Flatbush Jewish Journal publishes 50 pages of obituaries in most recent issue
The front page of the Flatbush Jewish Journal included photos of coronavirus victims within the community. Image by Flatbush Jewish Journal
By Irene Katz Connelly April 27, 2020
The Flatbush Jewish Journal, a weekly Orthodox publication based in Brooklyn, published fifty pages of obituaries in its most recent issue.
The obituaries painted a picture of a community devastated by coronavirus. Several pages were devoted to the Novominsker Rebbe and the Sasregener Rebbe, heads of two Hasidic dynasties who died of coronavirus in April. Other tributes memorialized respected rabbis and yeshiva leaders, as well as Noach Dear, a Brooklyn councilman and judge.
The publication noted that “due to the enormity of the crisis,” it was unable to document every death that occurred in the past few weeks.
The Flatbush Jewish Journals “Yahrzeits and Tributes” section is normally much shorter. An issue in April 2019 contained about fifteen pages of tributes. Most were written to mark the yahrzeit, or anniversary, of a community member’s passing, rather than a recent death.
Obituaries that commemorated men were accompanied by one or several photos. However, only one woman’s obituary included a photo. Another woman was represented by a photo of her husband. Some Orthodox publications refrain from publishing pictures of women, citing concerns for modesty.
“Our women deserve better,” one commenter posted on Twitter.
Irene Katz Connelly is an editorial fellow at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected].
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
