The Jewish Light Spring 2020 Issue

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Volume 10, Number 5 Spring 2020

Serving the Local New Orleans, Northshore, and Baton Rouge Jewish Communities

Around the World Covid-19

6 Jewish Coronavirus Initiatives You Can Support From Home

By Josefin Dolsten

Journalist Bethany Mandel started an initiative that delivers kosher meals to observant Jewish health care providers and their colleagues. (Courtesy of Mandel)

(JTA) — As the coronavirus continues to spread, synagogues, Jewish centers and other organizations that serve as gathering places for the community around the world have closed.

But even while communities cannot come together physically, some are still organizing projects to provide support to those who are suffering or at perilous risk amid the pandemic.

From phone counseling to sewing face masks to buying kosher food for Jewish doctors and nurses, there’s no shortage of ways to help.

Here’s a list of Jewish initiatives that you can support — without having to leave your house.

Get kosher food to Jewish health care workers Journalist Bethany Mandel is raising money to provide kosher meals for observant Jewish health care providers and their co-workers. She has raised more than $16,000 through more than 200 individual donations, which have 2

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Kohelet Yeshiva High School, an Orthodox day school in suburban Philadelphia, has turned its hightech arts center into a factory for making face shields for local doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients. The shields are made of a transparent acrylic that covers medical providers’ entire faces to protect against bacteria and viruses that can be present in droplets when patients cough or sneeze.

Daniel Ostrov and Stephanie Cole assemble face shields in Kohelet Yeshiva High School’s “fab lab.” (Courtesy of Kohelet)

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community members in the Greater Toronto area, including seniors, who are struggling amid food pantry closures. You can donate here.

Masbia, a network of kosher soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens, is looking to raise $350,000 to provide food for 1,000 people who are quarantined amid the pandemic. Each box contains enough food to last 14 days. The organization has raised more than $100,000.

Provide phone counseling Ruach: Emotional and Spiritual Support is a group of Jewish therapists, social workers, rabbis and chaplains who are providing free emotional support to community members during the pandemic.

Those looking to be counseled fill out a form to be paired with a provider who will call them for a 30-minute phone session.

The initiative, which is organized by Jewish doctoral student and spiritual care intern Taylor Winfield Haboucha, is seeking additional volunteers to offer care.

Licensed therapists, social workers and clergy, as well as boardcertified chaplains, can get more info and apply to participate by emailing RuachEmotionalandSpiritualCare@gmail.com. 

The school has made 200 shields but recently started implementing a new production method that will allow it to significantly ramp up production. Kohelet has raised money to sustain production for five weeks and is raising additional been used to order some 40 deliver- funds here.

Send food to community memies from restaurants to hospitals.

She is partnering with restaurants in bers struggling with poverty B’nai Brith Canada is raising New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Wisconsin for the deliveries. emergency funds for needy Jewish You can donate to the effort, titled Kosher19, here.

If your group has an event that you would like for us to Areyvut, a New Jersey-based include on the Community Calendar please e-mail the inorganization that engages Jewish formation to jewishnews@bellsouth.net. All submissions are youth, is delivering kosher meals to subject to acceptance by the Editor. ì Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, a heavily Jewish township in New Jersey that has been hit hard THE JEWISH LIGHT by the virus. The organization has raised $4,000. You can donate here.

Send editorial to us via e-mail at jewishnews@bellsouth.net or reach us by Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob, an phone at (504) 455-8822. Our mailing address is United Media Corp. P.O. Box Orthodox synagogue in Skokie, 3270, Covington, LA 70434 Illinois, also has raised $4,000, to deliver kosher food to local first • To place advertising in THE JEWISH LIGHT, call United Media Corp. at: responders.

New Orleans (504) 455-8822 Northshore (985) 871-0221 Sew face masks A number of Jewish organizations Baton Rouge (225) 925-8774 are asking community members THE JEWISH LIGHT carries Jewish Community related news about the with sewing machines to help make Louisiana Jewish community and for the Louisiana Jewish community. Its comface masks, which the CDC says mitment is to be a “True Community” newspaper, reaching out EQUALLY TO helps lower coronavirus transmisALL Jewish Agencies, Jewish Organizations and Synagogues. THE JEWISH sion rates. The Jewish Association LIGHT is published monthly by United Media Corporation. We are Louisiana on Aging, a senior care facility in owned, Louisiana published, and Louisiana distributed.

Pittsburgh, is asking for face mask United Media Corporation has been proudly serving the Louisiana Jewish donations for its at-risk residents. Community since 1995. Together, we can help rebuild Louisiana. We thank Masks should be made following you for the last 25 years and we look forward to an even brighter tomorrow. specific directions and can be dropped off or mailed to the facility. • The appearance of advertising in THE JEWISH LIGHT does not constitute a kashruth endorsement nor does it reflect the opinion of THE JEWSkokie Valley Agudath Jacob also ISH LIGHT. is collecting masks locally. Those who want to get involved should • THE JEWISH LIGHT is not responsible for the content of advertising inserts. The publishing company reserves the right to refuse any advertiseemail manyatreece@gmail.com. ment or article.

Donate to produce medical face shields • Member of the Jewish Telegraphic Association. www.thejewishlight.org

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Jewish Burial Societies Face Difficult Choices As Deaths From Coronavirus Mount

By Shira Hanau

(JTA) — Sometime in March, the Chesed Shel Emes Jewish burial society in Brooklyn added a new responsibility to the sacred tasks its 700 volunteers had committed to uphold: paperwork.

Bodies were piling up because of the coronavirus pandemic, and helping funeral homes with their clerical work had grown just as essential to ensuring respectful Jewish funeral rites as washing and guarding bodies before they were buried.

Between Purim on March 10 and Passover, which ended last week, the burial society performed about 500 purification rituals, known as

taharot — five times the number it handled during an average month before the pandemic.

Their workplaces closed, members of the burial society, or chevra kadisha, donned protective gear and extended their shifts to keep up with the need.

“Since people are quarantined, they can sit in the funeral homes Members of Chesed Shel Emes, a burial and just do one after another,” said society based in Brooklyn, transport Rabbi Mayer Berger, the chevra a body for burial at the cemetery it kadisha’s director of operations. operates in Woodridge, N.Y. (Courtesy of Rabbi Mayer Berger) But should they?

At a time when nearly all other chevra kadishas face difficult deciaspects of communal Jewish life sions about how to perform the rituhave shut down or moved online to als safely — or at all. stop the spread of the disease, At stake is not just the health of chevra kadisha members, many of whom are older, but also the most sacred mitzvah, commandment — The Publisher shall be under no liability for its failure for any cause to insert an adverthat of giving honor to the dead. For tisement. The Publisher will not be responsible for errors after the first insertion. Material errors not the fault of the advertiser will be adjusted by not more than one gratis those who believe in an afterlife, insertion. Advertiser agrees to obtain clippings and tear sheets when the local rates are the tahara process is considered in effect. Advertiser agrees to protect and indemnify United Media Corporation, its critical for preparing the body to agents and employees, against any and all liability loss and expenses arising from the pass through to the afterlife. And publication of the Advertiser’s advertising because of claims for (1) alleged misrepreunlike a Passover Seder, which sentation or misstatement; (2) alleged infringement of trademark, trade names, patents or copyrights; (3) alleged violations of fair trade laws; (4) libel and invasion of rights happens every year, the opportunity of privacy, (5) other violation of the rights of 3rd party’s or of government rules. to perform the burial rites for any The Publisher reserves the right to censor, reclassify, revise, edit or reject any given person arises only once. advertisement not meeting the standards of acceptance. All ads accepted are subject to “We want so much to continue to credit approval. perform this mitzvah,” said Malke Frank, a member of an independent, nondenominational chevra kadisha that has created a social distancing version of the tahara ritual.

Covid-19 2 Until the pandemic, when the members of Frank’s burial society, the New Chevra Kadisha of Greater USA 7 Pittsburgh, came together to perform the purification rite, they gathGlobal 8 ered in a room at the funeral home.

They began by asking the deceased Financial 11 for forgiveness before pouring water over the body and reciting Education 12 verses and prayers. They finished by dressing the body in white burial Bookshelf 16 shrouds, placing it in the coffin and again asking for forgiveness for any Arts & Culture 17 mistakes they may have made during the tahara process.

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Now they meet over Zoom with a screen set up where the body lies.

Using pitchers of water and empty bowls set up next to their home computers, they pour water from one vessel into another while reciting the verses and visualizing pouring the water over the body itself.

The chevra kadisha calls this process a “virtual tahara,” a simulated way to honor the dead while allowing the members of the chevra kadisha to stay safely at home.

The decision to halt all in-person taharot was a difficult one, Frank said. When the chevra kadisha met March 15 to discuss how to move forward, schools were already closed and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf would declare a state of emergency the following day.

“There were those who were adamantly opposed to performing taharot and those who, with proper PPE, would continue,” Frank said, using the initials for proper protective equipment.

But within a few days, a nondenominational organization providing education and training to chevra kadishas formally recommended ending in-person taharot. The chevra kadisha fell in line, donating the PPE they had already purchased to a nursing home and a hospital.

David Zinner, the executive director of that organization, Kavod v’Nichum, said the current crisis has little precedent. Comparing the coronavirus pandemic to the AIDS epidemic and more recent outbreaks, Zinner pointed to an important difference.

“In each of those, we weren’t worried about the people who were alive, we were worried about the contagiousness of the disease of the person who had died,” Zinner said.

“Here it’s something different: See BURIAL on Page

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Examiner’s office and were told deceased that they would not perthat the risk of infection from a form a tahara for their loved ones. corpse is small.

“We come from earth and return We’re worried about the people to earth,” said Berger, who noted who are alive spreading the disthe importance of the tahara proease.” cess to the deceased’s transition In fact, there may be some risk into the afterlife. “We try to bury from contact with the body of a them as soon as possible because COVID-19 victim. we believe that once a person passA medical study published last es away, the body wants to return to week reported that a worker in the earth.”

Thailand became infected with the It is because of this emotional virus after having contact with the imperative that other chevra kadiscorpse of a COVID-19 victim. The Members of Chesed Shel Emes load a has have continued their work amid authors suggested that morgue and body on a private jet for burial in Israel. the pandemic. Some have taken to funeral home workers take similar (Courtesy of Rabbi Mayer Berger) working in groups of two people to precautions to those taken by medi“Saving lives is more important minimize interactions, while others cal workers, such as wearing per- than doing taharas,” Berger said. have changed the process to poursonal protective equipment and dis- “If I’m putting myself really at risk, ing water over a body bag rather infecting facilities. it’s a different story, but here it’s than directly onto the body to limit Berger of Chesed Shel Emes said not the case.” the physical interaction among his chevra kadisha had consulted Berger said it would be emotion- members of the group with the with the New York City Medical ally traumatic to tell families of the body.

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he said, referring to the physical preparations of the body and the spiritual importance of the process.

“When we teach this stuff, we teach that the rituals are for the person, for their soul, for their family, for the community, for the people who are doing it. You can’t separate it out.”

For the chevra kadisha in Pittsburgh, performing the virtual tahara from home has given participants a new perspective on the ritual.

