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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Culture Daily distraction: Put on a play at home!
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. There’s no way around it — this is going to be a very tough week, which…
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Fast Forward Monsey’s rate of positive tests for coronavirus is nearly the highest in the country
Monsey, N.Y., a well-known Hasidic hub of 42,000 people in suburban Rockland County, has nearly the highest rate of positive tests for the coronavirus in the country. Though the number could be inflated due to high rates of testing, cultural factors, like large families, could also be making the town a hotspot for Covid-19. New…
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Fast Forward Orthodox groups now say no shared Passover seders should take place
NEW YORK (JTA) — Leading Orthodox Jewish groups have come out firmly against shared Passover meals, two days before the holiday begins and two weeks after the groups left open the possibility of communal seders under narrow circumstances. “Everyone must plan to celebrate Pesach where they are currently,” reads the guidance issued Monday by a…
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Fast Forward Frida Wattenberg, 95, smuggled Jewish orphans out of Nazi-occupied France dies from coronavirus
(JTA) — Frida Wattenberg was too young to get a driver’s license when the Nazis invaded her native France in 1940. But three years later, at the age of 19, she was already risking her life by helping to drive Jewish children out of occupied France into neutral Switzerland. Wattenberg died in Paris on April…
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News Orthodox family ‘fallen through cracks’ in fight to get experimental drug
Michael Goldsmith, 34, is the person everyone always called to shlep something heavy, like a piece of furniture. An IT consultant, he’s always been robustly healthy, but on March 11, he started showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus. He had no underlying conditions, and his family has no idea how he caught it. Yet he’s…
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Culture In the time of coronavirus, the world looks to Anne Frank
Some joke, some protest and many find courage in her story
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Opinion The media’s obsession with haredi wrongdoing exposes its bigotry
I wore a mask on Purim. Not a Mordechai or Esther mask, and not the face mask my wife and I wear when food shopping these days. It was the kind of simple dust mask I use when I mow the lawn. I used a felt marker to draw a large smile on the mask,…
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Fast Forward Yerachmiel Beilis, 52: ‘Everything He Did Was For The Sake Of Heaven’
(JTA) — Just before his synagogue in Chicago’s West Rogers Park shut down in response to the current pandemic, Yerachmiel “Rick” Beilis made a siyum, a festive meal celebrating his completion of a tractate of Talmud. Only weeks later, he was dead, struck down by the coronavirus. Beilis, a high-tech worker who died April 4…
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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
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish World Interviews with Holocaust survivors reveal the richness of Yiddish
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Opinion The San Diego imam defended Oct. 7. His mosque still deserves our help
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Sports An op-ed compared an NBA team to Israel as underdog success stories. Then the threats poured in.
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Theater In ‘Waiting for Godot,’ the tragedy and comedy of the Jewish experience