Coronavirus

What is it like to make aliyah from New Jersey precisely at a time when North American Jewry is suffering more heavily than Israel? Ahead of Yom Yerushalayim, Sarah Rindner, drawing on Yehuda ha-Levi and Yehudah Amichai, reflects.

Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman examine the halakhic permissibility of vaccine mandates by governments and employers.

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Given the duration of the pandemic, should we suffice with waiting to return to normal, or are there hard-fought lesssons we can reintroduce even once the pandemic passes? Lehrhaus Consulting Editor and Director of Education at Sefaria, Sara Wolkenfeld, uses our recent experiences to gain new perspective on what tefilla, minyan and shul are really all about.

Ben Greenfield looks at the similarity between Sefirah observances and quarantine, and suggests a new way to understand the connection.

Aryeh Dienstag and Penina Dienstag respond to the articles by Sharon Galper-Grossman, Shamai Grossman, and Alan Jotkowitz regarding vaccine allocation.

Yaakov Jaffe argues that kids would be better served by coming to shul for the beginning of the Shabbat davening rather than the end.

The creative responses of Jewish Day Schools to the pandemic demonstrate that the time has come to think out of the box and reimagine high school education. Hillel Rapp, Director of Education at Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto, outlines a provocative, comprehensive vision for reimagining high schools in the 21st century.

Stuart Halpern explains how, when faced with uncertainty, danger, and personal and communal hardships, Americans have turned to the story of the Exodus for inspiration.

How did the Talmud look at plagues? Miriam Reisler offers a close reading of a key halakhic and narrative section of Bava Kama.