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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

Superintendent Laura Feijoo and BOE president Amy Moselhi update the New Rochelle school community on coronavirus. Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Young Israel of New Rochelle had an onlinePurim party because they couldnt gather at their synagogue this week.

The congregants check in on one another. They get plenty of takeout food that issimply left at the door.

Some make meals for one another. They check in on their neighbors and have stayedisolated since March 3, as the state prescribed, when the first of its members was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus that has now spread to 108 confirmed cases tied to the temple or the city.

The shul put a form on its website for anyone who needs help.

"We have been model citizens. We shut down our synagogue and our entire membership after one case. We didnt wait for a cluster," said one congregant, who declined to use his name for concerns about stoking dissension.

There is also some growing frustration about why they have been the focal point in New York, as well as what they view as a lack of clear answers over an edict Tuesday that put that them the middle of a one-mile containment area.

Schools, houses of worship and other large gathering places within the containment area will need to be closed through March 25, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's directive. That includes schools in New Rochelle and neighboring Tuckahoe.

More: National Guard heads to New Rochelle for coronavirus 'containment area'; Yonkers horse trainer dies in NJ

Ribbons outside of Young Israel In New Rochelle March 9, 2020.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

Some synagogue members question why a blanket quarantine of more than 1,000 people in the community remains, even for those who have tested negative, didn't come in contact with a coronavirus patient and have not been sick.

The same mandates have not been applied to other neighboring communities where some cases have been found, they said.Some tests have taken days to get back results; others came in more quickly, adding to their frustrations, some members said.

"No one who has been asymptomatic has been requested to self quarantine except for Young Israel of New York, unless you were in very close contact with someone who was positive," said another congregant, who also refused to use his name.

Local officials said they recognize the frustration: The congregants' lives have been upended.

"I think that we have not gotten a good explanation as to why them, especially if someone who has not been in contact" with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, who represents the community.

"Maybe theres a public health reason, but we are unaware of it because no one is explaining to them or me."

More: Containment area in New Rochelle because of coronavirus: What you need to know

But Paulin and other officials said they have been overwhelmed by the roughly 400-family synagogue's resolve.

"Considering the stress and the obvious difficulty of being essentially captive in your own home, they have been remarkable," Paulin said.

"I have a never seen a group of people really come together as well as this groupinsuch a hard situation."

More: With a shortage of hand sanitizer due to coronavirus, NY is making its own with prison labor

This is the area that will be part of the New Rochelle coronavirus 'containment area,' where large gathering spaces like schools and temples will be closed through March 25, 2020.(Photo: Courtesy: NYS Governor's Office)

The concern started last Tuesday, March 3, when the state announceda congregant who had become gravely ill had tested positive for coronavirus. He had spent fourdays inNewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in neighboring Bronxville.

After the member, a Manhattan attorney, was transferred toNewYork-Presbyterian in Manhattan, the Westchester County health department said there would be a precautionary quarantine of about 1,000 people associated with the temple who may have come in contact with him at the events the week prior.

The number of cases in the community has since skyrocketed, leading Cuomo to announce the containment area on Tuesday and orderthe National Guard to assist residents and disinfect the public areas in the neighborhood.

Cuomo stressed the area isn't on lock down, just large public facilities will be closed and major gatherings will be cancelled.

"Wehave 108 cases in New Rochelle. I think you get an idea, New York City only has 36. New York City is 100 times the size of New Rochelle, OK?" Cuomo said Wednesday on MSNBC.

"So what the containment means is just large gatherings in that area are postponed. People can go and come, etc. It's not a quarantine area, but no large gatherings because that's where it's spreading obviously."

Sen. Shelley Mayer, D-Yonkers, whose district includes the New Rochelle containment area, praised Young Israel for its response to the outbreak.

"They have conducted themselves with tremendous calm and dignity and responsiveness to the science," Mayer said.

"I did reach out at one point to the president of the board just to say we're there for anything they need."

She said the disruption to her district has left her with a "heavy heart," but she understands why the Cuomo administration took the action itdid.

"I defer to the science and I think (state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker) took what I think he believes is the correct scientific position," Mayer said. "I defer to that and I understand why the governor did, because we have to be ruled by science."

More: NY coronavirus live updates: Cuomo compares federal response to Hurricane Katrina

Young Israel of New Rochelle, right, and Wykagyl Country Club, left, on North Ave. in New Rochelle March 4, 2020.(Photo: Peter Carr and John Meore/The Journal News)

Cuomo said he hopes the containment zone through March 25 will keep the virus from spreading further within New Rochelle and beyond.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the number of cases in New Rochelle accounted for 62% of the states 173 cases and about 13% of the total across the U.S.

He said the effort is literally a matter of life and death. No one has died in New York from coronavirus yet, but Cuomo has repeatedly expressed concern for the elderly and those with existing respiratory issues.

Northwell Health on Long Island is setting up a satellite testing area in New Rochelle to more quickly identify who is positive or negative for coronavirus.

More: Coronavirus in New York: Spring break is coming. Should you travel? Here's what experts say

"Containment strategies focus on geographic areas," Cuomo told reporters Tuesday. New Rochelle "is the single greatest public health challenge we have in this state right now."

The wife of the first case at the synagogue wrote Tuesday on Facebook that her husband was still hospitalized.

