Features
For Jewish law authorities, the coronavirus has caused an unprecedented flurry of questions
By BEN HARRIS April 3, 2020 (JTA) — As the coronavirus pandemic forces Jews around the world to contemplate a Passover holiday in which large family gatherings will be all but impossible, an unusual question posed to a group of Israeli rabbis led to an extraordinary answer.
The question was whether it might be permissible for families to use internet-enabled videoconferencing to celebrate the Passover seder together even as they are sequestered in separate homes. Orthodox Jewish practice normally prohibits the use of electronics on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, but might the unprecedented restrictions suddenly thrust upon billions of people permit an exception?
Remarkably, 14 Sephardic rabbis last week answered in the affirmative.
Some conditions were attached. The computer would have to be enabled prior to the onset of Passover and remain untouched for the duration of the holiday. And the leniency would only apply to the current emergency.
But given the unique importance of the seder ritual and the extreme conditions now in effect, the rabbis wrote, the use of videoconferencing technology is permitted “to remove sadness from adults and the elderly, to give them the motivation to continue to fight for their lives, and to avoid depression and mental weakness which could bring them to despair of life.”
The coronavirus pandemic has upended so many parts of life that it’s perhaps little surprise that it’s also having a significant impact in the field of Jewish law, or halacha. The sudden impossibility of once routine facets of observant Jewish life has generated a surge in questions never considered before — and modern technology means that Jews the world over are more able than ever to ask those questions and share their answers.
“I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this because of the proliferation of questions and because of the extraordinary means of communications,” said David Berger, a historian and dean of the Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University.
Among the questions rabbis have had to confront during the corona crisis: Is it permissible to constitute a Jewish prayer quorum over internet-enabled videoconference? Can married couples be physically intimate if the woman cannot immerse in a ritual bath because they are closed for public health reasons? How should burials be handled if authorities prohibit Jewish rituals around the preparation of bodies? Can synagogue services be livestreamed on Shabbat?
Rabbis are also beginning to consider some agonizing possibilities. Several Conservative movement authorities have published papers about what Jewish ethics has to say about medical triage, anticipating a moment when doctors may have to make difficult choices about who gets treatment.
“This has been ‘yomam valaylah’ — it’s been day and night,” said Rabbi Elliott Dorff, the co-chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the Conservative movement’s authority on questions of Jewish law. “Once this is all over, this is going to be a really interesting case study of how halacha evolves quickly when it needs to.”
In Romania, the government’s recent declaration that any coronavirus fatalities had to be buried immediately presented Chief Rabbi Rafael Shaffer with a tortuous dilemma: What if a Jewish person died on Shabbat? Burying the body immediately would have resulted in a clear violation of the Jewish Sabbath, but allowing the body to be cremated is also a severe violation of Jewish law.
“The burial should be done on Shabbat if necessary,” Shaffer told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after consulting with rabbinic authorities in Israel. “If it’s the only possibility to avoid cremation, then it should be done on Shabbat by non-Jews.”
For the moment, that situation remains in the realm of the theoretical. But other halachic questions are of urgent necessity. Many of the recent opinions have explicitly invoked the principle of “she’at had’chak” — literally “time of pressure,” a concept in Jewish law that permits a reliance on less authoritative opinions in emergency situations.
“No one thinks you can permit biblical violations for a pressure that doesn’t amount to threatening lives,” said Rabbi Aryeh Klapper, the Orthodox dean of the Center for Modern Torah Scholarship. “But maybe you can rely on less authoritative understandings of what the biblical prohibition is.”
The Conservative movement, which tends to take a more flexible line on matters of Jewish law than Orthodox authorities, has supported a number of leniencies under the rubric of she’at had’chak.
In March, Dorff and his law committee co-chair, Rabbi Pamela Barmash, issued an opinion permitting a prayer quorum to be constituted over internet-enabled videoconference. That opinion, which temporarily suspended a nearly unanimous 2001 ruling that such a quorum was not permissible, would enable the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish by people isolated in their homes. Common practice is that the mourner’s prayer can only be said if 10 Jewish adults are gathered in one physical location.
The law committee also has expressed support for loosening various restrictions around physical touch between married couples should Jewish ritual baths be forced to close. Couples that closely observe Jewish law traditionally refrain from any form of touch for the period of the woman’s menstruation and for a week after, resuming contact only after immersion in a mikvah.