“We’re doing it on our own, we’re by ourselves and that in itself is pretty powerful,” Frank said.

The chevra kadisha has maintained its practice of having participants reflect on their experiences with the rituals after they are complete.

“What people have said is that it’s as powerful as when they’ve done their first tahara,” Frank said.

“The whole experience takes on a different level of holiness.” 

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For Jewish Law Authorities, The Coronavirus Has Caused An Unprecedented Flurry Of Questions

By Ben Harris

French Rabbi Philippe Haddad prepares for a Shabbat service via videoconference at the Copernic Synagogue in Paris, March 28, 2020. (Stephane de Sakutin/ AFP via Getty Images)

(JTA) — As the coronavirus pandemic forced Jews around the world to contemplate a Passover holiday in which large family gatherings were all but impossible, an unusual question posed to a group of Israeli rabbis led to an extraordinary answer.

The question was whether it might be permissible for families to use internet-enabled videoconferencing to celebrate the Passover seder together even as they are sequestered in separate homes.

Orthodox Jewish practice normally prohibits the use of electronics on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, but might the unprecedented restrictions suddenly thrust upon billions of people permit an exception?

Remarkably, 14 Sephardic rabbis answered in the affirmative.

Some conditions were attached.

The computer would have to be enabled prior to the onset of Passover and remain untouched for the duration of the holiday. And the leniency would only apply to the current emergency.

But given the unique importance of the seder ritual and the extreme conditions now in effect, the rabbis wrote, the use of videoconferencing technology is permitted “to remove sadness from adults and the elderly, to give them the motivation to continue to fight for their lives, and to avoid depression and mental weakness which could bring them to despair of life.”

The coronavirus pandemic has upended so many parts of life that it’s perhaps little surprise that it’s also having a significant impact in the field of Jewish law, or halacha.

The sudden impossibility of once routine facets of observant Jewish life has generated a surge in questions never considered before —

and modern technology means that Jews the world over are more able than ever to ask those questions and share their answers.

“I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this because of the proliferation of questions and because of the extraordinary means of communications,” said David Berger, a historian and dean of the Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University.

Among the questions rabbis have had to confront during the corona crisis: Is it permissible to constitute a Jewish prayer quorum over internet-enabled videoconference? Can married couples be physically intimate if the woman cannot immerse in a ritual bath because they are closed for public health reasons?

How should burials be handled if authorities prohibit Jewish rituals around the preparation of bodies?

Can synagogue services be livestreamed on Shabbat?

Rabbis are also beginning to consider some agonizing possibilities.

Several Conservative movement authorities have published papers about what Jewish ethics has to say about medical triage, anticipating a moment when doctors may have to

died on Shabbat? Burying the body immediately would have resulted in a clear violation of the Jewish Sabbath, but allowing the body to be cremated is also a severe violation of Jewish law.

“The burial should be done on Shabbat if necessary,” Shaffer told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after consulting with rabbinic authorities in Israel. “If it’s the only possibility to avoid cremation, then it should be done on Shabbat by non-Jews.”

For the moment, that situation remains in the realm of the theoretical. But other halachic questions are of urgent necessity. Many of the recent opinions have explicitly invoked the principle of “she’at had’chak” — literally “time of pressure,” a concept in Jewish law that permits a reliance on less authoritative opinions in emergency situations.

“No one thinks you can permit biblical violations for a pressure that doesn’t amount to threatening lives,” said Rabbi Aryeh Klapper,

(chameleonseye/Getty Images)

the Orthodox dean of the Center for Modern Torah Scholarship. “But maybe you can rely on less authoritative understandings of what the biblical prohibition is.”

The Conservative movement, which tends to take a more flexible line on matters of Jewish law than Orthodox authorities, has supported a number of leniencies under the rubric of she’at had’chak.

In March, Dorff and his law committee co-chair, Rabbi Pamela Barmash, issued an opinion permitting a prayer quorum to be constituted over internet-enabled videoconference. That opinion, which See AUTHORITIES on Page

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“This has been ‘yomam valaylah’ — it’s been day and night,” said Rabbi Elliott Dorff, the co-chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the Conservative movement’s authority on questions of Jewish law. “Once this is all over, this is going to be a really interesting case study of how halacha evolves quickly when it needs to.”

In Romania, the government’s recent declaration that any coronavirus fatalities had to be buried immediately presented Chief Rabbi Rafael Shaffer with a tortuous dilemma: What if a Jewish person

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Covid-19 AUTHORITIES Continued from Page 5 temporarily suspended a nearly unanimous 2001 ruling that such a quorum was not permissible, would enable the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish by people isolated in their homes. Common practice is that the mourner’s prayer can only be said if 10 Jewish adults are gathered in one physical location.

The law committee also has expressed support for loosening various restrictions around physical touch between married couples should Jewish ritual baths be forced to close. Couples that closely observe Jewish law traditionally refrain from any form of touch for the period of the woman’s menstruation and for a week after, resuming contact only after immersion in a mikvah.

But the committee posted a letter on its website this week from Rabbi Joshua Heller asserting that under certain circumstances, and only for the period of the coronavirus crisis,

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a woman could resume sexual relations with her husband after showering in 11.25 gallons of water — a rough approximation of the Talmudic measure of 40 kabim.

“I think we are learning from earlier historical epochs of crisis and taking inspiration from the flexibility that our predecessors showed,” said Rabbi Daniel Nevins, a committee member and the dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

To be sure, not all rabbis have accepted these leniencies.

After Rabbi Daniel Sperber, a liberal Orthodox rabbi in Israel, issued an opinion permitting some forms of physical touch between married couples should ritual baths become inaccessible, another Israeli Orthodox rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, called the opinion a “complete mistake.”

Israel’s two chief rabbis, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, said the opinion permitting videoconferencing at the seder was “unqualified.”

And Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a

leading Orthodox authority at Yeshiva University, wrote recently that a prayer quorum could not be constituted by participants standing on nearby porches — even if they could all see each other.

“The 10 men must all be standing in the same room,” Schachter wrote.

But Schachter, who has personally published no less than a dozen opinions on matters related to coronavirus, has shown flexibility in other areas.

Schachter has ruled that a patient discharged from a hospital on Shabbat can be driven home by a family member because it’s dangerous to remain in the hospital longer than necessary and taxis carry their own risks of coronavirus transmission.

He has said that isolated individuals who suffer from psychological conditions that might endanger their lives if they were unable to communicate with family may use phone or internet to communicate on a Jewish holiday.

And in a ruling that has wide

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applicability at a time when many people are preparing to host Passover meals for the first time, he suggested a workaround for the obligation of immersing utensils in a ritual bath before using them. Since baths are now closed for such purposes, Schachter ruled that one could use the utensils without immersion by first declaring them legally ownerless — a workaround that would normally not be permitted.

Many rabbis have expressed concern that such loosening of the rules, even if expressly done only to address a pressing (and presumably temporary) need, might nevertheless create new norms of behavior that will outlast the current crisis. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.

According to a recent article

by Rabbi Elli Fisher, during the 19th-century cholera epidemic, there were so many mourners that Rabbi Akiva Eger, who led the Jewish community in Poznan, Poland, ruled that it was permissible for many mourners to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish simultaneously. At the time, the practice was that only one person recited Kaddish at a time.

Given the numbers of the dead, that practice would have left people with few opportunities to recite the mourner’s prayer.

The practice of reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish as a group remains the dominant one in synagogues today.

“I do think that our people are wise enough and insightful enough to understand the difference between this crisis situation and normal situations,” Barmash said. “I think in some sense that fear is giving in to a low opinion of our people. And I think that our people are wise and insightful and do recognize the distinction.” 

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Deep Layoffs At Jewish Federations Of North America, The Organization Tasked With Helping Jewish Nonprofits Through The Crisis

By Shira Hanau (JTA) – The nonprofit organiza- tion to respond to the coronavirus tion leading an emergency coalition pandemic. The coalition was to coordinate the Jewish response formed, in part, to help laid-off employees of Jewish organizations, including federations, as budgets tightened.

But the same conditions that imperil local organizations are affecting the umbrella group, according to the letter. Fundraising is challenging, and some longEric Fingerhut, CEO and president of standing lines of work are not pracJewish Federations of North America, tical during the pandemic. announced layoffs and executive salary “The usual ways we have built cuts in a message to board members and federation executives Wednesday. the financial support for our work (Courtesy of Hillel) are not available to us right now,” to the pandemic-induced financial wrote Fingerhut and Wilf. (Wilf is a crisis has itself slashed its staff. former board member of 70 Faces Jewish Federations of North Media, the Jewish Telegraphic America, an umbrella group of Agency’s parent company.) “Miscommunal fundraising and pro- sions, community events and even gramming organizations across the visits to our donors’ homes and country, announced layoffs and offices are going to be severely limexecutive salary cuts in a message ited for the near future.” to board members and federation JFNA organizes international executives Wednesday. trips for donors as well as training “We need to redirect resources,” and conferences for federation staff CEO Eric Fingerhut and chair Mark across the country. With social disWilf said in the message. “Accord- tancing in place, those activities are ingly, we have today implemented a likely canceled for the next several plan to reduce the number of full- months. time employees at JFNA so that we Fingerhut also announced that he can aggressively pursue the priority would take a temporary 10% salary needs that have become clear dur- reduction and that seven senior ing this emergency period.” leaders would cut their salaries by The letter did not specify how 5%. According to the most recent many staff members were laid off, tax filing available, Fingerhut’s or what they do at the organization, predecessor, Gerrold Silverman, and a spokesperson declined to earned $634,849 in 2017. comment on the staff changes.

But multiple sources familiar with JFNA confirmed that the cuts ran deep, with as many as 37 staff members laid off, out of a total staff size of about 180 in the United States and Israel.

The news comes as the work of local federations in gathering and distributing communal funds is perhaps more important than ever but when its sources of income – in the form of dues from local federations as well as direct donations – are imperiled by the financial crisis.

The letter stressed that the umbrella organization would continue to support local federations with fundraising as they acknowledged the difficulty of that work.

JFNA took on that effort just six weeks ago, when it announced that it would lead an emergency coali-

JFNA’s layoffs come as other Jewish organizations begin to shed staff as they reckon with the changed world. Hillel International, the umbrella organization for Jewish student life centers on campus, laid off or furloughed more than 20% of its staff last month.

Local Jewish organizations that rely on service fees have also been hit hard, such as one Jewish community center that laid off all but two of its 178 employees.

JFNA serves as an umbrella organization for 146 Jewish federations and 300 smaller “network” communities, which together

employ around 10,000 people, and distributes a total of $3 billion annually for social services and educational programs in Israel and North America.

In their message, Fingerhut and Wilf said they were confident that the groups would together weather the pandemic by innovating.

“When we do, as we are confident, we will, Jewish life will flourish and our response to this crisis will be remembered alongside the greatest moments in the already illustrious history of the Federation system,” they wrote. 

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How The Coronavirus Is Hitting Jewish Communities Worldwide

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(JTA) — The impact of the coronavirus on the Jewish world is a study in contrasts.

