Shiva
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Community A year into COVID, Zoom funerals are still surreal
I waited outside the main office building of Beth Moses Cemetery in Long Island. It was a bright, cold day. I’d been there many times before. Normally the spot is a swirl of activity, with cars snaking around every driveway, funeral directors talking shop in small clumps and crowds of mourners greeting one another with…
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Culture In a heartbreaking tribute to his son, Jamie Raskin normalizes discussion of suicide among Jews
Tommy Raskin was, by all accounts, a deeply empathetic individual, whether fighting on behalf of humans or animals. His father, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, wrote in a statement published on Medium that his son “hated cliques and social snobbery, never had a negative word for anyone but tyrants and despots, and opposed all malicious…
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Culture How I Learned Shiva
Forty-one years ago this coming week, I walked with sleepless eyes and a weary heart to the front door of my childhood home, where an unexpected visitor had just shown up for my mother’s shiva. If I recall correctly, he was wearing faded jeans, a denim jacket and hippie work boots —his usual outfit —…
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Culture Sitting Shiva for Spot?
As I peer down at her cotton-puff head, my sense of guilt sets in. Peeps, my bichon frise associate, has just taken a cocktail of three different medicines meant to keep her ticker ticking. Her eyes water, and her mouth turns downward, quivering slightly. It’s obvious she is not digging this new regimen. At 13,…
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Community When a shiva is cut short
Shiva, the traditional Jewish mourning period for close relatives, is normally seven days long. It makes sense that shiva should be seven days. Seven (shiva in Hebrew) is a number with special significance in Judaism. The seven-branched menorah, a symbol of Judaism since ancient times. The seven times a bride circles the groom at the…
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News Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg having a Jewish burial? Here’s what we know so far.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s private funeral service in the Supreme Court on Wednesday was presided over by Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. “Justice Ginsburg, l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation,” said Holtzblatt. She also sang Psalm 23 in Hebrew. Rabbi Holtzblatt’s husband, Ari, was a clerk to Justice Ginsburg in…
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News Q&A: Volunteering with chevra kadisha in the era of coronavirus
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Deborah Drillman, 54, was one of 55 women volunteering with the Chevra Kadisha of Queens and Long Island, an organization that prepares deceased people for burial according to Jewish tradition. Now, as the virus ravages Jewish communities in and around New York City, their work is more necessary than ever. Because…
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Community I always sang for my father
My father, a fan of life, music and his home state politician Joe Biden, died soon after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Delaware — although fortunately not of Covid-19. He was felled by “natural causes,”also known as the physical vicissitudes of old age. Dad’s death was not unexpected, but because of the…
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