In 2016, we saw a disturbing spike in suicides in the American Haredi community — and a flurry of speculation about the causes. Addressing this issue must be done with the greatest sensitivity. 75 suicides in a year is a statistic, but the reality is 75 individual tragedies. As a therapist with 20 years experience…
The Jewish community is very good at reacting to tragedies when they happen, says Columbia University professor and brain-health journalist Stephen Fried. “But we have to figure out how to make mental health awareness a part of Jewish life every day.” When Sherry Anthony, director of Riverside Memorial Chapel, grew concerned about the number of…
Boorey Deutsch can’t keep track of the number of people he knew who died by suicide or overdose this year. Four were close friends. One of them hung himself; one drove the wrong way on the highway and two overdosed. Others he knew in passing. “I knew many of them, unfortunately,” Deutsch said, in the…
After a Boulder, Colorado high school student took his own life, police found a neo-Nazi chat group that involved him and more than a dozen other students. “You can hang Jews on trees, shoot them right in the knees. Gas as many as you please,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook conversation, titled “4th Reich…
Two months ago, my mother committed suicide suddenly and shockingly. Disclaimer: I have no background in psychology, so I can only share my personal experiences with suicide and mental health. I can only break the silence with my words. Many people were totally taken aback when they found out that my family went totally public…
On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. So begins the poem “Unetaneh Tokef,” which is recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I have always struggled with this poem. The very literal translation speaks to an intervening God, one who is ready to stand in judgement and hand down…
Punk pioneer Alan Vega of Suicide – whose pitch-black, electro-charged minimalism influenced musicians from Bruce Springsteen to U2 to The Arcade Fire – died this weekend at age 78. Born in 1938 as Boruch Alan Bormowitz in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Vega studied fine arts and physics at Brooklyn College. A chance meeting decades later with performer…
Brooklyn’s Orthodox community is mourning the apparent suicide of 22-year-old construction worker Yakov Krausz, whose body was discovered Wednesday in an elevator motor room, the Daily News reported. His death marks at least the 26th suicide of a young adult in New York-area Orthodox community over the past ten months, according to Zvi Gluck, founder…