In Israel, where the total death toll as of Tuesday was 238 and the number of new daily infections below 50, the country has significantly eased its lockdown. School has resumed for some grades, businesses have reopened, and on Thursday beaches and outdoor markets are slated to reopen.

But in many large Jewish communities worldwide, the coronavirus is still wreaking a terrible toll.

Among the 8 million Jews living in the Diaspora — more than Israel’s 6.7 million but less than its overall population of 9.2 million — the death toll is in the thousands and climbing.

It’s impossible to say exactly how many Jews have died of COVID-19 because governments don’t count the deaths of their Jewish citizens separately and, in most places, the Jewish community doesn’t have a full accounting of those who have lost their lives.

What’s clear is that the Jewish rate of death is exponentially higher in the Diaspora compared to Israel and that the virus is devastating the Jewish world. In many places, the infection and death rate among Jews is also far higher than the local non-Jewish population.

Here is a look at how some Jewish populations around the world are struggling with coronavirus.

deaths in a country where Jews comprise just 0.3% of the population. There are several theories for why the Jewish death rate is nearly six times higher than that of the general population, including their disproportionate representation in the hot spot of London, their relatively advanced age and failure early on to practice social distancing in some haredi Orthodox neighborhoods.

The dead have included Avrohom Pinter, one of the most influential rabbis in North London’s haredi neighborhood of Stamford Hill and the first British rabbi to serve as a town council member; philanthropist Irving Carter; and Yehuda Yaakov Refson, the senior Chabad rabbi in the city of Leeds.

New York

EMTs are seen outside NYU Langone Medical Center in New York as major cities in the U.S. adjust to restrictive measures during the coronavirus pandemic, April 22, 2020. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

The New York area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel, with an estimated 2 million Jews including the suburbs in Northern New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island. The virus has torn a path of destruction through these communities. As far back as midApril, the haredi media were reporting more than 700 dead in New York City alone. According to city Health Department statistics, the Zip codes with the highest coronavirus infection rates track closely with the city’s Hasidic neighborhoods: Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, all in Britain Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, numbers show that at-home deaths in Borough Park and Williamsburg in March and early April were more than 10 times higher than during the same period last year. Most of those deaths were likely due to the coronavirus, New Yehuda Yaakov Refson was remembered York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as being “devoted, caring and principled.”(Courtesy of Chabad.org) said.

Rabbi Mayer Berger, director of In Britain, at least 366 Jews have died, representing about 1.7% of all operations at the Chesed Shel Emes www.thejewishlight.org

Burial Society in Brooklyn, said the number of Jewish dead has quadrupled since the onset of the pandemic, with the society handling 500 burial rites in the month between Purim and Passover.

“It’s not in Iran and it’s not in Syria or videos from different countries where you see bodies lined up,” he told The New York Times.

“This is New York.”

Some 320,000 people have tested positive for the virus in New York state and more than 19,500 have died, over 13,724 of them in New York City, home to over 1.2 million Jews.

At the Parker Jewish Institute, a Jewish nursing home on Long Island, 179 patients reportedly tested positive for the virus and at least 57 died as of mid-April. Nurses reported wearing trash bags as protective gowns (the facility denied that was the case) and reusing masks due to equipment shortages.

In New Jersey, the state with the fourth-largest Jewish population, over 128,000 have tested positive and some 8,000 have died. More than 1,200 dead are from Bergen County, home to the largest Jewish community in the state.

Elsewhere in the U.S.

Like many other Jewish communities, Synagogue Emanu-El in Charleston, S.C., is remaining closed for the time being. (Google Street View)

The U.S. has over 1.2 million confirmed cases and 70,000 confirmed deaths from coronavirus.

The carnage that began in New York and at a few other hot spots is now spreading, fueled in part by the reluctance of some governors and mayors to enforce a lockdown.

In Massachusetts, the state with the third-highest infection rate, two Jewish senior living facilities from the same network near Boston reported at least 32 coronavirus deaths in mid-April. More than half of the 430 residents tested for the virus at nursing homes in that netSee CORONAVIRUS on Page THE

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CORONAVIRUS Continued from Page 8

of food and medicine to homebound older Jews. About 20,000 Jews live in Italy, with the largest work tested positive. community in Rome followed by After New York, New Jersey and Milan and Florence.

Massachusetts, other states with the France highest virus infection rates correlate closely with where Jews live: Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Michigan and Florida. Together, these eight states are home to about 75% of America’s 7 million or so Jews. American Jews are also disproportionately older, with 26 percent over age 65, according to a French Rabbi Philippe Haddad prepares for 2018 study, making them at higher a Shabbat service via videoconference at the Copernic Synagogue in Paris, March 28, 2020. risk for death if they contract (Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images) COVID-19.

France’s Jewish community, estiIn some states where governors mated at 500,00, is the largest in are reopening businesses, like Europe.

It’s not clear how many are Texas, Georgia and South Carolina, synagogues are taking a more cau- among the country’s 25,000 corotious approach and listening to navirus deaths, but the Jewish sechealth authorities who advise tion of the Thiais cemetery near Paris that had been built to last for against reopening.

Among the American Jews who years has filled up over the past few have died from the coronavirus: weeks and is nearing capacity.

The French association of Jewish Grammy and Emmy-winning singdoctors, AMIF, told Haaretz that er-songwriter Adam Schlesinger; the Novomisker rebbe, Rabbi Yaa- the Jewish infection rate appeared kov Perlow; longtime Brooklyn to be disproportionately high, pospolitician Noach Dear; Stanley sibly because Purim celebrations Chera, a real estate mogul and served as a vector for the disease friend of President Donald Trump and because most French Jews live who was a pillar of the Syrian Jew- in Paris or Strasbourg, where infecish community; “Saturday Night tion rates are higher than in the rest Live” music producer Hal Willner; of the country.

In March, Joel Mergui, a physiactor Mark Blum; and sociologist cian and president of the ConsisWilliam Helmreich. toire organization that runs French Italy synagogues, Jewish schools and kosher certification, gave a tearful radio interview from a hospital ICU to Radio J, a Jewish station, urging the community to abide by social distancing. He since has been released from the hospital. Among the community’s deaths from the First responders wait by an ambulance virus is Andre Touboul, a Chabad in Rome’s Piazza Venezia, March 12, rabbi who led one of France’s most 2020. Italy shut down all stores except for pharmacies and food shops in a desperate prestigious high schools in Paris. bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

(Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images)

About three weeks after the start of Italy’s major coronavirus outbreak, the Jewish community there was hit with shocking news on March 16: Michele Sciama, a leader and former head of the Jewish community in Milan, had died of the virus.

About a dozen or so Italian Jews are known to have died of COVID19, which has killed 29,000 Italians. The Italian Jewish community repurposed a community website to memorialize the dead and has found other ways of maintaining Jewish community online. In Milan, the community organized the delivery THE

JEWISH LIGHT

community center and adjacent independent-living residence, took a similar approach. It stuck to its open-door policy until March 20, even as the country’s infection rate began climbing. As a result, it became the worst-hit Jewish institution, reporting 26 deaths to date out of a population of 120.

Now Beth Shalom is in lockdown, with many residents confined to their rooms. To help alleviate their loneliness, a Dutch-based company owned by an Israeli-Dutch businessperson sent a crane to the facility to lift family members to residents’ windows so they could

visit without compromising safety.

About 40,000 Jews live in the Netherlands in a population of 17 million. The country has more than 4,500 reported deaths in total.

Belgium The Jewish community of Belgium numbers around 40,000 people, equally-divided between Antwerp and Brussels. They braced for a massive outbreak in its midst of COVID-19 in March — particularly the Antwerp community, which is predominantly Orthodox. The See CORONAVIRUS on Page

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A haredi Jew cycling past a police car in Antwerp, Belgium on March 16, 2016.

(Cnaan Liphshiz)

were prepared to see an infection rate of up to 85% of its members, which was then at least 20% higher than the projected national rate. The community’s projections also spoke of hundreds of dead.

Many Belgian Jews did contract the virus, according to Martin Rosenblum, an Antwerp-based physician with many haredi Orthodox patients, though there is no way of knowing the exact infection rate in their community, he said.

Still, the death rate has been low, with about 15 Jewish fatalities in Antwerp so far, according to Michael Freilich, a Belgian-Jewish lawmaker from Antwerp. “It seems to be under control,” he said.

The situation could be a testament to the unanimous decision of the city’s rabbis and community

THE

emergency services to impress upon members the importance of social distancing and observing the government’s emergency measures.

The low death rate among Jews in Belgium is further surprising given that it’s Europe’s worst-hit country, in terms of deaths per million residents. Its current rate of 701 deaths per million residents is more than three times the United States’ ratio. A nation of 11 million people, Belgium has seen more than 8,000 deaths from the disease since January.

The Belgian government has attributed the high ratio to its method of counting cases, which includes deaths registered at home before an exact cause of death is determined.

hit as hard as Western European nations — at least not yet.

In Russia, a nation of 145 million, some 1,500 people have been recorded as having died from the virus, constituting a ratio of about 10 deaths per million inhabitants.

The ratio in Ukraine, which has 41 million inhabitants, is even lower, standing at around seven deaths per million.

Registration, recording and classification issues may have something to do with the statistics. These countries also receive far fewer international tourists than their Western counterparts.

Whatever the reason, the low death and infection rate seems to apply to the countries’ Jews, especially their older population, who Russia, Ukraine and Poland are most vulnerable.

The virus has killed only three of the 28,000-odd elderly Jews who receive home care from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in the former Soviet Union, that organization’s executive director for the region, Michal Frank, An employee in a face mask at a factory in St. told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Petersburg, Russia, May 6, 2020. (Alexander Nine of these recipients have been DemianchukTASS via Getty Images) These Eastern Bloc countries, diagnosed with the virus along with which have between them more four JDC employees, she added.

“It’s a reflection of how JDC was than 500,000 Jews, have not been ahead of the curve, employing protective gear and social distancing before it became required in those countries,” she said.

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Members of Morocco’s Jewish community kiss Torah scrolls at Simchat Torah at the Great Synagogue of Casablanca, Oct. 5, 2007.

(Abdelhak Senna/AFP via Getty Images)

Though home to just 1,500-2,000 Jews among a population of 36 million, the community has lost a staggering 1% of its population — at least 15 deaths — after a wedding in the city of Agadir reportedly served as a vector for infection. Among the dead are two relatives of Israeli Labor Party leader Amir Peretz.

Morocco’s total death rate is 180.

Argentina About 10 Jews have died from the coronavirus in Argentina out of a national death toll of about 260.

With some 200,000 Jews, Argentina is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America. Most live in Buenos Aires, which is also

www.thejewishlight.org

JEWISH LIGHT

Galit Ronen, center, Israel’s ambassador to Argentina, at the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires with two passengers of the emergency flight to Israel, April 19, 2020.

(Courtesy of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina)

the country’s COVID-19 epicenter.

The country of 40 million has been on lockdown since March 20, helping keep the national infection rate relatively low.