"I want my husband to get better and hope to have to worry about trying to explain to him all that has transpired while he was sleeping," she wrote.

"But I also recognize that maybe he is a messenger of something good, that his illness was able to make us all aware of the problem. Just maybe he wont be just the one with bad luck, but the one who can to bring this to an end. This will end. Quarantines will work and we will all be stronger for it."

More: Q&A: Are schools in New York now required to close when coronavirus is diagnosed?

Young Israel synagogue in New Rochelle in March 4, 2020.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

The woman's comments are indicative of the strength the congregation has shown, said New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, who himself lives in the containment area.

"I think some frustration is certainly understandable. When one is confided to ones home for an extended period of time, it is extremely disruptive and grows more with each passing day," Bramson said.

"And yet, my sense is that the great majority of congregants understand the public health stakes of abiding by the quarantine and recognize that this is one of the significant hotspots in the entire country."

The synagogue's rabbi, who also tested positive for COVID-19, has offered spiritual guidance to congregants, allowing them to continue to rely on their faith to get through the difficult period, saidElliotForchheimer, CEO of the Westchester Jewish Council.

Forchheimer sent an email to congregants praising them for the adherence to the quarantine and their resilience.

"Unfortunately, they are poster child at least nationally if not internationally of this virus," Forchheimersaid.

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He said they have had "enormous spiritualleadership and counseling by their rabbi in keeping them focused that this too will pass, and as citizens we do the right thing and we follow the guidelines and that is thebest thing to ensure that we get healthy and everybody else will get healthy as soon as possible."

More: Coronavirus in NY: Cornell University students will study remotely after spring break

More: Coronavirus in NY: A woman infected with COVID-19 walked into an ER. Here's what happened next

Joseph Spector is the New York state editor for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JSPECTOR@Gannett.com or followed on Twitter: @GannettAlbany

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How a New Rochelle synagogue is coping as an epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus spread - Lohud

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

The $5.45 million that has been donated to Tree of Life*Or LSimcha following the October 2018 shooting that killed 11 worshippersthe deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. historywill be given to survivors, first responders, congregations and families of the victims.

The victims families will receive more than $3 million; those who were in the building during the shooting and survived will get $215,162; and those who were on the premises will be given $23,905.

About $1.3 million will be allocated towards rebuilding or restoring the synagogue.

Two of the congregations in the building, Dor Hadash and New Light, will each receive more than $240,000.

Another $200,000 will be given in honor of the first responders, while around $234,000 will be donated towards memorialization.

The three congregations requested and accepted an independent panels recommendations on how the donations from around the world should be allocated.

This funding is separate from theVictims of Terror fund, which was created by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and which raised another $6.3 million.

The federation announced the distribution for those funds in March 2019, with the majority going to the individuals who suffered the most immediate impact, and with other funds going to such recipients as the congregations, the first responders and a memorial, reported The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which also wrote on about how the $5.45 million was allocated.

No amount of money can fully compensate for loss of life, serious wounds and congregational damage, said the panel in its report, though that it hopes that these payments will serve as a comforting reminder of the expression of compassion that came from thousands of people around the world.

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$5.4 million donated to those most affected by Pittsburgh synagogue shooting - Cleveland Jewish News

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

(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 synagogues smaller sanctuary. Instead, some 1,500 people watched Weiner lead the prayers on their computers.

The synagogue hasnt been holding any services for 10 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed 21 lives in Washington state and thousands around the world.

Though there wasnt a physical minyan, the quorum of 10 people required to say certain prayers, Weiner realized that in the virtual space we were well above a minyan.

It felt unusual but I think we are all in vastly unusual circumstances, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Monday. We are all kind of rewriting how we do things.

Indeed, Jewish communities around the world are engaging in the same kind of rethinking as the coronavirus spreads, turning long-standing communal practices into potentially dangerous behaviors. Synagogues are reconsidering every aspect of their offerings, from whether to hold services to how to serve food to exactly how congregants should encounter ritual objects.

The changes are being made rapidly, with limited and shifting guidance from health authorities, and different communities are coming to different conclusions. Whats clear, however, is that the epidemic could have long-lasting consequences for communal Jewish life.

Ordinarily, the worshippers who attend Friday evening services at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, an unaffiliated synagogue in New York City, are asked to touch each other during the Hamotzi, the blessing over the bread. But the synagogue sent community members an email on Monday instructing them to instead focus on our spiritual connection.

Beit Simchat Torah has recruited members who are scientists and doctors to serve on a team to make recommendations for the community.

In the email, members were told to take a number of precautions when attending services. They include avoiding the custom of kissing ritual objects such as mezuzahs, prayer books and the Torah scroll.

As an alternate greeting to kissing and handshakes, members were told they should instead touch elbows, or wave, or do the Spock live long and prosper Priestly hand blessing!

The synagogue already livestreams its Friday evening services, but now will also be making its Saturday services available online. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum is also reaching out to older members who may not be safe attending services in person.

It saddens me for some of our folks who are older they might not have a partner, they dont have children, so self-quarantining means real isolation, she said. My goal is to make sure all the folks who are in that situation are getting contact from us and being connected to community.

Kleinbaum said her congregation draws on its history in how to deal with the current situation.

