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
I Speak “Jew”
By MARK E. PAULL I grew up in Montreal. Born in 1956. Anglo by birth, sure. But that never quite fit. I don’t speak “Anglo” the way they mean it. My real language is Jew.
And I don’t mean Hebrew or Yiddish. I mean the language of reading the room before you enter it. The code-switching, shame-dodging, laugh-first-so-they-don’t-pounce dialect we pick up early. It’s a language built on side-eyes and timing and ten generations of tension.
I speak French—enough to make myself understood. Enough to charm a dinner table, crack a joke, get someone’s uncle to nod. I’m not fluent, but I’m fast. Doesn’t matter. In Quebec, language isn’t grammar—it’s inheritance. It’s who your grandfather cursed out in a hardware store.
To the Francophones, I’ll never be one of them. My accent betrays me before I say a word. I’m just an Anglo. And not even that, really. Because when the lens tightens, when they look closely, I’m just un Juif. Just a Jew.
And to the Anglos? Same thing. I can wear the suit, speak the Queen’s English, order the wine properly—still a Jew. Even in rooms where I “pass,” I don’t belong. I’m not invited in to be myself. I’m invited in to behave. To be safe. To not say the thing that makes the air stiff.
We’re the only people still called by our religion. No one says “Orthodox” for a Greek. No one says “Vatican” for an Italian. No one calls a Black man “Baptist” before they see his face. But “Jew”? That sticks. That’s the label. Before passport. Before language. Before hello.
I’ve mostly made peace with that. But there’s still this ache—knowing you can live your whole life in a place and never really be from there.
Let me tell you a story.
We had this block party once—the folding-table, paper-plate kind. Kids zipping by on scooters. Music low. Everyone asked to bring something from “your culture.”
The Greek guy brought lemon potatoes and lamb—felt like it came with a side of Byzantine history. The Italians brought two lasagnas—meat and veggie—with basil placed like confetti. The Vietnamese couple brought shrimp rolls that vanished before they hit the table. Even the German guy—built like a fridge—brought bratwurst and a six-pack with gothic lettering.
And then us.
My partner made Moroccan fish. Her grandmother’s recipe. Red with tomatoes, garlic, cumin. Studded with olives and preserved lemon. I brought a bottle of white wine. Dry. Crisp. From the Golan Heights. Not Manischewitz. Not even close.
We laid it out. Someone leaned over: “Moroccan? But I thought you were Jewish.”
We smiled. “We are.”
Then: “So… where’s the brisket? Isn’t Jewish wine supposed to be sweet?”
That’s when it hits you. No matter how long you’ve lived here, how many snowstorms you’ve shoveled through, you’re still explaining yourself. Still translating your presence.
Because they don’t know. They don’t know Jews came from everywhere. That “Jewish” isn’t one dish—it’s a whole map. That we had Jews in Morocco before there was even a France. That some of us grew up on kreplach, some on kefta. That some of our mothers sang in Yiddish, others in Arabic, and some in both—depending on who was knocking.
They don’t know. And worse—they don’t ask.
And that’s the part that gets you. Not the slurs. Not the graffiti. Not even the occasional muttered cliché. It’s the blankness. The shrug. The image they already have of you that’s built out of dreidels and sitcoms.
“Jewish” as nostalgic. As novelty. Something they saw once on a bagel.
Sometimes, when those questions come, I float. One version of me walks out. Another turns into a mouse. One turns into a Frisbee. Just gone. Not mad. Just tired.
Because being a Jew isn’t cute. It’s not nostalgic.
It’s ancient.
Before Montreal.
Before France.
Before Poland. Before Spain.
Before pogroms.
Before ghettos.
Before Hitler.
Before even the word Europe.
We were there.
Go back to the 5th century. 2nd century.
Go back to Jesus—our kid, by the way.
Go further—Babylon. Persia.
Keep going—Temple. Exile. Wandering.
And still, after all that, I’m at a table in Quebec explaining why our fish has cumin in it.
It’s almost funny. If it didn’t wear you down a little.
I’m not looking for pity. This isn’t a complaint.
I’m proud. I know what I carry. I walk into any room with five thousand years behind me. I come from people who kept the lights on through every kind of darkness—and laughed through it, too.
But sometimes, I just wish I didn’t have to explain so much.
All I want is to put down my dish…
…and hear someone say:
“That smells amazing. Tell me the story.”
That’s all.
Mark E. Paull, C.A.C. is a Certified ADHD Coach – IPHM, CMA, IIC&M, CPD Certified
Writer | Lived-Experience Advocate | Type 1 Diabetic since 1967
He has been published in:
The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Folklife Magazine, Times of Israel, CHADD’s Attention Magazine, The Good Men Project
Features
At 104, Besse Gurevich last original resident of Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence
By MYRON LOVE At 104, Besse Gurevich is the last of the original residents of Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence. She may also be the oldest member of our Jewish community.
Although her vision and her hearing have diminished considerably, her mind and memory are still intact. A few weeks back, this writer sat down with her in her suite as she recalled a life filled with highs and lows and her many contributions to her community, both in Winnipeg and Fort William before that.
The daughter of Jack and Rebecca Avit, her life’s journey began in 1921 in a home on Carlton Street near Ellice Avenue, near her father’s furniture store. He later operated a cap factory.