Brazil

The Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, treated the continent’s first COVID-19 patient. (Courtesy of Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital)

Latin America’s first COVID-19 patient was quarantined in the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital, one of Brazil’s most robust Jewishaffiliated institutions. As of May 5, Brazilian Israelite Confederation said that 67 Jews are among the country’s nearly 7,300 deaths. The country of 215 million people passed 100,000 confirmed cases this past weekend.

Brazil is home to Latin America’s second-largest Jewish community with some 120,000 Jews, according to the Confederation.

Jewish day schools were all closed in early March and all other Jewish institutions followed suit. Both the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro Jewish federations have established crisis committees to support Jewish families.

During the same period, Rio’s chief Chabad-Lubavitch envoy, Rabbi Yehoshua Goldman, released an official memo stating that “panic and desperation are not Jewish,” outlining rules the community should follow, starting with “No kissing, no hugging, no holding hands with one another.”

Altamiro Zimerfogel, who presided over the Brazilian Israelite Club for nearly a decade, and Daniel Azulay, one of Brazil’s most prominent children’s artists and educators, were among the Jewish casualties.

Cnaan Liphshiz and Marcus M. Gilban contributed reporting.  THE

JEWISH LIGHT

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FINANCIAL

JEWISH LIGHT

It’s Time To Talk About Democratizing Jewish Philanthropy

By Lila Corwin Berman

Colleagues discussing graphs; Lila Corwin Berman (Getty Images; Courtesy of Berman)

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) —Well before the pandemic, American political life was plagued by questions about how power and resources should be distributed. Always a matter of life or death for some Americans, now the answers to these questions about whether our democracy is strong enough to protect its members have existential ramifications for countless Americans. Notably, as we have seen case after case of our federal government failing at this task, some voices have suggested we look toward philanthropy as a stand in or simply the answer.

Historically, philanthropic endeavors have bolstered public life and fostered democratic reform in myriad ways, from helping to enact protections for vulnerable populations to establishing research, educational and cultural institutions. Just think of the thousands of public libraries that would not exist absent Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropic largesse.

Yet American history also supplies us with examples of philanthropy undermining democracy by eroding its processes and procedures. For example, historian Nancy MacLean has carefully tracked the ways that the Koch brothers’ philanthropic gifts have influenced judicial appointments and opinions, operating well outside of public view.

My historical research shows that over the past 50 years, American Jewish philanthropy has steadily moved against the grain of democratic values and practices. In this way, it resembles the larger field of American philanthropy, and the even larger field of U.S. political and economic life in the final decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

The two most important trends in American Jewish philanthropy over the last half century are its embrace of endowment building and depenTHE

JEWISH LIGHT

dence on the wealth of a very few.

Both trends have made American Jewish philanthropy reliant on policies and structures of inequality.

Even as they work to circulate economic capital to nonprofits and grantees, Jewish philanthropic institutions pursue strategies that not only rely on wealth concentration but also perpetuate and naturalize that concentration.

Well before today, we should have been asking whether American Jewish philanthropy, instead of eroding American democracy, could help rebuild it. Now that question is unavoidable. If American Jewish philanthropic leaders embrace a new set of norms and knowledge oriented around the project of democracy, perhaps they can forge a new course that will strengthen democratic values and practices.

What would that mean?

Replacing the norms of venture capital and investment strategies with practices of democratic participation, for one. Participatory grantmaking, a method to empower the people affected by philanthropic decisions by giving them a voice in philanthropic solutions and capital distribution, would offer one way to guide philanthropy toward democracy. Its practices pull power away from a wealthy elite and take seriously the fact, enshrined in tax policy, that the American public is the biggest single shareholder in all philanthropic wealth.

If American Jewish philanthropy is serious about not just providing a lifeline to existing institutions but making sure its work supports our

community’s greatest needs, those with power would do well to invite others into their process starting now.

Second, Jewish philanthropic institutions could invest in new forms of knowledge in the interest of revitalizing democracy. Norms are enforced by knowledge, and a thriving democracy depends on an educated public that has access to multiple sources and perspectives with which to critically assess its institutions.

Unfortunately, in the case of Jewish philanthropy, much like American philanthropy more generally, its knowledge base has tended to be driven by practical and applied questions, such as whether a program is achieving desired ends. Often it has used knowledge production as a feedback loop to reinforce and not scrutinize its own norms.

Jewish philanthropy could lead the way toward critical and reflective interrogation, but only by encouraging basic research and scholarship about it. To do so, its institutions, including private family foundations, would open their historical archives to scholars, and its leaders would practice radical transparency, accepting that they should value the light of inquiry over the allure of control.

In both these ways, Jewish philanthropy may be able to help invigorate a robust and informed civic sector essential to democracy instead of continuing to participate in a set of trends that have steadily traded democracy in favor of wealth and power concentrations.

Of course, American Jewish philanthropy operates in a political and economic landscape structured by the American state, which includes the elected and non-elected bodies that make policy. Even if it reformed itself to align with democratic val-

ues and practices, American Jewish philanthropy cannot help heal a broken democracy without taking seriously its role — as a fundamentally political creature — in shaping that democracy. This may mean lobbying for policy reform and deciding to oppose tax policies that may appear beneficial to philanthropic capital growth but in substance eviscerate democracy and the public good.

The problems of inequality — accelerated and amplified by the pandemic — threaten the fundamental nature of democracy. With those problems so painfully apparent, Jewish philanthropy has an imperative to steer its course toward the democratic values and practices essential for a healthier America for all.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

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For Jewish Teens Struggling In The Coronavirus Era, Jewish Groups Extend A Lifeline

By Alix Wall

THE

Jewish Family Service brought to the Jewish community in Texas.

“We talked about the strengths that we had before COVID-19 — like cooking or playing with your dog or playing soccer, and how can we modify these things for the present reality?” Bleiweiss said.

For example, if a soccer player can’t play with her team, she can still practice her technique at home, Bleiwiss said, focusing on a skill or something they enjoyed before can help reduce anxiety now.

“The primary focus is finding strength in your life by looking at true norms,” she said. “While there are a lot of negative stories in the media about the coronavirus, the majority of the population are healthy and most who get it actually recover, especially among young people. Resiliency to it is the true norm.”

Many Jewish community professionals who work with teens say that the crucial element of their work now isn’t so much the content of one particular program or another but connecting with teens during this time of social isolation.

Marna Meyer runs the Teen Israel Ambassador program through the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. In ordinary circumstances, the program helps teens prepare for college and learn tools for college activism around Israel. But right now, she said, simply connecting with each other socially has become the highest priority.

May to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month for a network of 800 Jewish professionals who work with teens.

Many teens are feeling a real sense of grief at the loss of the traditional rituals that close out high school, Allen said, but they don’t necessarily With teenagers unable to participate in recognize the emotion as such. in-person get-togethers, like this pre“They feel they were robbed. But pandemic event organized by 4Front Baltimore, a Jewish teen engagement it doesn’t trigger as grief, so that initiative, Jewish groups are making extra makes it harder for them to move efforts to reach out and engage with Jewish through the stages,” she said. teens. (Courtesy of JCC Baltimore) “We’re trying to help them with the Makayla Wigder, a high school language, and perhaps some kind of senior from Houston, had been look- Jewish ritual over this loss, so they ing forward to the prom, graduation can feel a sense of agency over it.” and one last summer with her friends before leaving for college.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic. Now those plans appear highly unlikely to materialize.

“It’s just devastating,” Wigder lamented. “Graduation is something we’ve worked toward for the past 12 years. Finishing without a In normal times, the Jewish Family Service of Greater Houston holds insense of closure is just really disap- person resilience workshops for Jewish pointing.” teens. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 With much of America under pandemic, they have been happening over Zoom. (Courtesy of JFS Houston) lockdown, the struggles of the sick, the elderly and those tasked with At Jewish federations across the helping them are front and center. country, adults who work on teen But even those with seemingly less programs are recasting what they do urgent needs — such as teens, many to reach out to teens and make sure of whom struggle with anxiety or they’re OK, help them build resildepression in ordinary times — are ience and cope with the coronavirus also at greater risk of struggle dur- crisis, and even engage them in projing this epidemic, experts say. ects to help the wider community The Big Apple Adventure is a trip to “It was hard to be a teenager during these extraordinary times.

New York for teens from the Midwest even before all of this, but COVIDIn Texas, Katelyn Bleiweiss, the Region of the National Conference of 19 is amplifying the most painful mental health programs coordinator Synagogue Youth. The last such trip parts about adolescence,” said Sara at Jewish Family Service of Greater was in February 2020, right before the Allen, executive director of Jewish Houston, a federation partner, outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. of the Jewish United Fund of Teen Education & Engagement recently led a Zoom workshop with (CourtesyMetropolitan Chicago) Funder Collaborative, a partnership some 40 teens to talk about resil“They’re feeling lonely and isobetween local federations and the ience. It was adapted to the panlated,” said Meyer, a therapist by Jim Joseph Foundation. demic from a suicide prevention training. “All the phone calls, texAllen is planning a webinar in program, Sources of Strength, that ting and Zooming isn’t the same as being with each other.”

“We’ve been really conscientious in looking for red flags,” said Rabbi Dena Shaffer, executive director of 4Front, a program run

by The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, which serves as a gathering place for Baltimore’s Jewish teens to explore their Jewish identities and the issues that matter to them.

12 Spring 2020/ COVID -19

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JEWISH LIGHT

Shaffer and Meyer both said if they notice teens dropping off from programming, they make an extra effort to reach out to them.

Some teens have had a difficult time adjusting to living their lives almost completely online, said Margie Bogdanow, a Boston-based consultant who works as wellness coordinator for the Jewish Teen Education & Engagement Funder Collaborative.

The trauma of this experience should not be understated, Bogdanow warned.

“This is a trauma for everybody and a trauma for the teens,” she said. “Often when people are in a trauma, they don’t express it in that moment. You see it much later.”

At the same time, many of those who work with teens say they’ve been impressed with how quickly Jewish teens have adapted to this new reality.

Across the country, teens who are part of Diller Teen Fellows, an international program with 32 global communities, including one in Chicago, created a series of “fellow spotlights” where they present or lead an online conversation on a topic they are passionate about and engage their peers in discussion.

In Chicago, an April 30 event honoring 18 teens in a Jewish leadership program called 18 Under 18 was canceled. But the teens took their Jewish leadership initiatives online, or continued already existing remote collaborations, including projects on Holocaust education in public schools, the diversity of Jewish experiences and religious pluralism.

“We have some amazing leaders who are trying to figure out ways to give back, even if they can’t do so in person,” said Sarina Gerson, assistant vice president for community outreach and engagement at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago.

“Many teens want to continue their involvement in volunteer projects and social action, even if it has to happen in their own homes. They’re looking for an outlet to channel their energy in productive ways.”

Gerson said the teens she works with who have leadership qualities see the pandemic as an opportunity to make a difference in the community.

This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Jewish Federations of North America, which represents 146 local Jewish Federations and 300 network communities. This story was produced by JTA's native content team.  THE

JEWISH LIGHT

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Education

JEWISH LIGHT

My Kid’s Jewish Summer Camp Is Canceled. Now What?

