Tagged Coronavirus

(JTA) – Two days after New York City’s mayor called out “the Jewish community” when vowing to crack down on gatherings, city police intervened in another funeral in a Jewish neighborhood, resulting in a tense scene and at least one arrest. A video shared on Whatsapp showed a chaotic… Read more »

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic hate speech has risen dramatically since the start of the coronavirus crisis and must be rejected, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief said. “I am extremely concerned to see that certain religious leaders and politicians continue to exploit the challenging times… Read more »

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust imagery continue to be mainstays at anti-lockdown protests against governors and in state capitols. A placard at an anti-lockdown protest held Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, in front of the state capitol bore the image of the body of a rat standing on… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz signed a deal Monday to form a “national emergency government” that keeps Netanyahu as the prime minister for now. Israel has spent more than a year under a caretaker government as neither Netanyahu, who heads… Read more »

(JTA) — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis became emotional during a news briefing about the coronavirus crisis in his state when a reporter said that the public has compared his stay-at-home order to Nazism. “As a Jewish American who lost family in the Holocaust, I’m offended by any comparison to… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has pledged $1 million to the World Health Organization, or WHO, to mitigate the suspension of U.S. funding. “Unfortunately, the US president has chosen this moment to halt funding to the WHO,” Harari and Itzik Yahav, his husband, wrote in… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — This time of year — the convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan — is peak tourism time for this city. This year is the first time since 1992 that all three festivals fall in the same month. But traveling as a tourist to Jerusalem right now… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Just a few weeks ago, most Americans were not familiar with the concept of Zoombombing. But as the COVID-19 pandemic forced many business, community and even social meetings online, Zoom increasingly became the platform of choice for videoconferencing. The rapid growth in its use came with… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish institutions and organizations that hope to keep paying their staffs through the coronavirus pandemic are again in limbo with the federal government having exhausted the $350 billion set aside for payroll relief. The Paycheck Protection Program, which is administered through the Small Business Administration, doled… Read more »

Senior living facilities in Southern Arizona and all across the country have been on lockdown for several weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, with non-essential visitors not allowed. “This means no family and friends, and it also means no exercise teachers, musical performers, Shabbat service leaders, lecturers, Torah study… Read more »

B’nai B’rith Strauss Manor requests donations of DVDs/Blu-Rays and art supplies to occupy residents during the coronavirus pandemic. The Gerd and Inge Strauss Manor is a federally assisted multi-family senior housing project with 81 apartments. “I’ve started a library where residents can check out movies,” says Luz E. Gallego, Strauss… Read more »

Gila Silverman

The last few weeks have been difficult, as our entire world has changed in response to the coronavirus. There have been times recently when I have been overwhelmed by fear and sadness and grief. At other times, I have savored the quiet of a slowed-down life and been awed… Read more »

Marvin Slepian, M.D.

A renowned researcher at the University of Arizona Health Sciences has taken the university’s reputation as a basketball powerhouse to a new level — designing an easily manufactured and low-cost ventilator prototype that uses a basketball to respond to the fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic. “We are in a period where ventilators… Read more »

Editor’s note (April 20): A fourth round of Downtown Tucson Partnership gift cards, worth $35 but costing $25, will go on sale here on Wednesday, April 22 at 6 a.m. HSL Properties helped fund the third round, which sold out in less than 15 minutes, and is also sponsoring… Read more »

After the deluge of negative headlines over the last several weeks, when COVID-19 is finally beaten back, it will be the scenes of police cordoning off Bnei Brak like a medieval plague city that will define the corona crisis for most Israelis and international observers. These media attacks, which… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Sitting at my Seder table with my two eldest daughters and my wife, I was struggling to find something to say that would provide meaning to this moment. Here we were: alone, beginning a Passover unlike any other we had ever experienced and, please God, will… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Every Passover, we strive to experience Egypt in our own lives. Locating the suffering of our Egypt wasn’t hard this year: It seems like most days my husband and I share the names of new people we personally know who have passed away from COVID-19… Read more »

REHOVOT, Israel (JTA) — To help my kehillah survive the coronavirus pandemic, I had to do something dramatic and counterintuitive: step away from being its official rabbi. Our faith communities need spiritual leaders in these trying times more than ever. But as a non-Orthodox rabbi in Israel, I am largely… Read more »

(JTA) — A senior Catholic priest in Romania priest who referenced fear of the coronavirus during a sermon about Christian disciples’ fear of Jews said that people who accused him of anti-Semitic speech were “biased” against him. Francisc Dobos, the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Bucharest, wrote this on… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Jewish community’s expression of solidarity with Chinese Americans during the coronavirus pandemic has yielded an unexpected return: scads of personal protective equipment for Jewish organizations. David Bernstein, the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish public policy umbrella that initiated the solidarity… Read more »