Shiva
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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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Community This isn’t about the bagel, nor the seltzer man
For me, it was a bagel – my last taste of normalcy before the “new normal” arrived, eaten mere hours before NYC effectively cancelled the school year for my children. The inevitable was fast approaching — had arrived in fact — and I was just slow to accept it. (Weeks later, my dad would die….
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Community ‘Zoom shiva is shiva distilled to its essence’
I am one of those people with one of those stories. My mom, 83, went into the hospital in early April with something relatively routine. A few weeks and complications later, she went to a rehab to regain her strength. My dad delivered her reading glasses and an everything bagel to the door, knowing, of…
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Community Sitting shiva via Zoom, it turns out, has its upsides
Last week, we buried my father in the Long Island cemetery plot that had been waiting three decades for him to arrive. When I recall my mother’s 1990 funeral, in the pre-COVID era, I can still feel the love that came from the crowd surrounding us, and the support I drew from the Hebrew prayers…
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Community My mother was a Holocaust survivor, but she was always more worried about my happiness.
My 93-year-old mom, who survived the Holocaust, died of COVID-19 in an assisted living facility in New Jersey on April 5. I found out she was dead from a text with the words Baruch Dayan Haemet, the Jewish blessing at the time of death. Only days earlier, my nephew called to tell me she had…
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