By Andrea Beck

This story originally appeared on home for one precious month each Kveller. year. It’s where she feels a sense of community, independence, and a level of belonging and acceptance she can’t find at her secular middle school here in the Midwest.

Our daughter waits 11 months each year to go to Goldman Union Camp Institute (GUCI) in suburban Indianapolis, about a two-hour drive from us. The countdown (Andrew Merry/Getty Images) begins the minute we pick her up (JTA) My family is in mourning. on the last day of the session, when We have moved past bickering and she greets us teary-eyed and taller. we have now retreated to separate And, truthfully, her father and I rooms. My husband is hiding in the have the same countdown. As much master bedroom, doing his best to as she needs camp — as a place stay out of the way. The dog and I where she learns and grows — we, are in the guest room, where I’m as a couple, need her to go, too. It is writing this essay and feeling a a much-needed time for us to sense of panic. What will this sum- remember who we are as a people mer hold? and partners, not just parents. DurOur 12-year-old daughter is in ing the month our daughter is away, the kitchen. It’s well past her bed- we plan a trip for just the two of us time and she’s eating the organic — the last two years we went to cocoa puffed rice that I thought I New York to see that year’s Tony had hidden from her. It has now winning musical, which, of course, been dubbed her “sadness cereal.” can’t happen this year. We go on We’re letting her get away with this dates, we see movies, but I think because she spent the previous hour the biggest treat is being able to do crying in her room. The hour before things on a whim, like going out to that she spent calling and texting dinner without worrying about her camp friends — those same schedules, lessons, or bedtimes. friends she’s been looking forward Also, as a former camper myself, to seeing all year.

I understand my daughter’s deep On Thursday afternoon, the URJ feelings of grief. Camp is a safe (Union of Reform Judaism) sum- space to try new things, whether it’s mer camps announced that they a new sport, singing in public, or will not be having onsite camps this holding hands with a boy or girl on summer. COVOD-19 has caused so the Shabbat walk. The entire expemuch loss, and has changed things rience is one where kids live in so many ways, and perhaps, deep immersed with each other, without down, we were expecting this. But parental interference, and spending after seven weeks of stay-at-home four weeks living in close quarters orders and distance learning, sleep- fosters deep, lifelong friendships. It away camp was our last hope of was that sense belonging, that freenormal, a bit of childhood utopia in dom, that magic that I, a bookish, these truly dystopian times. chubby brunette in a WASPy I understand the gravity and wis- school, looked forward to all year. dom of this decision. After all, My heart breaks for my daughter when up to 18 kids and perhaps — who’s prettier and more social three counselors are crammed into than I ever was — knowing that she cabins — with bunk beds lined up will miss her yearly respite from like library stacks, to say nothing of home and school. She will miss the communal bathrooms shared by magic. dozens of girls — social distancing When we explain to other paris impossible. Risking the health or ents at our daughter’s school that life of any of these kids, their coun- she goes to sleepaway camp for a selors or the staff is unimaginable. month, they are dumbfounded as to But for my daughter and her friends, this loss is profound and hard to See SUMMER CAMP 14 comprehend. Summer camp is her on Page THE

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why we would choose to be away from her. To the mom who invariably says to me in a self-righteous tone, “I love my kids too much to be away from them for a month,” I reply, “I love mine enough to know that this is the best choice I can make for her. I will miss her terribly, but she is happy and growing as a person at camp.” That usually ends with one of us walking away and thinking the other one (me) is a crappy mother. (But, hey, I’m cool with that.)

When pressed, my other tactic is to explain that summer camp is a Jewish cultural thing. I give them a synopsis of the camp movement, which usually causes their eyes to glaze over. In short, my summary goes like this: The Jewish summer camp movement was first started for immigrant children who lived in the cities so that they could have a chance to spend time in the country and, as a bonus, become more Americanized. Later camps became a place to instill a-back-to-the land Zionism. Now they are a place where kids experience a month, living a life side-by-side their peers that is inspired by Jewish values, ritual, and rhythms.

This life works to instill a pride in Jewish identity and a comfort with Jewish ritual. The camp has a curriculum that falls in line with the educational goals at our religious school. Our rabbi, whom I have known since I was a GUCI camper and he was a counselor — in fact, our camp connection is why we joined this particular synagogue in

JEWISH LIGHT

the first place — is on staff, too. He argues strongly for the benefits and continuity of sending our kids to any Jewish camp, but especially GUCI. And since my daughter loves camp, it is a win all around.

So much has changed since we reserved a spot in her cabin and filled out the necessary paperwork last fall. All the previously held expectations have disappeared.

This summer won’t be punctuated by the anticipation and the packing, the letters sent and received, the photos examined on the camp website for signs of life, or the trips my husband and I take together.

There will be no Shabbat walk, no stories of bonfires, no color war or bunk night. Instead, we will be at home wondering how much normal we will ever regain. We will spend the summer hoping that next year she’ll be at GUCI. In the meantime, I have offered to create camp memories at home: We can build a bonfire in the backyard, I say, and we’ll tell stories and sing songs. I suggest we cook camp staples, like pizza bagels, Friday night roast chicken and chocolate pie, knowing full well that it can’t taste quite the same as when you are 12, tired, and hungry. I’ve volunteered my husband to drive circles around the Midwest so our daughter can visit her bunkmates; I’ve volunteered my parents to host Camp Nanna and Bubba.

So far, my daughter is unimpressed. But, hey, she’s 12 — maybe that’s a small sign of normalcy, after all. 

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Meet The Dad Bringing Jews Stuck At Home The Sounds Of Torah — Set To Classic Children’s Books

By Shira Hanau

When he's not working from home, Simmy Cohen keeps himself busy chanting classic children's books to Torah trope. (Screenshot from Twitter/ Courtesy of Cohen)

positive reactions from Jews spanning the religious and cultural spectrum. But in retrospect, he said, it’s not shocking.

“I actually think people do miss the sound of leyning,” Cohen said.

“That was the joke of the caption, but I think it’s kind of true.”

(JTA) — Simmy Cohen has hardly read from the Torah since his bar mitzvah. When he’s not working at his marketing job from his home in Queens, New York, Cohen spends far more time these days reading children’s books to his 13-month old daughter.

But with a spark of comedic genius and perhaps a little quarantine-induced imagination, he put the two together in a video of himself reading — no, chanting — the classic board book “Goodnight Moon” set to the Torah trope.

“For those missing the sound of leyning,” he wrote in his post of the video to Twitter, using the Yiddish word to describe the vocalization used when reading aloud from the Torah.

Cohen hoped the video would resonate with other Orthodox Jews whose access to live Torah reading ended when their synagogues closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the video quickly found a broader audience with over 40,000 views and several hundred retweets, including one from the actor Joshua Malina, who shared the video with his 281,000 followers. Inspired by the original video, another Twitter user created his own version using the Sephardic and Moroccan vocalizations.

Cohen said he was surprised by THE

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Cohen has followed his original production with a chanting of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,” the classic story of an anthropomorphic alphabet’s nighttime adventure. A friend from Twitter, Avi Schwartz, wrote the trope but insisted that Cohen chant it because people already recognized his voice.

We chatted with Cohen about what inspired his videos and what he’s working on next as he works through his daughter’s bookshelves.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

JTA: How did you come up with the idea for these videos?

Cohen: About a year ago I started a T w i t t e r account, Don Zemmer, where I post these baseball songs where I replace all the words with

baseball player names. The reason it’s called Don Zemmer is because “zemer” is Hebrew for song and Don Zimmer was this lovable baseball personality.

But for this specific video, someone shared with me a YouTube video of a rabbi giving a speech.

The whole thing was in Yiddish, so I didn’t understand a word of it, but the gist was that he was telling a mundane story but he was leyning it. I understood enough to appreciate it, so I guess the concept was in the back of my head. And I have my kid and I’m reading her books and at some point I decided to do it and thought, oh “Goodnight Moon,” everybody knows that. I had no idea it would be popular, but it seemed to kind of resonate with people.

How did you write the trope?

It’s kind of an art, there’s not really a science to it. It’s more what feels right and sounds right based on what you’ve heard. In terms of actually writing it down, it’s harder because this is in English, so it’s backwards [from how the trope marks would be denoted in Hebrew]. Avi wrote it for the second video, so you can see it in the video and I think that added a lot. It could be like a tutorial for people who are learning it, though it could be more confusing than helpful because of the way it’s inverted in English.

He wanted me to do the “shalsheles” in the part right before “chicka chicka” to emphasize that — I’m breaking it down for you as though this is some important thing — I think there’s only three or four of them in the whole Torah. They’re

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for real, real emphasis and there’s all kinds of opinions on why they appear and what does it mean, they’re not picked randomly.

Whereas I’m sort of just picking what sounds right.

Are you planning to do more videos?

I know that I want to do haftarah next to mix it up, definitely some more kids’ books. Maybe it’ll be something else, a famous speech or something. But there will definitely be another one.

Twitter only lets you post 2 minutes and 20 seconds, and I don’t even like going that long because you lose people’s attention. “Goodnight Moon” was 40-something seconds. Even with “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” I rushed through it because I don’t think people want to hear me for 2 minutes and 20 seconds. But the haftarah trope is slower. It’ll sound weird if I rush it.

People are like, oh do Dr. Seuss, but those books are super long. I actually did “I love you forever” to haftarah but it’s 5 1/2 minutes, it’s too long. We’re going to look at “The Giving Tree.” But beyond those, that’s kind of where my knowledge of children’s books end.

Did you read it for your daughter before you posted it online?

No, I have to break that out for her. She likes to wander around while I read, it’s hard to get her to sit still and then she likes to turn the pages herself, and she’ll turn like four pages at once, so it’s her pace, not mine. So I don’t know if that’ll go over well, but I should try it. 

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BooKShelF

In A Book On Weirdness, Author Olga Khazan Lays Out The Costs Of Being Different

By Robert Nagler Miller

In "Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World," Olga Khazan explores being different in a world often defined by conformity. (Cover: Hachette Books; Headshot: Tim Coburn)

CHICAGO (JUF News via JTA) — Are American Jews weird?

It’s a question that Jewish readers may ask themselves while immersed in Olga Khazan’s just published “Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World,” a meditation on what it’s like to be different in a world that more often than not seems to prize group think and cultural conformity over variations in race, sexual ori-

entation, religion and nationality.

So, yes, by those defining parameters, most American Jews would be considered weird, at least if they haven’t spent most of their lives in heavily Jewish enclaves.

Asked whether she thinks Jews are weird, Khazan, a Washington, D.C.-based staff writer for The Atlantic, was political in her response.

“That’s an interesting question,” she said. “I can see how you might see it that way.”

Khazan was far more direct in talking about her own “weirdo” status, which was the catalyst for her debut book.

As she details in “Weird,” she came upon this self-designation honestly after years of awkwardness and social isolation. A product of the former Soviet Union, Khazan

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left the country with her parents when she was a tot — just a year or so before the USSR’s dissolution and at the cusp of the massive exodus of Soviet Jews to Israel and the United States.

Khazan’s family was already “different” than most of the other Soviet emigres at the time. As she notes, only her father is Jewish, while her mother is the Finnishborn daughter of Lutheran farmers.

