Kimmy Caplan, a professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University, of the strain between Orthodox and secular Israelis in…
We knew these seder nights would be different from all others. Turned out some of those differences were positive. My own extended family seemed to talk over each other less via Zoom than we do in person, and we relaxed our recitation of the hagaddah to make room for more personal interpretations, which may also…
Israel’s prime minister and president were criticized on social media Thursday for having Passover Seders with children who live outside their home – despite strict quarantine measures that banned such gatherings. The Israeli government ordered Jewish citizens to stay in their homes with no exceptions from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning, in order to stop…
My daughter is a nurse in Teaneck, New Jersey, an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. My daughter-in-law is a nurse in an upstate New York town where hospitals are raided for protective gear and ventilators because it hasn’t hit hard yet. My go-to doctor and my husband’s cardiologist are in Teaneck. My neighbor works…
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