12 | The Jewish Press | May 7, 2021
Voices The Jewish Press (Founded in 1920) Abby Kutler President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Staff Writer Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Abby Kutler, President; Eric Dunning, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen, David Finkelstein, Candice Friedman, Bracha Goldsweig, Margie Gutnik, Natasha Kraft, Chuck Lucoff, Eric Shapiro, Andy Shefsky, Shoshy Susman and Amy Tipp. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: wwwjewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha. org. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de KampWright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.
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Legalizing hate
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor “A top Quebec court mostly upheld a provincial law banning Jews and other religious minorities who work in public from wearing religious symbols such as yarmulkes, crucifixes and hijabs in their places of employ,” David Lazarus recently wrote for the JTA. “Bill 21 was passed by the province’s Coalition Avenir Québec government in June 2019, ostensibly to promote state neutrality, and the law remains popular among Québec citizens. But critics say the real aim of the law is to discourage Muslim women who are state employees from wearing hijabs to work.” I know nothing about Canada, except that my cousin moved up there, gets five feet of snow every winter and once shot a moose. Plus, it’s a big country, so I really can’t say what this one law would mean. However, I have to ask: what would we do, were something like this to happen here in Nebraska? There are many places where anti-Muslim sentiment has led lawmakers to suggest sweeping changes that affect the Jewish population as well. Especially in Europe, where kashrut and circumcision are regularly under attack, it’s hard not to think of Jews as collateral damage. So many Muslim customs have a corresponding Jewish one. As in many of those places, Jews are a small community in Nebraska. I don’t know how we would approach it if these types of laws were suggested here. There is something strange about the ban on head coverings in particular. Covering one’s head, in and of itself, can’t be problematic. People of all cultures have covered their heads for millennia, in
most cases it’s a sign of respect. Respect for one’s lims are like the unpopular kids on the playground, religion, for one’s community decency laws, respect they should and will be teased and mocked. And for each other. There is nothing particularly threat- just like those kids, we often take it out on each ening about someone wearing a hat, wig or wrap, other. regardless the reason. That is, unless that head covering signifies membership in a hateful organization, for instance when it holds certain insignia, or when it’s made out of a white bedsheet to match someone’s robe. Some people might argue a hijab or a kippah fall within that category. Even if that line of thinking were justified (it isn’t), the hijab in and of itself is still just a piece of fabric, sitting there, doing nothing. The yarmulka does not believe, or act, or harm others. The outward signs of who we are are just that: signs. Removing them or telling us we can no longer wear them does exactly nothing to change who we are. The proponents of these types of laws know this, just as they know outlawing kosher or halal slaughter will not change our fundamental beliefs. And maybe that’s not the objective. Perhaps the ob- Credit: Carsten Koall/Getty Images jective is not to change us, but to simply make life There is no fundamental difference between more difficult. A reminder that we are not in telling Muslims they can’t wear a hijab and telling charge, that the things we hold dear can be taken merchants they can’t sell Israeli products unless away at any given moment. A sign of things to they jump through impossible hoops. come: today, we take your kippah, tomorrow we’ll I don’t know if the atmosphere in Québec is like take your kosher brisket; who knows what we’ll that. I do know that when I see proposed bills bartake next week. Maybe your synagogues, your ring religious symbols it makes my skin crawl. It is mosques, maybe your freedom. a short route from barring hijabs and kippot to inAnti-semitism and Islamophobia in Europe have troducing other, more dangerous measures. always had an element of bullying. Jews and Mus-
Our Orthodox communities got COVID-19 early. We led a study to turn tragedy into science. AVI ROSENBERG, JONATHAN SILVERBERG, JASON ZIMMERMAN AND ISRAEL ZYSKIND JTA In May, as America reeled from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of Orthodox Jews donated blood in a remarkable effort to speed scientific understanding of the deadly new coronavirus. The pandemic had hit the Orthodox Jewish community particularly hard, especially in the early days when much was unknown, and the pain and suffering experienced was enormous. Living in Orthodox communities, we saw this firsthand. We still remember the frantic phone calls in the early days of the pandemic from worried patients with fever and breathing difficulties. We remember the nonstop Hatzolah calls for respiratory distress and the incessant sounds of sirens in the background. We realized that the high rate of early infections left our communities with an invisible power: information in our bodies about this new and mysterious disease. So we set out to make a meaningful contribution to the world of science to study this new virus, working with Jewish organizations and others to create a plan to collect thousands of blood and saliva samples from members of the Orthodox Jewish community to be used for COVIDbased virology research. Blood samples from recovering COVID-19 patients could shed light on vexing questions with sweeping public health implications: Who got sick and who remained asymptomatic? Why did some people quickly fight off the virus off while others struggled for weeks? What differentiated those who lived and the many who died? Working with other doctors from this community, we reached out to the top virology labs in the world and formed a collaboration with 10 in the United States and Canada that would receive serum samples for scientific study. Over 10 days in May, 6,665 people donated blood that was sent to these labs. More than 2,000 of them gave saliva
samples as well, enabling a different kind of analysis. And they all quantified their COVID experience on a detailed questionnaire that contained questions about symptomology, severity of illness, oxygen requirement and hospitalization.
A man walks in Midwood, home to a large Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, Sept. 27, 2020. Credit: Daniel Moritz-Rabson
This was moving for us to behold. Hundreds of Jewish community members facilitated these blood drives, including doctors, nurses, phlebotomists, medical assistants and support staff spanning five states. At one point so many vials of blood were collected that Rabbi Yehuda Kasirer of Lakewood Bikur Cholim decided to fly to Rochester, Minnesota, to deliver thousands of blood specimens directly to the Mayo Clinic so these precious samples would remain fresh for analysis. The Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open has just published the first of many scientific conclusions resulting from this remarkable academic-community partnership. The manuscript describes the “Multi-Institutional study analyzing anti-CoV-2 Antibodies” — or MITZVA cohort. Mitzvah means good deed in Hebrew, and
the study represents efforts by American Jews to return the favor of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness given to us over the centuries by our country. Our paper describes how coronavirus spread in parallel through multiple culturally bound communities across the United States because of Purim, which began on March 9, and the noted lack of federal and local health guidance during this early part of the pandemic. The JAMA paper calls for local, statewide and national health agencies to tailor and customize health guidance for each specific ethnic and cultural group within the U.S. One-size-fits-all recommendations may be inadequate, as each ethnic group has different social and religious practices. The pandemic took many turns in American Orthodox communities over the course of the past year. But what is clear is that the Orthodox Jewish population saw an opportunity during the darkest of hours to provide some solace and light to our American family, our national brothers and sisters. Built into our DNA is the strong desire to give, help and contribute to American society, and to attempt to ameliorate the great pain we collectively experienced during this terrible pandemic year. Just as one good deed begets another, so, too, will the MITZVA cohort generate many additional significant research discoveries that are soon to be published. We are very glad to be able to help. Dr. Avi Z. Rosenberg is a physician-scientist and practicing renal pathologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Jonathan Silverberg is an associate professor of dermatology at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr Jason Zimmerman is an emergency medicine physician in Brooklyn. Dr. Israel Zyskind is a pediatrician in Brooklyn. 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.