On top of that, the Khazan family, unlike like so many of their cohorts, settled not in a large metropolitan area but in the West Texas city of Midland, which had nary a Russian immigrant, much less a Jew. From the start, the author’s experiences in Midland reinforced differences between her and her peers.

She recounts a scarring incident at a Baptist-run day care center, where as a 4-year-old she indulged in a snack without saying a blessing.

“A daycare worker saw me, asked, “Are you eatin’ without prayin’!?,” she writes, “and punished me on the spot. I didn’t know how to tell them that I’m from somewhere else, that I don’t believe what they do. … When my mom came to pick me up, the daycare instructor complained to her about my misbehavior. My mom said nothing (‘We were afraid. We were new,’ she says now. ‘It was a small town. Everyone knows each other. We were trying to play by their rules.’).”

Khazan continues, “Someone told me, around this time, that I was an ‘alien,’ like E.T. That day, it felt more true than ever: like I had traveled to a new planet, and I’d never learn to breathe its air or speak its tongues.”

While alienated from the prevail-

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ing mores of Midland and later of suburban Dallas, where her family moved during her adolescence, Khazan tried desperately to fit in, going so far as to attend an evangelical Christian Sunday school and youth group.

“I was very uncool and had no friends,” she recalled, and “if you’re someone who struggles socially,” a church group, with built-in rules and standards of behavior, seemed like an expedient answer.

Growing up, Khazan never disclosed her father’s religious background to acquaintances.

“I didn’t want to throw the Jewish thing” into conversations, she said. “It was yet another thing” — in addition to her family’s foreignness and accents — that would make her stand out.

For a school genealogy project, when she learned that her surname means “cantor … some sort of singer in a synagogue,” Khazan admitted to herself that “I was jealous of the girl whose last name was Welsh for ‘stone,’” she writes in the book.

For “Weird,” Khazan dug deeply, combing through the academic literature about “differentness” and the emotional fallout for those who have been made to feel inferior because of it. She also conducted interviews with “weird” individuals, who shared their own challenges and coping strategies.

After many years as a successful writer, does Khazan feel that she can now wear her “weirdness” as a badge of honor?

“I think I’m more comfortable being different,” she said. But as for differentness being a point of pride, she added, that remains “aspirational.” 

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From Prayers To Puppets: This New Group Is A OneStop Shop For Jewish Livestreams

By Ben Sales (JTA) — On Monday, there’s a Jewish space that hosts two Torah classes and the taping of a podcast.

On Wednesday, the space offers a Jewish TV show for kids and a discussion of Jewish history.

On Friday night and again on Saturday morning, it hosts several prayer services simultaneously — some experimental, some more musical, some more standard Conservative or Reform.

Beyond hosting these events, the space also provides access to yoga, arts programs or classes like one titled “The Concubine in the Refrigerator: Objectifying Women in Comics and Scripture.”

It is, of course, not a physical space because no one is gathering in physical spaces now. It’s a website called jewishLIVE that has become a one-stop shop for Jewish livestreaming since its founding six weeks ago — right in time for the stay-at-home and social distancing orders that swept the country because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The founders hope the site will fill a need for Jewish community and content now — and help create a new paradigm for Jewish involvement if and when things return to a semblance of normal.

And at a moment when Jewish institutions across the country have shut down and are searching for a way to stay present during a national lockdown, this group has met its moment.

“If we have Jewish life right now, it’s going to be digital,” cofounder Lex Rofeberg said. “This new moment unlocks or accelerates a lot of changes that were already underway and shines a light on a lot of things we need that are new.”

JewishLIVE streams its events concurrently on Zoom and Facebook. Since it launched in midMarch, the site has hosted 230 events — about five to seven a day — that have garnered more than 5,000 unique viewers. And it’s got a stable of 15 weekly events. One of the more popular, with a couple hundred viewers an episode, is the Jewish Women’s Archive QuaranTHE

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Arts & Culture

Rofeberg said. Livestreaming, he adding that performing without an said, is “an equal playing field, and audience is hard because “when it’s a playing field where small you’re singing into the void, you’re organizations can on some level creating all the energy yourself, which is exhausting.” have an impact.”

The founders say the livestreamContent on the site takes a range of forms. The Quarantine Book ing has generally gone smoothly, Club, which hosts authors, looks minus the occasional anti-Semitic tine Book Club on Thursdays. Oth- like a regular Zoom discussion. A Zoom bomb (one intruder changed ers get as few as a dozen. his background to a picture of Hitler before he was kicked off). But The site was founded by the two it’s still a relatively barebones operhosts and an avid listener of the ation. jewishLIVE does not pay its podcast Judaism Unbound, which content creators — Libenson hopes conducts interviews with Jewish to change that — and runs on a authors, artists, teachers and activbudget of $2,000 to $3,000 per ists who are generally independent month. of mainstream Jewish institutions.

"Eliana Light... And Friends!" is a Jewish And it still has a DIY feel. The Rofeberg and Dan Libenson host children's show that airs weekly on jewishLIVE. (Screenshot from YouTube) start of Light’s pre-Passover epithe podcast, but the genesis of the livestreaming idea came from a lis- class in psalms by Rabbi Shai Held sode was Rofeberg making her the tener, Apryl Stern, an active mem- spends a lot of time on a screen- host of the Zoom call before she took over and began strumming her ber of the Bay Area Jewish com- share, with pivots to a gallery view theme song. munity. Stern compared her vision of all participants.

The founders hope to see the for jewishLIVE to the fitness com“Eliana Light … and Friends!,” platform remain and grow after the pany Peloton, which offers exercise presented as a children’s TV show pandemic passes. Rofeberg said it equipment and personalized home by the Jewish musician, is more provides expanded access to Jewish workouts to clients via video. physically active. Light, who began content for people with disabilities, “They curate experiences,” Stern innovating online early in the coro- who may not be able to experience said of Peloton. “They started with navirus crisis, jumps up and down all in-person Jewish events. And the cycle and branched out into all with her guitar, dances and does Libenson values how jewishLIVE these different modes. That’s what I kid-friendly aerobics, all to song. allows people outside of large cities want for jewishLIVE. I want expeA recent episode, airing before to access innovative Jewish prayer riences that are high quality, curat- the start of Passover, featured Light services happening in places like ed, from people who are offering in an apron for baking matzah, pre- New York City or Chicago, where something of value.” tending along with a hand puppet he lives.

Stern came up with the idea two named Sheepie to be a slave to Pha“After the virus is over, a lot of years ago but it sputtered until the raoh. A couple dozen viewers watch people will want to go back to the institutions and experiences they pandemic, when, Libenson said, “in each weekly episode. the span of two days, every live, in“Even if days are difficult, pre- had before,” he said. “We believe person Jewish event of any size was paring for the show, smiling into that a lot of people are going to going to be canceled for an extend- the camera, it has really given me want to stay, so what jewishLIVE is ed period of time.” The site launched even moments of joy,” Light told going to become is the hub or the six weeks ago, on a Friday, and car- the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, JCC for those people.”  ried livestreams of independent Jewish congregations in San FranFrom our table to yours, Best Wishes to our many cisco, Los Angeles and New York friends and customers in the Jewish community City. Stern watched all three.

“I’m sitting in my living room and I’m watching and I’m thinking, this is exactly what I wanted all along,” she said.

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For now, Rofeberg hopes to cast a wide tent in what the site broadcasts, but wants it to provide a spotlight for the small organizations or independent thinkers he and Libenson host on their podcast. Many of the current jewishLIVE programs feature past guests. And the site divides programs into virtual “stages:” There’s a Kids’ Stage, a Music Stage, a Soul Stage and so on. www.acquistapaces.com “If people are in a moment where 985-951-2501 985-893-0593 they feel isolated, our vision is that 631 N. Causeway Blvd.,, Mandeville 125 E. 21st Ave we’ll have sections of our website Facing East Causeway Approach In Historic Downtown Covington that will feel relevant to them,”

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Feeling down about the lack of romance during quarantine? ‘Man Seeking Woman’ is your antidote.

By Arielle Kaplan

Jay Baruchel plays a heartbroken millennial trying to navigate the crazy modern world of dating in "Man Seeking Woman."

(Screenshot from YouTube)

(JTA) — With zero romantic prospects on the horizon — thanks COVID-19 — I’ve resorted to slapping a virtual Band-Aid over my crumbling love life. And I know I’m not alone.

If you’re in the same boat, the series “Man Seeking Woman” can help. The show — a bizarre theater of the absurd-esque, knee-slap heavy satire of modern dating — is the most suitable escapist romcom

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to binge during these strange times.

A hidden gem that only lasted three seasons on FX, “Man Seeking Woman” follows Josh Greenberg, portrayed by Jewish actor Jay Baruchel, a disheveled 27-year-old searching for love in Chicago. So how does that plot differ from literally every other millennial sitcom?

It takes only one episode to find out.

In the pilot, a heartbroken Josh’s spirits are momentarily lifted when his ex, Maggie (Maya Erskine), extends a last-minute invitation to her housewarming party. With a bottle of her favorite wine in hand, his smile quickly turns upside down when Josh’s roommate Mike (Eric Andre) and his fling Aja helps reveal that Maggie has a new boyfriend — who happens to be Adolf Hitler.

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Yes, that Hitler. He kisses Maggie from a wheelchair.

Mike: You OK, buddy?

Josh: Isn’t there, like, a pretty big age difference between them? I mean, Maggie’s only 27.

Aja: Someone’s jealous.

Josh: I’m not jealous, Aja. I-I just don’t like Adolf Hitler. He-he murdered millions of people.

Mike: You don’t like him because he’s dating Maggie.

Josh: True, but don’t you think it’s weird that she’s dating him, of all people? I’m Jewish! He famously hates Jews.

Aja: Oh, that is a real stretch Josh. Don’t make this about you.

It’s the perfect example of how the show operates: By infusing universal relationship woes with fantastical elements, it captures the strong feelings that romantic situations make us feel and the mundane emotions so many of us struggle to express.

And the show isn’t just about romantic love — it also depicts the strength of platonic bromances and navigates the difficult transition from mama’s boy to independent young adult.

Later in the series, Josh’s older sister, Lucy, dates Santa Claus. He

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also goes on a date with a literal troll, to learn a lesson about beauty, and misplaces his penis.

It’s all from the mind of Jewish writer Simon Rich — son of the prominent political columnist Frank Rich — who adapted it from his novel “The Last Girlfriend on Earth.” (Simon has another fun Jewish project in the works: a movie called “An American Pickle,” which stars Seth Rogen as New Yorker Herschel Greenbaum, who falls into a pickle vat in 1918 and emerges 100 years later.)

Is Josh Greenberg a likable schlemiel whose Jewish parents won’t stop FaceTiming him? It’s debatable. Constantly putting his foot in his mouth, his relationships with women, who are always way out of his league, never last more than a fleeting episode.

But like many romantic comedies, “Man Seeking Woman” ties a lovelaced bow on Season 3, ending with one of Cupid’s arrows on Josh’s bum. And it just might be the most surreal plotline of the series. 