CBST, as the LGBT synagogue in NY, has gone through a plague before, she said referring to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, during which 40% of its membership died. We have a lot of wisdom and spiritual depth about dealing with these kinds of situations and were doing everything we can to follow all the protocols recommended by science and by the CDC.

Similarly, Mishkon Tephilo, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles Venice Beach, is still holding services but is taking steps to reduce the spread of germs.

The synagogue is installing automatic hand sanitizer pumps in the building and worshippers have been asked to wave at the Torah rather than touch it with their tzitzit fringes, as is customary. Individual rolls are being served instead of a large challah, and there likely wont be any candy thrown at a bat mitzvah that is planned for this weekend, according to Rabbi Gabriel Botnick.

Its a little weird being a loving warm community where we cant actually be in touch as much, but the biggest concern we have is for the elderly in our community, Botnick said.

Many synagogues are making the decision to cancel or scale back gatherings, including regular services. Rabbi Barry Leff of Herzl-Ner Tamid, a Conservative synagogue just outside Seattle on Mercer Island, Washington, said he examined each event individually before deciding whether to proceed.

Purim celebrations were canceled and people were urged to watch the synagogues megillah reading online rather than attend.

Still, turnout at the bat mitzvah was lower than usual. And the synagogue hired servers for the luncheon following the service to avoid a buffet-style setup where germs could more easily spread.

These decisions are difficult because these are things that people look forward to and theyre important to use as a community, but our priority is keeping everyone healthy and safe, Leff said.

Leffs congregants had spent significant time working on a Purim spiel a satirical play traditionally performed as part of the holiday celebration. Instead of doing it without a live audience, the members will perform it next Purim.

For many congregations, Purim posed a difficult question: whether to go forward with the festivities associated with the one-day holiday at a time when most communities have no documented cases of the coronavirus.

Some landed on compromises. At Skylake Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation in North Miami Beach, Florida, the megillah reading proceeded as usual, but the party and costume contest afterward were canceled.

During the megillah reading, people are just seated. They listen to it, then they go home, Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun said. [During] the party, people are crowding and just standing very close to one another, they are mingling, they are coughing, they are drinking, they are eating, and also the costume contest is canceled because people get really close to one another and they crowd and we decided that its just not safe.

Other synagogues went forward with their plans.

Ohev Sholom-the National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., an Orthodox congregation, held its regularly scheduled Purim celebrations both Monday and Tuesday. But it also livestreamed the megillah readings for those who were unable to attend and recruited volunteers to give out hamantaschen using serving utensils so that fewer people than usual would touch the pastries directly.

One has to strike a very careful balance with this type of thing between being safe and enacting proper precautions but also not inducing panic, and we feel that we should follow government guidelines, that we should not be doing more than they recommend, said Maharat Ruth Friedman, a clergy member at the synagogue. We completely understand what has led communities to make that decision [to cancel], it was just not something that we felt was essential.

Some Jewish clergy say the crisis is drawing their attention to aspects of their communities that they dont want to see change.

On Saturday, Rabbi Mira Rivera led services for about 10 people at Romemu, the Jewish Renewal synagogue in New York City where she serves as a rabbinic fellow. Usually at least 100 worshippers show up for Saturday morning services, but instead they were asked to watch via livestream.

I really had to take a moment of appreciation for our crowds, for community, for those things that we take for granted, she said. We take for granted that were going to be many. We take for granted space.

But others see a silver lining in the fact that the public health crisis has caused them to take a hard look at practices that were ripe for revisiting.

Last Shabbat, congregants who read from the Torah at Temple Emanuel of the Pascack Valley, a Conservative synagogue in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, each used a chopstick rather than everyone sharing the yad, the pointer that is traditionally used to follow along in the text.

Passing the yad from one to another is the same as shaking hands. The germs pass, too, Cantor Alan Sokoloff wrote on Facebook, explaining why he had substituted chopsticks. After each reading, the reader took his chopstick home and/or disposed of it. After Shabbat, one of my readers sent me a picture of his memorialized chopstick [hed written the] parsha and date. A new trend perhaps?

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Synagogues are getting creative amid the coronavirus outbreak - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

An independent committee charged with distributing more than $5 million in donations to the Tree of Life*Or LSimcha Congregation in Pittsburgh has issued its final recommendations and will begin distributing the funds to the victims, families and communities affected by the deadly October 2018 terror attack.

By the numbers:

Donations from near and far: Tree of Life president Sam Schachner told Jewish Insider that donations poured in from all over the world. Several individuals set up online campaigns, with the largest raising $1.265 million organized by an Iranian immigrant. It was overwhelming how generous people were. We received tremendous donations, several hundred thousand dollars from the Islamic community in Pittsburgh, the same from the Catholic diocese, and both financial and emotional support from the Sikh temple in town, Schachner said. It has been a complete cross-cultural experience and continues to be.

The aftermath: Neither Tree of Life*Or LChadash nor its two tenant congregations have moved back into the synagogue space, which will undergo a complete renovation, using the donated funds, expected to begin in 2021. Weve been very victim-centered on how we move forward and victims and their families needed a certain amount of time before going back in Weve had a lot of people going through a lot of trauma. The complex will be rebuilt with partners including the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and a local university, Schachner said. While no final decision has yet been made about whether the current synagogue buildings there are three will be razed, Schachner said it is likely that the sanctuary building will remain while the other two that are part of its complex will be replaced.

