Locked Down No More?
At this point, the restrictions are being eased—and Israelis are becoming increasingly doubtful that we should be taking the remaining restrictions seriously.
At this point, the restrictions are being eased—and Israelis are becoming increasingly doubtful that we should be taking the remaining restrictions seriously.
On Tuesday, members of the Conference of Presidents will vote on the approval of Dianne Lob as the next chairwoman of the organization, a two-year position that would make her the group’s top lay leader. Initially, she was supposed to take office immediately upon approval, but a last-minute change will make Lob chair-elect for the next year, after which she will assume the chairmanship—more on that later.
A year later, we speak every day, staying close during this pandemic. Helena, soon to turn 96, is quarantined alone inside her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It’s a home filled with memories. Photographs, books and artwork, much of it from her travels, cover walls and shelves. But her kitchen calendar, once abrim with engagements—lunches, dinners, concerts, plays—is now blank.
The ten organizations listed here invite you to learn something new, join a conversation, watch a performance and, when possible, give what you can.
“The Rabbis do not teach us to praise or to thank God for the bad. Praise and thanks for suffering is a game for masochists and fools. We are only taught to bless the Eternal, to humbly bend our knees and to present this gift of our understanding to the Holy One, Blessed Be.”
In the days leading up to the lockdown, the Milanese Jewish community behaved “like good soldiers,” Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, director of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDEC), tells Moment, respecting public health ordinances and avoiding scenes reminiscent of those coming out of Brooklyn and Bnei Brak of minyanim gone rogue.
“Even after all these years, I find it soul wrenching that so many people, with names known and unknown, perished in the great withering of humanity known as the Shoah.”
Today, before the sirens went off, hundreds of volunteers throughout Jerusalem placed a flag and a potted plant outside the doors of survivors, and as the sirens blared, they stood with them, but at the required six-foot distance, so that they would not be alone. And on-duty police officers called to survivors to come to their porches during the siren, and saluted them.
Ira N. Forman, Moment Institute’s Senior Fellow and former U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and Nadine Epstein, Moment Editor-in-Chief, discuss the impact of the coronavirus and anti-Semitism being seen around the world.
In January, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), in partnership with the Muslim World League (MWL), brought 62 Muslims and 20 Jews from 28 countries together for a two-day interfaith mission in Poland.
If people don’t feel safe going to the polling station, or if large gatherings and close contact are still deemed dangerous, why not allow all voters to fulfill their civic duty through the mail?
Unlike the rest of the country, the residents of the hotel aren’t in lock-down. Or at least, not within the hotel. “We can do whatever we want. We’ve arranged schedules for ourselves. We play games, we listen to music, we dance, we do yoga, I do standup, we hang out, some people pray. We eat a lot. “