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FoCuS Issues on

Should You Put Your Life At Risk To Help Others?

Rabbis Have Been Grappling With The Question For Centuries.

By Ira Bedzow

EMTs are seen outside NYU Langone Medical Center as major cities in the U.S. adjust to restrictive measures during the coronavirus pandemic, April 22, 2020 in New York City.

(John Lamparski/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For a short period of time, New York state officials enacted controversial guidelines that again tested the inherent tension that the COVD-19 pandemic is causing between our country’s most deeply cherished values — respect for multiculturalism and religious freedom on the one side and the state’s responsibil-

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ity to promote the common good on the other.

On April 17, at the recommendation of the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, the Regional Emergency Services Council of New York issued guidelines stating that EMS personnel should not attempt to revive a person if they find him or her in cardiac arrest.

The edict was a further push toward public safety over treatment of individuals and respect for moral and religious values than one issued earlier this month stating that if EMS workers could not revive a person from cardiac arrest in 20 minutes, they should not transport the patient to the hospital.

The new guidelines were abandoned only days later, though in practice it is doubtful that they were actually followed. The official statement for its rescission is that the guidelines did not reflect New York’s standards.

Nor did they reflect Jewish values.

Jewish law recognizes that life is of ultimate value, but it also appreciates that there will be times when saving a person’s life may come at the expense of another. For example, the Talmud tells a story of two people who are stranded in a desert and only one has enough water to survive. Rabbi Akiva offers that the person should not share his water, as it would cause both of them to die. The duty to save another person’s life applies only when “your brother may live with you” and not at one’s own expense.

But attempting to save someone

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who is infected with COVID-19 and in cardiac arrest is not the same as sharing one’s water bottle. While the risk of infection without proper equipment may be high, it is not obvious that continuing CPR will necessarily lead to the EMS worker’s ultimate demise. It could, however, lead to spread of contagion, which may indirectly lead to lifethreatening situations.

Jewish law does address the extent of one’s duty to save another when there is a potential risk to life rather than a definite one. Rabbinic scholars begin their analysis of this matter with the question addressed to Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra (who lived in Safed in the 16th century).

“What should one do if a government officer tells a Jew: ‘Let me cut off one of your limbs in a way that you will not die, or I will kill your friend!'” (Responsa Radbaz, 3:627) Of course, attempting to save a patient with COVID-19 is in no way as extreme as this question, but the legal and moral point is analogous.

How much should one be willing to sacrifice of himself or herself to save another person’s life?

Rabbi David ben Zimri writes that if the risk is not life-threatening, one may endanger one’s health for the sake of another. If, however, there is a risk to one’s life, then attempting to save them is misguided piety.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chafetz Chaim) writes that one should not put oneself in potentially life-threatening danger to save another from certain danger. However, he adds that one must calculate the situation properly, and be very careful not to rationalize improper risk aversion under the pretense of religious piety. (Mishna Berura 329:19) Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wosner (1913-2015) clarified Rabbi Kagan’s demand for proper calculation.

According to Rabbi Wosner, opting for personal safety over attempting to save another is justified only when the chances of putting oneself in lifethreatening danger is 50% or greater.

When the chances are less than 50%, Rabbi Wosner contends in “B’Geder

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Hovat Hatzalah L’Zulat She’Yigrom L’Torem Huleshet HaGuf v’Toreach,” the person has an obligation, or at least should act out of piety, to try to save the other person. If saving another will only risk making a person sick but not in danger to his health, then he is certainly obligated to save the other person.

Medical professionals, however, may have an even higher duty to treat than the layperson in Jewish law. For example, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (1915-2006) wrote in Teshuvot Tzitz Eliezer 9:17 that physicians have a higher level of duty toward patients, which stems either from the permission physicians have to heal — a customary expectation of the profession — or because they are compensated for their work. He does add, however, that this greater responsibility comes with greater divine protection from harm, since the person is engaged in such a great mitzvah as saving other people’s lives.

We should be thankful that the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, rescinded the guidelines that challenged medical professionals’ fiduciary responsibilities and potentially their religious and moral values, yet the pandemic will continue to chal-

lenge the balance between state priorities and individual liberties.

The best way for us to ameliorate these tensions and avoid challenges to our values is for us to avoid creating opportunities for these situations to occur. Rather than fight against reactionary decisions to deal with the problems that COVID19 keeps presenting, we should continue to be proactive in stopping the contagion.

Ira Bedzow is the director of the Biomedical Ethics and Humanities Program at New York Medical College.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

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on Issues

When Did Elderly People Like Me Become Disposable?

By Paul Socken

An elderly man leaves a metro station in Rome during a test scenario amid the coronavirus pandemic, April 27, 2020.

(Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

TORONTO (JTA) — The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is shaking the world in disturbing ways.

As someone who is no longer young, I find one aspect of the crisis to be particularly unnerving: the attitude toward the elderly.

The media is filled with stories about the problem represented by the elderly. What will happen if there aren’t enough respirators for everyone? Should the elderly, who have lived their lives long enough, have the same right to medical care as young people who have their whole lives ahead of them?

There are cold, calculating costbenefit analyses associated with this grim reaper scenario. One col-

umnist came down on the side of “saving Grandma” only after weighing the pros and cons as if it were an accounting problem. Others have said that the elderly should sacrifice themselves for the good of the country.

But this is not the Jewish attitude. Psalm 92 proclaims that “in old age [the righteous] still produce fruit, they are full of sap and freshness.” In his Mishneh Torah, the great philosopher and doctor Maimonides states that “even a young scholar should rise before an old man distinguished in age.” In Guide for the Perplexed, he writes that “with the ancient is wisdom.”

I always thought that the psalmist’s plea “Do not cast me off in old age; when my strength fails, do not forsake me” was addressed to God. Now I understand that it is an appeal to our fellow men and women as well not to abandon the elderly when their “use” is no longer manifest.

It is heartbreaking to see so many deaths due to the virus and the personal stories associated with those

losses. In many countries, a large proportion of the dead are in nursing homes where the elderly are warehoused with inadequate staffing and medical care. In Canada, otherwise a deeply caring society, over half the deaths have been in nursing homes where revelations of what goes on behind the doors of those institutions have shocked the nation. We can and we must do better than this for the elderly and for everyone.

When this crisis is finally over, and a semblance of normalcy resumes, we will need to answer many questions about the economy, health care, the appropriate political response to an extreme emergency and the nature of our global world.

But no less important is the question of the very nature of our society and its values. What lack within us gave rise to the discussion of the disposability of the elderly? This crisis has exposed a materialistic calculus, a coarsening of society’s discourse since the dismissal of the religious sensibility that built our

system of values and ethics over millennia of civilization.

If we have, indeed, entered a post-Christian, post-religious society, a trauma such as the current one reveals its consequences. I would argue that we have seen the underbelly of a society that has forgotten its roots, no longer has a strong set of values and does not understand the importance of honoring all life. If ever there was a time to rethink the journey we have taken as a society and recalculate our direction, it is now.

What an irony it would be if we learned to preserve physical life infinitely better than previous generations only to abandon their more sophisticated search for truth and meaning in life.

What will it profit us to reestablish our economy, restructure our health care and solve our global problems if we ignore the human issues that underpin it all? What is the purpose of life if we fail to see the humanity in everyone around us? 

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NOSHER

(food)

More People Than Ever Are Making Jewish Food. Let’s Make This Connection To Tradition Last.

By Shannon Sarna

Babka from "The Modern Jewish Baker"; Shannon Sarna (Courtesy)

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (JTA) — Jewish food is in a constant state of evolution. And in this moment of a global pandemic, quarantine is changing the way we do business, provide education, connect with loved ones and, yes, even eat. Jewish food is far from immune to the tumult we are all experiencing.

Americans live in a time of great food abundance and choices: Just survey the chip aisle the next time

you are lucky enough (or bold enough) to be in a grocery store.

My European au pairs are continually shocked and delighted by the varied choices of potato chips, pretzels and snacks that American living affords.

So, it is quite a shock to the system when suddenly easy-to-comeby ingredients like eggs, yeast, flour or onions are suddenly a challenge to procure. Instant gratification has become part and parcel of the American shopping experience.

Need groceries? Whole Foods delivery can be there in two hours.

Have a hankering for sushi? Delivered to your door in 30 minutes.

Need to get your hands on that pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli in New York City? Goldbelly will

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deliver directly to you.

But all this has now changed seemingly in an instant, pushing people back into their kitchens, forcing us all to cook, shop and act with considerably more thought, creativity and resourcefulness. We are used to looking up a recipe and then going out to shop for the ingredients, not the other way around.

A renewed interest in sourdough baking has been on the rise over the past two years. But since March, sourdough baking is the project of choice, exploding all over the internet. It’s an incredible contrast to Americans’ usual “fast easy one bowl” sort of baking and cooking approach. Sourdough requires at least three days to make correctly, along with precision, thoughtfulness and a whole lot of practice — not just a whim and a Pinterest search.

Similarly, challah baking has exploded. With so many people newly home on Fridays (and, well, every day), many new bakers are prioritizing fresh challah and Shabbat food in ways they never have before. Among my Jewish friends (and many non-Jews, too!), I’ve personally seen a huge uptick in the number of requests for help with their dough, or braiding, or whether they have let the challah rise enough to be baked. I’ve never had so many people asking me challah baking questions or posting photos of my cookbook recipes each and every week. Heck, I’m not complaining (at least about this)!

Nevertheless, Jews historically have had to be frugal and resourceful about food. The availability of ingredients dictated what was on the menu.

That’s how so many dishes from our culture have come into existence:

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cholent, ptcha, dafina, gefilte fish, aquapazza and even shakshuka.

We have more time on our hands and less access to our usual shopping experiences, and we are also craving comfort in this moment — which I think explains all the influx of bread baking. But it also speaks to the foods we are clinging to right now. In a conversation I had recently with Jewish deli owner Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy’s in Houston, he shared with me, “I’ve never had so many people ordering kishke before. It’s clear people are craving some good Yiddishe comfort food right now.”

One of the questions we are all asking is: What will happen when this is all over? Will our renewed interest in challah and Shabbat dinner last? Will regrowing scallions and being more mindful of how we use food become again become a wider part of our culture? Or will we revert to just throwing out things without a second thought?

I pray the economy bounces back quickly, and that food insecurity issues that predated the pandemic and worsened during it are resolved.

But I hope that even as it again becomes relatively easy to buy a loaf of challah, more of us will continue to make it — and sustain a spiritual connection to our culinary traditions that has stood the test of time.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future — The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

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We’re All Jewish Homeschoolers Now. That’s One Shift That Should Stick Around.

By Bethany Mandel

A homeschooler coloring; Bethany Mandel (Getty Images; Courtesy of Mandel)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Back in Normal Times, when I would tell other parents in Jewish settings that we homeschool, I would be met with exhortations of “I could never do that!” Things have certainly changed in the past two months because now everyone does. I’ve found myself suddenly running a lending library out of my house and a homeschool help hotline for friends on my WhatsApp. When I used to explain homeschooling to those unfamiliar with it, it was hard to describe what life was like home with your kids all day, every day. For most parents, their only extended experience home with their kids was during their maternity leave — a few weeks or months at most. It’s very different, in good ways and bad (but mostly good because those first few weeks of parenthood are rough), but most parents had no frame of reference for our day-today life.