Previous support: Last year, when the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburghs Victims of Terror Fund distributed more than $6.3 million, Tree of Life*LOr Chadash was given $450,000. The same local independent committee, led by Giant Eagle supermarket chain CEO David Shapira, made recommendations about the disbursement of both collections of donated funds.

In the meantime: With no space to hold large events, the congregations have benefited from the kindness of other Pittsburgh religious institutions, including the citys Calvary Episcopal Church, which gave the community its sanctuary to use for High Holiday services. It really helped us learn how much in common we have, said Schachner. The congregation is renting space for its regular services from a local Reform temple less than a mile away.

Chag sameach: Tree of Life*Or LChadash held rehearsals for its Purim shpiel at the church, with several pastors involved they plan to come to Purim services to do it again, Schachner said. It shows us how much love there is that dwarfs the hate that spawned the situation.

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rebuilding Pittsburgh donations distributed to victims and to synagogue rebuilding efforts - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

[Update: On Monday, several suburban schools and private universities announced closings.]

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. There will be no merrymaking, no buzzing noisemakers and no toddlers dressed up as biblical kings and queens: Purim, the joyous Jewish festival that begins on Monday evening, has been canceled for the congregants of Young Israel of New Rochelle.

Their rabbi has the coronavirus. Their temple was locked last week on the order of the Westchester County health commissioner. And more than 100 families are self-quarantined after one congregant, Lawrence Garbuz, 50, a lawyer from New Rochelle, contracted the virus.

Fear of the spread of the coronavirus 82 people have been infected in Westchester County, including Mr. Garbuzs family and neighbors has upended Purim plans far beyond this small city five miles north of New York Citys borders. The tight-knit nature of the Jewish community, a point of pride, now has a downside: In a world where so many people are interconnected, the risk of transmission rises sharply.

And, as the numbers of the infected climbed over the weekend, Jewish communities that are swept up in an international epidemic considered how to prevent religious life, and Purim, from becoming an incubator of illness.

Some New York synagogues are pre-slicing the challah bread, which is typically torn, to minimize touching. Others have done away with the kiddush cup, a communal goblet of sacramental wine. Rather than bringing Purim baskets of triangular hamantaschen cookies to neighbors, one Westchester synagogue will now only leave the traditional packages on doorsteps.

At more than one synagogue, congregants received an email this week asking them to no longer kiss the Torah scroll in reverence.

There is a need for community for prayer to exist, that is how we thrive and pray as a Jewish people, said Amanda C. Greenawalt, a director at Bnai Jeshurun, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which, like the Fifth Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, has canceled its Purim carnival.

At Bnai Jeshurun, the decision followed discussions with the rabbi, which led to the conclusion that there was no way to keep the bouncy castle sanitized. We have to be together as a community, to live our lives every day, Ms. Greenawalt said. But this is challenging us not to do so.

Twenty miles south of New Rochelle, on the Upper West Side, the Romemu synagogue announced that it had canceled Purim at least as an in-person celebration. It will instead be broadcast online and via Facebook Live.

Members of the congregation had interacted in recent days with people affiliated with Yeshiva University in Manhattan and SAR Academy in the Bronx, which were both closed last week over coronavirus concerns linked to Mr. Garbuzs children, who attend the schools, said Jeffrey Cahn, Romemus executive director.

Rather than waiting two, three or four weeks, we would rather be careful now, Mr. Cahn said.

Just before evening prayers on Friday, congregants at Bet Am Shalom, a Reconstructionist synagogue in White Plains, were notified that Sabbath, and later Purim services including the synagogues beloved annual play, or spiel would not go forward. The congregation would pray via audio livestream instead. (White Plains is 10 miles northwest of New Rochelle, where a doctor was confirmed to have the virus on Friday.)

Jewish tradition says that we must do what is required to preserve life and health, an email from the temple said.

Even in places where Purim is still on, precautions have imposed a new reality on ancient traditions: At Town & Village Synagogue in the East Village, Rabbi Larry Sebert has instructed congregants not to cover their eyes with their hands, as is customary during the sacred Shema prayer, to avoid transmitting pathogens.

To create the new protocols, temples have turned to a body of rabbinical guidance that has been issued since the outbreak began. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, which guides the conservative movement, said that some teleconferencing for prayers was permissible for sick people.

The Orthodox Union, which governs Orthodox Jews, reminded followers it was acceptable to miss even the holiest prayers if a person has the coronavirus.

In her most recent Sabbath sermon, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan gave a demonstration of new ways to wish one another Shabbat shalom, with elbow bumps instead of hugs, and had congregants practice the gesture.

We have a strong tradition of never canceling services, said Rabbi Kleinbaum, who added that the congregations 1980s-themed Purim party would still be held: People need to be with each other; the isolation is terrifying.

There are bright spots: Young Israel of Scarsdale will hold an al fresco Purim service, on doctors advice that the open air will minimize chances of transmission. But the rabbis 11-year-old son will not be there: He is quarantined at home, after Westchester Day School in Mamaroneck was closed after potential exposure.

After services, his father, Rabbi Jonathan Morgenstern, will throw him a private Purim, so he can still wear his storm trooper costume, the rabbi said.

