Mind, Body & Spirit

JERUSALEM (JTA) —  A vicious rumor has been making the rounds: Hasidim are neglecting to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously because we are selfish. But as someone born and bred in the Satmar community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who now lives in Jerusalem and writes for Yiddish publications, I can… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A Brazilian cosmetics giant owned by the billionaire son of Holocaust survivors donated 1.7 tons of gel alcohol, which can be used as hand sanitizer, to help the city where it is headquartered fight the coronavirus. The donation to Curitiba’s municipal health department was… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — I am a pediatrician who for 15 years has practiced in a medical office in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We serve the local Hasidic community and see a variety of other patients from Brooklyn, the Lower East Side and Queens. When the coronavirus emerged… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — One of Avi Webb’s favorite times of the week is Sunday morning, when he takes his children to morning prayers at his synagogue and stays for a lesson on Hasidic thought. His kids play at an arts and crafts table while he studies. Webb is… Read more »

(JTA) — As the coronavirus forced the shutdown of many synagogues in the United States and beyond last Shabbat, many British Jews celebrated the day of rest as usual. At the time, their government was taking a far less restrictive approach even as the leaders of other countries shut… Read more »

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — “Do you want trouble?” the Hasidic man asked, leaning toward me intimidatingly. “Are you threatening me?” I asked, turning to look at the lean man in a flat black hat and long caftan. “No. But if you stay here, everyone will come and there… Read more »

(JTA) — When it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would reach Israel, Elli Rosenberg was one of a small number of medical professionals at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva to answer a call for volunteers to treat the sick. Rosenberg, a clinical immunologist who works as an… Read more »

(JTA) — As the world shut down around it, the Brooklyn headquarters of the worldwide Chabad movement carried on as usual — until late Tuesday night, when its neighborhood’s rabbinic leadership ordered synagogues closed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. All week, men came and went from the… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli Cabinet approved a measure that will allow the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, to track the cell phones of Israelis who are infected with coronavirus. The agency would not require a court order to perform the surveillance and it will be limited in… Read more »

(JTA) — Michele Sciama, a former secretary-general of the Jewish Community of Milan — the city’s local Jewish communal life organization — has died of the Covid-19 coronavirus. Sciama, known to his friends and family as Micky, was 79 when he died Monday morning. He is survived by his… Read more »

(JTA) — On a typical Friday, some 200 people show up for services at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, a Reform congregation in Seattle. But last week, there was no one in the pews as Rabbi Daniel Weiner welcomed Shabbat in the synagogue’s smaller sanctuary. Instead, some 1,500 people watched… Read more »

(JTA) — The outbreak of the coronavirus in northern Italy forced Claudia Bagnarelli to make a painful choice. “To keep visiting my 94-year-old mother, I needed to stop seeing everyone else in my life,” Bagnarelli, a Jewish ballet teacher from Milan, said Monday. To avoid the risk of infecting… Read more »

Ruben Golran had studied for a year and a half in anticipation of his bar mitzvah, when 600 of his relatives and friends were supposed to converge on Milan to celebrate. First he planned to have a ceremony Tuesday, Feb. 25, when he would put on tefillin, a Jewish… Read more »

It’s no surprise to us who live in the Sonoran Desert that, on average, we enjoy 286 sunny days a year in Tucson — while the U.S. average is 205. Old Pueblo residents can get ample doses of vitamin D while those in the Pacific Northwest are depleted. We… Read more »

Editor’s note: Due to the spread of COVID-19, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on March 13 has cancelled all public events through April 16.  Tucson Maimonides Society’s March presentation sounds like it comes straight from the set of a television medical drama. Indeed, speaker Allan Hamilton, M.D., is… Read more »

After the findings from a national Adverse Childhood Experience Study recognized that a third of the population of the United States suffers from trauma, Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona worked to make the organization a more trauma-informed space. Melissa Zimmerman, vice president of clinical services at… Read more »

“The Healing Power of Sound” will be introduced by Tucsonan Tryshe Dhevney at CHAI Circle’s March meeting. Dhevney is a harmonic and vocal sound energy expert, author, speaker, and crystal bowl-recording artist. She has decades of experience assisting others in creating health, wealth, and wholeness through the properties of… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Like the rest of the world, the Jewish world is reeling as the novel coronavirus spreads. We’ll be tracking the latest developments here. Have an idea or question? Reports of coronavirus in your community? Send us an email. A cluster of cases involves New York… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee alerted the thousands of activists who attended its conference this week that a New York group in attendance had been in contact with someone who has the virus. “To our knowledge, no one who attended the conference has tested positive… Read more »

Shlomit Norman was only 42 when doctors diagnosed her with multiple myeloma — a bone marrow cancer with no known cure that rarely strikes people under the age of 65. At the time, the youngest of her three boys was 10, and few patients with the disease survived for… Read more »