When she was ten, the family – she had two brothers and a sister – moved to Manitoba Avenue in the old North End. “My father had put a deposit down on a house on Scotia,” she recalls. “But my parents didn’t feel that the neighbourhood was Jewish enough.”
Her schooling included Peretz School and, like so many of her generation, St. John’s Tech (as it was known back then.) “I was actually supposed to be going to Isaac Newton for high school,” she says. We were living on the wrong side of the tracks for St. John’s. After one day at Isaac Newton, I found a way to transfer to St. John’s.”
In 1940, 19-year-old Bessie Avit married Jack Gurevich, a young man from Fort William. The wedding was marred though, by the sudden, untimely passing of her father.
Following the wedding, Besse moved with her new husband to Fort William where Jack Gurevich worked in retail clothing sales. “We lived in Fort William for 20 years,” she says. “Our three children (Judy, Richard and Howard) were born there.”
She recalls that there were about 200 Jewish families – including her sister and one of her brothers for some years – in town, during the time she lived there. “We were very well known in the community,” she recalls. “I was involved in everything.”
Her community activism continued after the family’s return to her home town. While Jack went to work as a salesman for Western Glove Works, Besse became an indefatigable community volunteer. At one time or another, she served as vice-president of ORT, Hadassah and National Council of Jewish Women in Winnipeg. She was also a long time B’nai Brith member.
In the business world, the highlight of her career was the building of Linden Woods. “I became involved in real estate development for a time,” she recalls. “I was hired by Genstar to develop Linden Woods. The company estimated that it would take about 20 years to complete. I got it done in two.”
She also taught hair dressing for a while. “I worked with many young Jewish brides,” she says.
Recent years have not been kind to Besse Gurevich. Her beloved husband, Jack, died in 2016 – after almost 65 years of marriage. Older son, Richard, passed away in Vancouver in 2018 and, most recently –six months ago – younger son, Howard, followed. She notes that there were 200 mourners at Howard’s funeral.
(Howard Gurevich was in marketing for many years before turning his talents to the art world. In recent years, he was best known for Gurevich Fine Art in the Exchange District and his support of local artists.)
Besse Gurevich celebrated her 100th birthday – which took place at the height of the Covid shutdown – quietly.
While she used to enjoy reading. she is unable to do so any more. She can still listen to television.
And while she has few family members to visit her any more, she does have a group of friends interesting enough from the local theatre scene. For many years, she was a close friend of the late Doreen Brownstone, one of the leading figures in theatre in Winnipeg for more than half a century. Besse became part of the group that would visit Doreen every week and, since Doreen passed on three years ago, the members of the group have continued to visit Besse on a weekly basis.
Features
Winnipeg author’s first novel gripping tale of romance, action and intrigue, set in 15th century Spain and Morocco
By MYRON LOVE “The Chronos of Andalucia”, a novel just released by first-time author Merom Toledano, is a historical romance set in late 15th century Spain and Morocco, filled with passion, action, intrigue, unexpected twists and turns – and, of course, with the requirement of any medieval story – a quest.
The easy-to-read, 190 page book follows the adventures of Catalina, a young woman living by her wits on the streets of Granada in the year 1487, (just after the Christian armies of Ferdinand and Isabella had recaptured all of Spain from the Moors) – while trying to evade the agents of the Inquisition, who had murdered her Jewish mother and Christian father 10 years earlier. She was left with an insatiable desire to learn about astronomy, along with a mysterious map and an astrolabe (an instrument formerly used to make astronomical measurements) – the importance of which will only be unveiled if she can get to the city of Tangier in Morocco.
Early on, there is a reference to Abraham Zacuto, a prominent Spanish rabbi famed for his knowledge of astronomy and astrology.
The action begins when she has a casual interaction with a former Spanish soldier, Diego. When the forces of the Inquisition approach, she flees with the soldier – who is also her love interest – and who helps her to escape. They turn for help to a childhood friend of Catalina’s – Roberta, a nun, who helps them on their perilous journey to Tangier – a journey that includes being captured by pirates, surviving a shipwreck, being separated for a long period of time and, of course, finding each other again and realizing the success of their joint quest.
In his writing, the author paints vivid word pictures of the different characters and beautifully invokes the colour, sights, sounds and scents of the time and the places.
What I found truly remarkable about the writing of “The Chronos of Andalucia” is that English is not Merom Toledano’s first language. The Israeli-born author – he grew up near Haifa – came to Winnipeg with his young family just eight years ago.
“I have had this book in mind for several years now,” says the satellite engineer whose working career takes him to many different parts of the world.
He notes that he has always felt a connection to Spain, Spanish music and literature – a reflection of his family’s modern origins in that country. His great-grandparents, he relates, lived in Toledo – hence the family name, Toledano. His parents lived in Meknes in Morocco while his father attended university in Tangier before making aliyah.
Toledano just published “The Chronos of Andalucia” in April on Amazon. He reports that the book – which is available here at McNally Robinson – has been selling well –close to 100 copies – with orders coming from a bookstore chain in England, a bookstore in Denmark, and one in Italy.
“I have had between 30 and 40 positive reviews so far,” he reports.
Toledano adds that he envisages “The Chronos of Andalucia” to be the first in a series – a la the writer Danielle Steele. He is already working on a sequel – which is hinted at the end of “The Chronos” and, he reports, he is establishing his own independent publishing operation.