But the committee posted a letter on its website this week from Rabbi Joshua Heller asserting that under certain circumstances, and only for the period of the coronavirus crisis, a woman could resume sexual relations with her husband after showering in 11.25 gallons of water — a rough approximation of the Talmudic measure of 40 kabim.
“I think we are learning from earlier historical epochs of crisis and taking inspiration from the flexibility that our predecessors showed,” said Rabbi Daniel Nevins, a committee member and the dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
To be sure, not all rabbis have accepted these leniencies.
After Rabbi Daniel Sperber, a liberal Orthodox rabbi in Israel, issued an opinion permitting some forms of physical touch between married couples should ritual baths become inaccessible, another Israeli Orthodox rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, called the opinion a “complete mistake.”
Israel’s two chief rabbis, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, said the opinion permitting videoconferencing at the seder was “unqualified.”
And Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a leading Orthodox authority at Yeshiva University, wrote recently that a prayer quorum could not be constituted by participants standing on nearby porches — even if they could all see each other.
“The 10 men must all be standing in the same room,” Schachter wrote.
But Schachter, who has personally published no less than a dozen opinions on matters related to coronavirus, has shown flexibility in other areas.
Schachter has ruled that a patient discharged from a hospital on Shabbat can be driven home by a family member because it’s dangerous to remain in the hospital longer than necessary and taxis carry their own risks of coronavirus transmission. He has said that isolated individuals who suffer from psychological conditions that might endanger their lives if they were unable to communicate with family may use phone or internet to communicate on a Jewish holiday.
And in a ruling that has wide applicability at a time when many people are preparing to host Passover meals for the first time, he suggested a workaround for the obligation of immersing utensils in a ritual bath before using them. Since baths are now closed for such purposes, Schachter ruled that one could use the utensils without immersion by first declaring them legally ownerless — a workaround that would normally not be permitted.
Many rabbis have expressed concern that such loosening of the rules, even if expressly done only to address a pressing (and presumably temporary) need, might nevertheless create new norms of behavior that will outlast the current crisis. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
According to a recent article by Rabbi Elli Fisher, during the 19th-century cholera epidemic, there were so many mourners that Rabbi Akiva Eger, who led the Jewish community in Poznan, Poland, ruled that it was permissible for many mourners to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish simultaneously. At the time, the practice was that only one person recited Kaddish at a time.
Given the numbers of the dead, that practice would have left people with few opportunities to recite the mourner’s prayer. The practice of reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish as a group remains the dominant one in synagogues today.
“I do think that our people are wise enough and insightful enough to understand the difference between this crisis situation and normal situations
Features
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Features
Susan Roadburg: The Road Less Travelled
By GERRY POSNER Robert Frost was not likely thinking of Susan Roadburg when he penned his famous line in the poem “The Road Less Travelled.” Yet, the line which says “Two roads diverged in the wood, and I took the road less travelled and that has made all the difference” certainly is a line which applies to the life and career of Sue Roadburg, once Susan Rumberg, daughter of the late Betty and Joe Rumberg. It was not a straight road for Sue, but it was a path with twists and turns.
A former resident of Montrose and later Oak Streets in the south end of Winnipeg, Sue finished her high school education at Grant Park High School. The plan was to get a BA and then enter either Nursing or Social Work. What stepped in her way was her first stop on the road – Eaton’s. Back then -the 1960s, Eaton’s had what was known as a junior council – one for males and one for females. Well, after a selection process, Sue was chosen by Eaton’s to be Grant Park’s junior councillor. She received a uniform and performed simple duties, including weekly meetings with senior Eaton’s executives, getting volunteers for the annual Eaton’s Santa Claus parades (Who could forget them?), ushering at Eaton’s sponsored rock concerts and sundry other tasks. From that time to many years forward, Sue and Eaton’s were a team. She even worked for them during her university years.
Clearly, the affection Sue had for her work at Eaton’s was reciprocated as, upon the resignation of the then youth fashion director, Sue was offered that job. Her plans for nursing or social work were derailed. Sue represented Eaton’s by making presentations at high schools; running “HI Set Clubs” for teens; coordinating shows for the University of Manitoba’s “ Freshie Week;” teaching the Seventeen Beauty Workshop; writing a monthly teen newsletter and monthly column for “Youth Beat” – which went to all Winnipeg high schools and selecting fashions for the weekly TV show, Teen Dance Party. You could say that Susan Rumberg was well into the teen world at that time. It was at this time when Susan became Sue as Eaton’s wanted her first and last names to have an unequal number of syllables. Maybe that is why Eaton’s closed up. But you can still call her Susan as many friends still do.