And on Purim night in New Rochelle, even though many families are sequestered in their houses as is Reuven Fink, the rabbi of Young Israel, as he recovers from the coronavirus they will still hear the traditional oration of the Purim story, or Megillah.

Rabbinical students are planning to rove the neighborhood, chanting the ancient text through the windows of quarantined familys homes standing, of course, at a doctor-approved minimum of 15 feet away.

They are being responsible and sitting home, so they dont endanger others, Rochel Butman, the director of Chabad of Westchester, a Hasidic Jewish outreach group, said of her quarantined neighbors. She organized the wandering minstrel-style reading (and consulted with doctors about its advisability), which will be performed by students from Yeshiva Mesivta Menachem, in nearby Hastings-on-Hudson.

Over 70 quarantined families have signed up so far, she said.

Nobody is forgetting about them, going on with their life, buying Purim baskets and going on without thinking of them, Ms. Butman said.

Liam Stack contributed reporting.

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Purim Festivities Were Set, Costumes and All. Then Coronavirus Struck - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

In the early 1990s, some forgotten soul on the internet coined the term meatspace to refer to the offline area that most of us think of as the real world. The term has always been only half a joke: Its funny to think about the real world as secondary to cyberspace, but many people really do operate this way, spending the greater part of their life efforts in digital realms. As computers and smartphones have become better and more readily available, and as virtual meetings have become more common in both professional and social settings, the idea that meatspace and cyberspace are rough equivalents has become increasingly plausible; over time, many of the activities that chiefly took place in the former, like shopping and working and talking to other people, have slowly but inexorably become virtualized.

In imagining the effects of COVID-19 on this dynamic, its useful to think about virtualization as a kind of human migration. Until now, this migration has mostly been driven by pull factors: When online interactions seem more fun or more convenient or cheaper than real-world interactions, people virtualize their activities. Novel coronavirus, on the other hand, is a major, global, and sudden push factor: Rather than make virtual spaces better, it has made meatspace much, much worse. The virtualization that accompanies this retreat from physical space will find a virtual space that is not fully ready for what it is being asked to do. In this crisis moment, there are two paths forward: Either virtual space can quickly be adapted to serve new needs, or it can be abided temporarily until meatspace comes back online. This is a dilemma facing workplaces, schoolsand houses of worship.

Since the first U.S. confirmed case of novel coronavirus less than two months ago, synagogues, along with other houses of worship, have massively disrupted services in order to stem the spread of the virus. In epicenters of the outbreak, like New Rochelle, New York, government officials have ordered synagogues closed, sending even major events like a bar mitzvah to videoconference. Even when not required to do so, however, many other synagogues have preemptively canceled services and suspended schools out of an abundance of caution. To compensate, many synagogues have ramped up their streaming options. On Purim this week, for instance, Rabbi Dan Margulies of Riverdale Minyan presided over a megillah reading featuring 60 to 80 physical and an additional 100 virtual participants, many of the latter sitting in front of their webcams in full costume. These improvised solutions are good for the moment, but before the novelty of these solutions wears off, we need to ask what is gained from the virtualization of ritual, and whether the benefits involved outweigh their large and potentially permanent risks.

*

The dilemma of virtual religious congregation is not a purely logistical problem. Whereas offices are for working and schools are for learning, most of the purpose of going to synagogue is simply to be present: to be present with others, and to be present for the performance of ritual. For offices and schools, physical presence is a means; for religious spaces, presence is the goal. Whether that goal is reached with a virtual substitute is emphatically not just a question of resources and convenience; it is, instead, a referendum on the limits of virtual presence itself. Despite the internets extensive religious infrastructure, this is not a referendum that most religious communities were prepared to have. As religious communities choose their paths, it is worth looking at how this wave of virtualization is different from what has already taken place.

Virtual ritual spaces are as old as the internet itself. While a few of these spaces are exclusively onlinea Second Life synagogue here, a virtual reality church therethe vast majority of religious virtual spaces exist only to supplement some real-world experience. Online text-study programs, like Project Zug, have gained in popularity in recent years, but are still a long way from replacing the beit midrash as the locus of Torah study. Many synagogues livestream their services, hoping to accommodate both aging members and those too timid to set foot inside a real synagogue, but despite their growing popularity these broadcasts have never seriously competed with in-person attendance. This is not for lack of trying; in the internets three decades there have been countless attempts to turn corners of the internet into the primary meeting spaces for religious communities. While these experiments sometimes succeed at small scale, they have never posed a serious threat to real-world spaces (although the internet itself may be making people less religious). Despite the many real-world experiences that have consumed by virtual equivalents, ritual gathering has remained a stubbornly real-world phenomenon.

This stubbornness has often been reinforced by Jewish law. Long before the internet, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenburg (d. 2006) strongly rejected the possibility of constituting a minyan through radio transmissions, as did Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (d. 1995). Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who championed the use of every manner of broadcasting technology, told his followers that the requirement to hear the megillah read on Purim needed to be fulfilled in person. More recently, the tens of thousands of men participating in the siyyum hashas at the Met Life stadium were instructed that one should not respond amen to any blessings heard over the loudspeakers.