Now everyone knows what it’s like to be home with kids. For many it’s a miserable slog, especially as it’s come as a surprise. But for others, the allure of a homeschooling lifestyle is presenting itself. The hours spent water coloring, reading together, playing games to learn math and using baking to teach math, science, nutrition and more are what makes this life sweet. For the first time, many families are getting a taste of the life homeschoolers enjoy, albeit without the outside-the-home opportunities that add additional and important richness.

It’s been funny hearing the same friends who told me they’d never consider homeschooling pepper me with questions about THE

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curriculums, resources and local homeschool groups. For some, they are seeing a sense of calm come over their days and over some of their children who were struggling in the classroom. For others, they are witnessing what their kids’ schools are sending home and coming to the realization that outside of the social aspect of school, they could be doing it better at home because they currently are. And others are watching their incomes dry up, making the idea of day school tuition, which once was a stretch and a struggle, now an absolute impossibility.

In the religious Catholic, Christian and Muslim world, homeschooling has been booming in popularity in response to the secular nature of public schools and the cost of parochial education across denominations. (The increasing utility of the internet and relaxation of state rules have helped, too.) As I’ve interacted with other religious homeschool families, I’m always asked why I’m the only Jew they know that homeschools. Given the cost of Jewish schools, the length of the school day and the intractable nature of sending kids to public school for most families, homeschooling seems like it would be a viable alternative for religious Jewish families.

Yet there have been few Jewish homeschoolers, and thus few dedicated resources for Jewish homeschoolers. It’s a chicken or the egg situation: Few experts able to do so would want to spend the time to develop a curriculum without a clear market, but without a curriculum available, how could that market appear?

The homeschool world is blessed with copious secular resources in science, math and English, and even for experienced homeschoolers it can be overwhelming choosing between so many attractive options. For those considering homeschooling, where can you even begin to understand what’s

KVeller available when you don’t know anyone else doing the same? Potential Jewish homeschoolers are faced with diametrical problems: too few options for Jewish curriculums and too many choices in the secular realm.

Another roadblock standing in the way for most Jewish parents is the lack of a clear social life for their kids if they are pulled out of school. It’s another chicken or the egg scenario: Jewish parents want their kids to have Jewish friends, but if no other Jews are homeschooling, that can’t happen. Not many people want to take the leap without anyone else in the pool, especially with no expectation or hope that anyone will follow behind them.

But as more parents are considering what to do with their children next year, and as more families evaluate what they want to take from this coronavirus experience as they move back into more normal life, the issue of not enough Jewish homeschoolers may cease to be the impediment it has been. As parents settle into a routine of having kids

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at home full-time, it seems likely (judging by the sudden popularity of existing Jewish homeschoolers) that more and more Jewish families will consider homeschooling as a viable alternative to the current system of expensive private day schools.

The Jewish education world would do well to spend this time developing high-quality home learning materials and strategies for homeschool socialization, so that as tuition bills come due for a school year we’re unsure will even continue as normal, families can make the choice that’s right for them.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future — click here to read the other stories in this series.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

Spring 2020/ COVID -19

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Today, We’re Mourning The Loss Of Our Social Spaces.

Tomorrow, Let’s Redesign Them.

By Hannah Lebovits

The Shanghai Urban Planning Museum; Hannah Lebovits (Wikimedia Commons / Courtesy)

CLEVELAND (JTA) — “Remember when we used to go to shul, Mommy?”

It’s Shabbat morning and my children are repeating the same weekly ritual which now seems to have replaced the practice of actually attending synagogue. While my husband and I pray, they pepper us with questions, comments and reminders about the world that once was. They wax poetic about the hot potato kugel at the weekly kiddush.

Prayers are great anywhere, I tell them. And though it doesn’t come out of the kitchen in a two-foot long pan, I remind them that my kugel isn’t half bad.

But what my children miss is not just the Shabbat services and observances — they are also missing the synagogue itself.

I study urban planning, so I have a framework for understanding what my children are yearning for.

I know that social interactions are deeply shaped by physical environments. The design of a city — the built and natural infrastructure, the designated uses of specific spaces — affects the ways that people experience one another and themselves. And what does and does not get built, the amount of space that is dedicated to specific functions and the general flow of the city are fundamentally shaped by what the people within the city believe to be important.

The earliest cities were intended to serve as centers of worship and religious practice. Ziggurats, pyramids, temples, churches, mosques and other religious buildings not only served as a statement to the importance of the religion — they were also formally and informally used as mechanisms to maintain religious observance and social cohesion.

Either directly, through sermons or practices, or indirectly, through THE

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communal gatherings and peer pressure, physical infrastructure plays a significant role in the enduring practice of religion.

So, it’s clear to me that months of isolation from synagogues, schools, religious non-profits and other internal social spaces — even the very cities in which they are located — will affect the Jewish community for longer than the virus requires.

With such an abrupt and extended interruption in practice and the decentralization of observance, can we expect that people will simply snap back when buildings reopen?

Or will people find it difficult to readjust to the expectations of institutional Judaism having been without the communal aspect of the lifestyle for so many months?

What we know about public space suggests that the latter case is more likely. After months of distance prayer and individualized religious practice, we will grow distant from the social processes that our physical institutions enabled us to maintain.

By nature, individual household standards often differ from those that are enforced through institutions and communal systems. Even for those who can and do utilize technology to engage in prayers, learning and communal events, the experience just isn’t the same.

Changes to our Jewish space — now overwhelmingly personal and individualized — will likely mean changes in the ways we are Jews together. But this new state of Jewish life presents opportunities: When we return to them, we can use our physical institutions to strengthen individual growth and education, giving people the tools to thoughtfully engage with ritual, practice and belief.

Rather than disregard the value of individualized and personal spaces, we can think more creatively about how to create communal spaces that are as flexible, understanding and thoughtful as our personal living rooms. Spaces that encourage us to expand our mindfulness of the needs of others, that thrive on transparency and openness — spaces that enable us to avoid the perpetuation of hidden crises, financial

debt and under-addressed mental health concerns.

We can redesign the physical layouts of synagogues to maximize the inclusion of people with disabilities, women, and children. We can set up prayer and communal spaces to allow people to interact with one another and encourage more thoughtfulness.

We can use communal event landscapes — such as a kiddush — to engage in thoughtful conversations about food and housing insecurity.

These efforts will require leaders to adapt and bring new voices to the table. And we might be surprised to see that thoughtful design choices can actually enable, rather than hinder, inclusion, personalization and religious adherence.

We cannot pursue or achieve these goals if we maintain a desire and expectation to return to busi-

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ness as usual once the immediate health crisis has ended. Just as COVID-19 has forced us to rethink the ways we live our secular lives, revitalizing our community after this crisis will require our leaders to reconsider their own deeply held views on religious life.

I don’t want my children to spend every Shabbat trying to remember what once was. But with a bit of thoughtful work, they will gain tremendously from the Jewish spaces that can be.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

Spring 2020/ COVID -19

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JeWnIVerSe

Making Jewish Traditions Work For You Doesn’t Have To Be An Emergency Approach.

By Roberta Rosenthal Kwall

Shabbat candles (Wikimedia Commons); Roberta Rosenthal Kwall (Courtesy of Kwall)

CHICAGO (JTA) — I thought I was going to be spending this spring promoting my new book, which articulates a distinct vision for Judaism that illustrates how people can deepen their connection to Judaism by performing selected rituals consistently and attaching a personal meaning to them. But as the coronavirus sweeps the globe, causing a paradigm shift for everyone, instead I am spending my time mastering the finer points of Zoom technol-

ogy so I can teach my students online.

It wasn’t lost on me that this technology allowed me to make lemonade out of lemons by doing a virtual launch of “Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World,” enabling family and friends from across the world to participate. It also struck me that making lemonade out of lemons is exactly what the Jewish people have been doing for most of our existence, dating back to the birth of the Jewish legal system created by the rabbis in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple.

Creativity and resilience have always characterized the operation of Jewish tradition. But now more than ever, we see Jews at all levels of observance remixing Jewish tra-

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dition to maximize joy and minimize hardship. Fortunately for us, Jewish tradition has a great track record of adapting to new situations and realities. Despite the enormous daily tragedies that so many people are experiencing at this time, a remix of Jewish tradition has never had more relevance to daily life.

Recently there have been some surprising exercises of remix Judaism emanating from Orthodox authorities. Though not accepted across the board, one rabbi in Israel ruled that as an emergency measure, Zoom Seders should be allowed if the livestream is started prior to the onset of Passover. Even more controversial was another ruling that for European communities whose laws prohibit burial, Jewish law authorities should lift Judaism’s ban on cremation.

For religiously liberal Jews who do not adhere to Jewish law as a matter of religious obligation, the nature of remix during this unprecedented pandemic may actually foster a greater appreciation for Jewish tradition. Now that people are socially distancing and spending more time at home, there are fewer distractions to occupy people’s time and energy.

A close friend who considers himself “a cultural Jew” told me recently that he actually started going through the materials from an adult Jewish learning course that his wife had taken years ago since he was looking for something to occupy himself.

Or consider the situation facing many families this spring, including my dear friend Jan. By her own admission, Jan is part of the roughly 80% of American Jews who are not conventionally observant. But she and her family were very much looking forward to her son’s bar mitzvah this spring. But with a heavy heart, once her city, along with the rest of the country, completely shut down, she and her husband officially canceled the celebration.

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The disappointment took its toll on my otherwise ever-the-optimist friend.

“You know,” she confided during our weekly telephone conversation, “the only thing that brings me comfort these days is listening to David practice his Torah portion.”

Although she didn’t completely understand why, listening to her son practice gave her a reassuring sense of continuity.

David’s bar mitzvah ended up taking place through Zoom, so the rabbi and cantor could still conduct the service. Jan managed to rent a Torah, allowing David to read from a scroll. The immediate family gathered physically at the home of Jan’s parents, and the seven people there all observed the proper social distancing. A link of the service was sent to guests along with a slide show, as was a request for family and friends to send a photo of themselves watching the service.

This compilation of photographs will serve as David’s remixed Bar Mitzvah album.

Jan’s son no doubt will always remember his unique bar mitzvah.

In fact, David told his mom that his ceremony held a lot of meaning for him, perhaps even more so than had it been as expected.

The remixed approaches to Jewish tradition that have surfaced over the past weeks underscore the importance of flexibility that Jewish tradition always has prized. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Simeon Ben Eleazar as advocating that one should “be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar” (Ta’anit 20b).

The underlying message here is that a tree that bends will survive the elements but one that is rigid will not.

Anyone who knows even a little about Jewish history cannot help but realize that our existence as a people throughout time and space is miraculous and defies logic. And although there are many different views on why we have survived, surely one key ingredient is that Jewish tradition is conducive to remix.

This piece is a part of our series of Visions for the Post-Pandemic Jewish Future The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media. 

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