Then, an unusual turn of events led to Sue becoming what might be called the Miss Manners of Manitoba. Susan became connected by good fortune with a woman who ran courses on party manners throughout the US and indeed, for the president’s children. Through that relationship, Eaton’s in Winnipeg ran a course on the topic led by the then Susan Rumberg as she was the teacher of the course to hundreds of Winnipeg girls, ages 5-12. But soon Susan came to realize that she was ready to move on and settled in Montreal where she immediately learned French. The Bay became interested in her and she even upgraded her limited French speaking skills. Soon she had her doing staff training at the downtown store and she did it in both French and English. Not long after, she received an offer to become a buyer for the Bay – with crazy hours and lots of travel time. This was at a time when there were major issues in Quebec about separation, so the buying office moved to Toronto with the young Susan Rumberg – along with the whole department. Toronto brought marriage and three kids.
By this time, Sue was quite well known in the fashion world. She was approached by a student at Seneca College who was required to interview a buyer. At that time, Sue was the jeans buyer. This meeting led to another meeting and before Sue knew it, Seneca got wind of her very helpful role with their students and it was not long before Susan Roadburg was ensconced at Seneca teaching full time, eventually leading to teaching becoming the longest part of her career.
Sue’s teaching led to yet another twist in the road. As part of the course work a program was created for her to develop what was called a boutique “lab.” She taught and also was able to get her students involved in the translation of books into action. She would attend vendor appointments on Fridays with the merchandise managers and buyers. She also helped the advertising manager put on a huge fashion show at the big hall at Seneca Collage. The accounts payable manager paid all the invoices and presented financial statements, relating to what had been learned in Retail Math. (She also taught that subject.) A new class took over each semester. Sue developed an infrastructure for the class much like those of the large companies that her students aspired to work for upon graduation. In short, textbook theories were brought to life through this boutique experience, a kind of ‘hands-on” approach.
Sue just finished her teaching career a few years ago. She is still connected to the industry through FGI (Fashion Group International), an organization for executives in the fashion industry. She is even the nominating chair for the board of the only Canadian chapter located in Toronto. And Sue was recently recognized by FGI with what is known as The Visionary Award by FGI. This is what might be called reaching the top of the mountain in her field.
Sue’s road is less travelled to Winnipeg these days, but she still has some ties there. Her brother Ross Rumberg is buried there. There are still friends from her past. Her memories are strongly connected to her Winnipeg days. What Sue might also say is that Rumberg to Roadburg was the first of the many roads she travelled, but she is still charting out new paths.
Features
Donald Trump and the 2024 Jewish Vote
By HENRY SREBRNIK How did American Jews vote in the November 5, 2024 presidential election? There’s no simple answer. American Jews are a hard-to-define religious and ethnic group spread across multiple American Census categories, possessing last names from at least a dozen different languages and clustered in places that are often overwhelmingly non-Jewish. It takes a team of demographers and sociologists to determine a plausible American Jewish population figure.
So deciding who qualifies as a Jewish voter is not that easy. Must they feel a sense of belonging to the Jewish people, however defined? Or can they be “simply” Jewish, perhaps with a non-Jewish partner and children not being brought up as Jews? (After all, we have Jews by birth who are “anti-Zionists” and supporters of Palestinian efforts to destroy Israel.) That’s why figures vary widely.
American Jews number less than 2.5 per cent of the total U.S. population. To be sure, Jews vote in much greater percentages (approximately 80 per cent) than the rest of the American public (about 66 per cent). But the Jewish role in American politics goes well beyond the ballot box. In 2016, the Jerusalem Post reported on a study showing that Jews donate 50 per cent of all funding to the Democratic Party and 25 percent of all funding to the Republican Party. For the 2024 election, Forbes revealed that the top 15 donors to the Kamala Harris campaign were all people who identified as Jewish.