Today, there exist a range of opinions on the viability of virtual gatherings, but even the most permissive want some number of peopleat least a minyans worthto meet in person, even if most are participating online. The Conservative movements Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has ruled that a person may recite Kaddish while connected to a synagogue via a live feedbut only if someone in the synagogue is reciting it at the same time. This arrangement makes the virtual contingent resemble nothing so much as the womens balcony of an Orthodox synagogue: present but dependent, more onlooker than participant, unable to constitute a quorum in and of itself.

But what if the physical option is forcibly removed? Traumatic communal experiencesespecially migrationsoften lead to ritual transfer, and some of these transfers have landed rituals in virtual space. The Dalai Lama, for example, has strongly leaned into the power of virtual community for the approximately 150,000 Tibetans living in exile; a 2014 Kalachakra ceremony, documented by Dr. Christopher Helland at Dalhousie University, was carefully livestreamed specifically for this purpose, and Tibetan Buddhist monks are working to create virtual-reality experiences of religious sites that most practitioners will never get to see in person. Helland has confirmed to me that the Dalai Lama sometimes expressly tells virtual congregants that their telepresence is no different from the real thing.

Despite the Dalai Lamas assertion, virtual ritual spaces certainly dont feel like the real thing. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, one thing that has become apparent is that religious meetups involve a lot of touching, both of other people and of communal objects. Synagogues have had to ask people not to kiss prayer books or Torah scrolls. In Mecca, authorities have banned supplicants from touching the Kaaba shrine. Some Catholic churches have removed holy water from public fonts, others have suspended the practice of drinking wine from a single chalice and in others the Communion wafer is being given by hand (as opposed to being placed on the tongue) or not at all. It is hard to imagine communal religious experiences that are not tactile.

In the moment, the exile from physical ritual spaces will likely give virtual spaces a boost, and many people will be generous with their online presence, knowing that these virtual spaces are trying to fill a physical hole. Some people may find a level of community in virtual spaces that they previously had not thought possible. Eventually, though, real-world meetings will resume; some activities will return to the real world, but others may remain virtual. With regards to the synagogue, we are likely to find that the difference between cant go to services and dont want to go to services might become a fair bit more complicated. In the face of this impending and potentially permanent transformation, there is a choice to be made: Is physical presence an integral part of religious community, or is that just the way things have been done so far?

*

Judaism, as with other religions, has a tendency to be defined by the ways in which it doesnt get with the times. The Torah scroll is special because everyone else moved on to books and Jews didnt. The grogger used to be an ordinary siren. Shabbat became defined as a day without electronics because rabbis long ago prohibited the use of electricity on that day.

Much as the Conservative movements decision to allow congregants to drive to the synagogue on Saturdays transformed the geography of Conservative communities, the use of ritual spaces that are primarily virtual is bound to transform any community that sanctions them. If religious leaders bow to pressure to sanctify virtual space, even as a stopgap measure, we may see a new attrition in physical attendance, which in turn will motivate the services themselves to be more appealing to virtual audiences, which in turn will make physical attendees wonder why they bothered to show up in person. These services will undoubtedly be more accessiblebut they may also be shallower. If, on the other hand, religious leaders insist on the distinctiveness of physical gathering at a time when there are both long-term and acute pressures to move to virtual space, physical space will quickly become a defining feature of religious community.

This latter path is, I think, the right way to proceed. Virtual communities, despite their many good qualities, cannot replace all of the functionality of physical ones; in fact, as Sherry Turkle noted almost a decade ago, virtual communities can actually make users feel more isolated. Despite the pervasiveness of this problem, especially among the young, most religious communities have spent little time articulating anything more than vague positions about why the internet can be dangerous and why its use should be curtailed. In the present global crisis, in which so many religious institutions have turned to virtual refuges, there is an opportunity for these communities to give full-throated articulations of what it means to be present in virtual space, and what it would meanif it is possible at allfor those spaces to retain a modicum of sanctity.

***

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David Zvi Kalman is a Fellow in Residence at the Shalom Hartman Institute and the founder of an independent Jewish publishing house.

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Shul in the Time of Coronavirus - Tablet Magazine

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

Ive repeatedly issued warnings that ones behavior must be in accordance with the judgment of the doctors and not violate their instructions, said Rabbi Akiva Eiger, a renowned adjudicator of Jewish law in the early 19th century. He wrote these words during a cholera outbreak in Europe.

Sure enough, these words also opened a statement by the Chief Rabbinate last week to Israels religious Jews. Every public gathering raises a concern of infection, God forbid, so it is obligatory to observe rules of hygiene, the Rabbinate wrote. It then lists instructions like airing out synagogues and strictly observing the quarantine orders.

The coronavirus panic hasnt passed over the religious-Zionist and ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, communities. Haredi media outlets are covering the issue extensively and it has been making front-page news. The outbreak has become an epidemic, read a recent headline in English-language publication Yated Neeman.

The Haredi news websites, meanwhile, are reporting every update, with an emphasis on new confirmed cases of people who spent time in Haredi neighborhoods.

Bibi limps to election 'victory.' But he didn't winHaaretz Weekly Podcast

Anyone who must be in quarantine according to the health authorities guidelines is categorically forbidden to break the quarantine to pray with a quorum and must observe the instructions, says the Chief Rabbinates document, which was issued the day after another order from the Rabbinate: Dont kiss mezuzahs. One must remember the words of the Tosafot: A man must take greater care not to harm others than not to harm himself.