For about a century, American Jews, however defined, have been a reliable piece of the Democratic Party base, usually delivering two-thirds or more of their votes to the party’s presidential nominee. Over the last half century, going back to the 1968 election, Jews have favored the Democratic candidate by about 71 to 29 per cent. But in 2024, change was in the air, despite the absurd claims by some people that Donald Trump was an “antisemite.”
It turns out this proved largely baseless, according to the “2024 Jewish Vote Analysis,” a report released on November 20, 2024 by WPA Intelligence, a conservative political consultancy and analytics firm. In examining available exit polling, city and county data, and precinct data, it suggested that Trump’s strongest gains were among “those who live the most Jewish lives and reside in the most Jewish communities.”
Looking at Jewish neighbourhoods and towns, “the trends are stark and unmistakable,” WPA Intelligence stated. “Because Judaism is in some ways a communal religion and observant Judaism requires localized infrastructure, Jews who live in Jewish areas tend to be more religious and engaged. And in these neighborhoods, we see large shifts towards Trump.” Some of the most dramatic swings in the Jewish vote happened in New York. It also identified shifts in heavily Jewish areas of California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey,and Pennsylvania. (California, New Jersey, and New York are where more than 45 per cent of American Jews live.)
“The trend is apparent from Trump’s near-unanimous support among Chassidic and Yeshivish Jews; to his rapid consolidation of the Modern Orthodox vote; to incremental gains even in more liberal Jewish areas such as Oak Park and Upper Manhattan,” the report added. “So, too, is it diverse ethnically and geographically, occurring coast to coast and overrepresenting Persian and ex-Soviet Jewish communities.”
Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in New York City precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25 per cent. His 2024 performance in New York marked a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections.
Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily Jewish enclaves of deep-blue Democratic cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
These gains have been confirmed by the Jewish website Tablet. “Who Won the Jewish Vote?” by Armin Rosen, published on November 14, 2024, includes very detailed comparisons of precinct-level numbers from the 2020 and 2024 elections. It indicated that Trump did improve his performance in a range of Jewish neighborhoods across America. “From the yeshivas of Lakewood, New Jersey, to the bagel shops of New York’s Upper West Side; from Persian Los Angeles to Venezuelan Miami; from the Detroit suburbs to the Chabadnik shchuna in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, Jewish areas voted in higher percentages for the Republican candidate than they did in 2020.”
Nearly every neighborhood in New York with a notable density of Jewish-specific businesses and institutions, be they Hasidic, Litvish, Syrian, Russian, Bukharan, Conservative, Reform or modern Orthodox, voted heavily Republican or saw a rise in Trump’s performance.
In Brooklyn, the Midwood precincts containing Yeshiva of Flatbush voted 62 per cent for Trump. In Brighton Beach, Brooklyn’s main post-Soviet Jewish enclave, Trump’s support was consistently in the 75-90 per cent range. In Crown Heights, headquarters of the Chabad Hasidic movement, Trump got 62 per cent of the vote this time around, likely on the strength of higher turnout among Chabadniks. Back in 2016, when Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, he won 69 per cent of the vote in all of Assembly District 48, which encompasses Borough Park and Midwood (both largely Jewish communities). This year, he won 85 per cent of the vote in the district.
In the Bronx, Trump received 30 per cent of the vote in the precinct containing the Riverdale Jewish Center, and 38 per cent in the precinct with the neighborhood’s Chabad house. In Manhattan, a few of the borough’s lightest-blue Democratic precincts have the Yeshiva University campus at their center, and Trump managed to receive 37 per cent of the vote there. The Upper West Side, a traditional liberal Jewish political and cultural bastion, remained dark blue. But even there it was possible to see a shift.
Ranging a bit further afield, at least one plausible study, a poll taken by the Teach Coalition, an advocacy group founded by the Jewish Orthodox Union, found overall Jewish support for Trump in the New York suburbs at 40 per cent. Nassau County, where Jews make up close to 20 per cent of the population, saw Trump win it by five per cent, while Joe Biden took it by 10 in 2020.
The returns from other major American Jewish population centers tell a similar story, according to Tablet. Over 600,000 Jews live in New Jersey. The modern Orthodox stronghold of Teaneck gave Trump 35 per cent. In fact, he won 70 per cent of the vote in districts where most of the town’s synagogues are located. In Lakewood, where nearly every strain of Orthodox Judaism is represented, “Some of the precinct results are eye-watering,” reports Tablet. There, Kamala Harris got just 11.2 per cent. In one Lakewood precinct, District 27, Trump won all the votes, 366–0, and in another, District 36, he won 560 votes, losing only a single vote.