The document states that in general one can maintain his or her routine while taking precautions, but then comes a long list of halakhic Jewish law guidelines regarding hearing the Torah reading and reading the Megillat Esther the Book of Esther on Purim.

Anyone in quarantine must find a creative solution for hearing the reading of the megillah without coming out of quarantine, the statement reads. Anyone who lives on the ground floor or the first floor can hear the reading through a window. On higher floors one can hear the reading from the stairwell.

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Indeed, this week a raft of photos have been published, mainly from the Chabad movement, of readings provided on the street, in courtyards or through doorways.

Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein, a member of Degel Hatorahs Council of Torah Sages, issued a halakhic ruling that anyone meant to be in quarantine must not come to synagogue and must hear the megillah read by someone outside his home. Otherwise, he could infect others and God forbid be guilty of the sin of bloodshed.

Zilberstein issued the ruling in response to a query from a department head at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv. He who answered Queen Esther and Mordechai the Jew will hear our cries and send a full recovery and remove the plague from our people, the rabbi wrote.

Another issue of concern is immersion in a mikveh, a ritual bath, especially for women, who must immerse every month under the rules of family purity.

The mikvehs for womens immersion are under constant supervision, so there is no reason to fear keeping the mitzvah of purity properly, the Rabbinates document states. However, anyone who must be in quarantine must postpone her immersion until she is permitted back out.

Im not afraid to go to synagogue, said a Haredi resident of Jerusalem. The Health Ministry hasnt said that its forbidden, so I dont see any difference between a synagogue and a school, sports event or a Purim event in the Mahaneh Yehuda Market.

But someone else was more cautious: My father has given up his Torah class and praying in his synagogue. Now Im trying to convince him not to go on Shabbat, either. Hes 70 and so the concern is greater.

Itzik Rahimi of Jerusalems Neveh Yaakov neighborhood noted that in his synagogue the towels near the sinks have been replaced with paper towels. His brother Yosef says the dean of his yeshiva is in quarantine but the students havent been given any special instructions.

Avichai, another neighborhood resident, told Haaretz that many Haredim arent aware of the risks. A lot of us arent hooked up to the media at all, and theres no panic here, he said. People are going on with their lives as if nothing were happening.

On the other hand, in the large Hasidic courts there have been orders to take precautions. The Belz Hasidic court ordered unmarried young men not to come to the courts main Purim meal due to the Health Ministrys order banning gatherings topping 2,000 people. The Gur Hasidic court ordered adherents from outside Jerusalem not to come to the central study hall on Purim.

This Purim has seen other changes. Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef decided not to receive the public as he usually does on the holiday. Due to the instructions of the Health Ministry, there will be no reception this year, reads a sign on a door, adding that names for blessings or mishloach manot Purim gifts of food can be left by the door.

In the home of Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, a leader of the Degel Hatorah party, extra tables were put in front of the rabbi to create a barrier between him and visitors who had come to seek his blessing, and he didnt shake anyones hand.

For now, the Haredi schools, like other schools, are operating normally, although the rabbis who advise the independent Hinukh Atzmai network said the schoolkids should read 10 chapters of Psalms every day.

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Israeli rabbis get with the program against the coronavirus - Haaretz

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

Maj. Haim Jibly recently received a letter approving his petition to continue volunteering in reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces, and his joy was palpable.

I felt like I won a million dollars, the 59-year-old retired grandfather said. My friends already for so many years [havent done] miluim (reserve duty), and there are crazies like me who believe in it and want to do it. I am still young in body and spirit, and I come (to reserve duty) happy. I love what I do. To do milium is Zionism. This is your contribution to the country.

Jibly volunteers in a special unit called EITAN the Missing in Action Accounting Unit. EITAN is responsible for investigating, locating and ensuring a proper burial for soldiers who went missing in action. In the early 1950s, then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously declared, We do not accept the notion of a fallen soldier buried anonymously.

With his attention to detail and trusty notebook always in his pocket, Jibly is like a Zionist Sherlock Holmes. Always with a witty line, an endearing anecdote, Jibly is a detective at heart. He loves people, stories, history and Israel. A former paratrooper, Jibly, whose last name comes from his familys ancestral village in Yemen, has been serving his country since the age of 18.

About 20 years ago, Jibly and his partner were assigned a case of two young men missing since 1947, before the State of Israel was founded. It was a time of espionage, double identities, illegal immigration and a lot of chutzpah. Gidon Berry and David Shemesh were in the pre-State military force the Palmach. Both originally from Baghdad, Berry and Shemesh spoke fluent Arabic and were part of the Palmachs Arab Platoon. The unit comprised Jews from Arab lands who could easily integrate into Arab circles, collecting intelligence and carrying out missions.

They spoke Arabic, they learned Islam so that they could go undercover, Jibly said. So they could build their cover story.

Always with a witty line, an endearing anecdote, Haim Jibly is a detective at heart. He loves people, stories, history and Israel.

Shemesh and Berry were 19 years old when they were stopped at a roadblock on the way into Jaffa. They were last seen on Dec. 22, 1947. Fast forward six decades, and Jibly is living in the northern town of Kiryat Bialik. He and his partner begin their investigation to find Berry and Shemesh. Its grueling work. We are obsessive. We go through every paper, every single movie clip, reports, files, Jibly said. Like a puzzle with so many pieces, we have to go through it to put them together.