Trump carried Passaic County, home to a sizable Orthodox Jewish constituency. Jews make up about 25 percent of the county’s population and it has been a Democratic stronghold for decades. Biden took it with 57.5 per cent to Trump’s 41 per cent four years ago. In 2024, Trump won it with 50 per cent to Harris’s 46.5 percent. That’s a 16-point overall swing in Trump’s favor.
Voting data indicates that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in in the crucial state of Pennsylvania. It was one of the few states without a large Orthodox Jewish population where Trump did especially well with Jewish voters. Harris did win Pennsylvania Jewish voters by seven percentage points, 48-41, according to a survey conducted by the Honan Strategy Group for the Teach Coalition. However, 53 per cent of Jewish voters said they would have pulled the lever for her had Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro been her running mate, while support for Trump would have dropped to 38 per cent. Jewish community leaders claimed that Shapiro was subjected to an ugly, antisemitic campaign that led to him being passed over for the slot.
The Miami area is home to over 500,000 Jews. Aventura is one of the community’s bellwethers, and Trump gained 59.7 per cent this year. An almost identical shift happened in the Miami Beach community of Surfside, where Trump took 61 per cent. Bal Harbour, another Jewish enclave, saw Trump gain 72 per cent.
In Palm Beach County, there are about 175,000 Jews out of a population of 1.5 million, or about 12 per cent. Harris won this county by 0.74 per cent, while Biden won it by 13 per cent in 2020. Trump’s vote climbed nearly seven per cent while hers dropped an equal amount off Biden’s number. Almost exactly the same type of shift happened in Broward County, where Biden got 64 per cent in 2020; the vote shifted 14 per cent toward Trump this year. Jews make up about 10 per cent of the Broward population.
In Los Angeles, where 560,000 Jews live, an article by Louis Keene, “How a Jewish Neighbourhood in Liberal Los Angeles Became a Stronghold for Trump,” published December 10 in the Forward newspaper, provides a detailed picture of the Jewish electorate. The political shift in Pico-Robertson, an Orthodox neighborhood in LA’s Westside, reflects voters “with a change of heart and changing demographics.”
Formerly majority Democratic, in 2024 for the first time, parts of Pico-Robertson turned red. Its two largest precincts swung for Trump, who received about 51 per cent of the votes compared to 44 per cent for Harris. Rabbi Elazar Muskin, who leads Young Israel of Century City, one of the oldest and largest synagogues in the neighbourhood, estimated that up to 90 per cent of his congregation voted for Trump, largely because of Israel.
As Yeshivish and Mizrahi Jews — those of Middle Eastern or North African heritage — have established a greater presence in Pico-Robertson, the area has become increasingly defined by a conservative culture and electorate. There is also a booming Persian population, as well as emergent Chabad and other Hasidic Jews.
A poll of Orthodox voters by Nishma Research in September found 93 per cent of Haredi voters supporting Trump; while data on the Persian Jewish community’s politics is harder to come by, community leaders said the numbers are similar.
Elsewhere in LA, the presence of a Chabad house or a synagogue was a reliable predictor of Trump support. For instance, Trump got 40 per cent of the vote in the North Hollywood precinct where Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic and Em Habanim Sephardic are located.
Los Angeles in turn mirrors the general trend in the rest of the country. Michigan is home to 116,000 Jews. West Bloomfield, centre of the Detroit-area Jewish community, went 43.7 per cent for Trump. Illinois’ 319,000 Jews live mainly in Chicago. Trump picked up votes in the Far North Side wards where Orthodox Jewish voters live, especially in the 50th Ward, where his vote increased to 46.85 per cent from 33.77 per cent in 2020.
Of course the Republican vote did not just come from the very religious. Trump also clearly gained among those most committed to Jewish identity, regardless of affiliation or observance, who were driven by concerns over left-wing antisemitism after the October 7 massacre.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his first term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump reminded Jews about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume the efforts to strengthen them. Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and he also moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
We must lay to rest the nonsense about Trump being antisemitic, lest we are to believe that the more Jewish you are, the more likely it was that you voted for an enemy of the Jewish people. Americans, including Jews, returned the arguably most pro-Israel president since the founding of the modern Jewish state to the White House.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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