Despite their disappearance generations ago, modern technology makes these once cold cases a bit warmer. Now we have better technology, Jibly said. We can look at DNA, for example. So when the remains of two bodies were found in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, the teams four to five years of investigative work was able to prove they were in fact the remains of Berry and Shemesh.

On Sept. 9, 2004, Berry and Shemesh were buried at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. Jibly was there.

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Major Haim Jibly: The Zionist Sherlock Holmes - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, Mich., at a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ahead of the Michigan primaries, March 7, 2020. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org An imam who addressed a March 7 rally for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) in Dearborn, Mich., has said that the Islamic State somehow is connected to Israel, and that ISIS is playing the role of the arm of the Zionists.

Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights,spokeat the TCF Center in downtown Detroit before the Michigan primaries on Tuesday.

I believe we need to send someone who cares about all Americans, and he treats them equally, said Qazwini in a speech before Sanders appeared on stage. We need someone who does not promote antisemitism in this country, someone who does not promote Islamophobia in this country, someone who does not promote white supremacy in this countrysomeone like Bernie Sanders who loves all and supports all.

However, in previous sermons, Qazwini said Sanders is an honorable man, even though he is a Jew, but you know we have no problem with the Jewish people.

March 11, 2020 11:28 pm

I have no doubt that ISIS is motivated by an agenda run by the enemies of Islam, said Qazwini during a speech in November 2015 at Az-Zahraa Islamic Center in Detroit.

He said that because Israel has been completely safe from ISIS, This speaks out. This speaks volumes: That ISIS somehow is connected to Israel, and ISIS is playing the role of the arm of the Zionist in the Muslim world to kill more Muslims and non-Muslims so it can define the name of Islam, so people can blame Islam for its atrocities.

ISIS hasthreatened warwith Israel.

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Imam Who Spoke at Sanders Rally Has Said ISIS is 'Arm of the Zionist' in Muslim World - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on March 12, 2020

Brooklyn College players Omar Rezika and Hunnan Butt kneel during Israel's National Anthem at Yeshiva University. | @StopAntisemites via Twitter

It was recently reported that two players from Brooklyn College received harsh criticism for kneeling during the playing of the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah before a game against Yeshiva University. In a subsequent statement, the president of Yeshiva U angrily claimed that the players disrespected Israels national anthem. StopAntisemitism.org claimed (falsely) that the players also refused to shake hands with members of the opposing team, tweeting angrily: antisemitism at its finest!In somewhat grudging support of its players, Brooklyn College released a statement condemning all forms of Anti-Semitism and hatred, but pointed out that theirkneeling was protected by the First Amendment.

Acts of protests such as these have long attracted withering backlash, from the Black Powerfists raised by Tommie Smith and John Carlos atthe 1968 Olympics orColin Kaepernicks kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Like the recent actions of the Brooklyn College volleyball players (who,I assume, intended their act as protest against Israels human rights abuses against Palestinians), athletes who take brave public stands such as these are often accused of disrespect. And invariably, these athletes almost always end up paying a significant personal price for their courage.

While it is heartening to know the Brooklyn College administration understands how this kind of protest is, in fact, a protected form of free speech, there was something else I found striking about this episode: Why was the Israeli national anthem being played at a sporting event between two American college teams in the first place?

In his statement, the president of Yeshiva University addressed this question, claiming it was an issue of religious freedom:

We are proud to be the only university who sings both the American and Israeli national anthems before every athletic competition and major event. Nothing makes me prouder to be an American than living in a country where our religious freedom, our Zionism and our commitment to our people will never be impeded and always be prized.

Im struck by the way this statement so easily conflates the Jewish religion with Zionismand how it frames the issue as one of commitment to (the Jewish) people. In an era of resurgent antisemitism, it is particularly troubling to me that Yeshiva University would so unabashedly proclaim its commitment to another nation-state, opening up American Jews to the time-honored canard of Jewish dual-loyalty.

Ironically, while Zionism has always purported to be a movement that seeks the safety and security of the Jewish people, it has historically aided and abetted the antisemitic trope of dual Jewish loyalty. Many Jewish opponents of Zionism have in fact pointed this out. For instance, in the wake of the 1917 Balfour Declaration (that pledged the British Foreign Offices support of a Jewish home in Palestine), the only Jewish member of Parliament, Edwin Montagu, fiercely opposed the statement, claiming it makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens.

Indeed, more than a century later, the dual loyalty canard is now being fanned by none other than the president of the United States, who referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as your Prime Minister when speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition and hassuggested that American Jews who chose to vote for Democrats were being disloyal. In light of the current political moment, Im not really sure we need to be exacerbating the most toxic antisemitic assumptions about American Jewish loyalties.

Personally speaking, Im notparticularly fond of national anthems, no matter where they might originate from. Ive long felt that loyalty to nation-states is a very short step away from chauvinism and xenophobia. Rather than argue over what nation we are truly loyal to, Id say it would be far more productive to lift up the importance of loyalty to the ideals of human rights and dignity for all, regardless of the national border we happen to live within.

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About that sticky question of dual loyalties - People's World

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