Shiva
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Community Sitting shiva via Zoom, it turns out, has its upsides
Last week, we buried my father in the Long Island cemetery plot that had been waiting three decades for him to arrive. When I recall my mother’s 1990 funeral, in the pre-COVID era, I can still feel the love that came from the crowd surrounding us, and the support I drew from the Hebrew prayers…
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Community My mother was a Holocaust survivor, but she was always more worried about my happiness.
My 93-year-old mom, who survived the Holocaust, died of COVID-19 in an assisted living facility in New Jersey on April 5. I found out she was dead from a text with the words Baruch Dayan Haemet, the Jewish blessing at the time of death. Only days earlier, my nephew called to tell me she had…
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News How to sit shiva while social distancing
For centuries, sitting shiva has provided Jewish mourners a meaningful ritual to gain closure after the death of a loved one. When you’ve just suffered a loss, it’s supremely comforting to have other people around — people to keep you fed, people to play with your kids, people with whom to share treasured family stories….
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Opinion Editorial | We’re going to have to show up without showing up
I paid a shiva call Friday morning. It was a somewhat absurd thing to do, in the hours before President Trump officially declared a national emergency, in this new era of social distancing: trek across state lines from my home in Montclair, N.J., to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was also the most…
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Fast Forward As many as 100 shiva attendees exposed to coronavirus in Maryland
One of three residents of Montgomery County, Md. who contracted the coronavirus on a cruise in Egypt attended a Jewish mourning ritual at a retirement community before before getting diagnosed with the disease and exposed between 70 and 100 attendees to it. In the ritual, known as sitting shiva, family members of the deceased receive…
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Life What to bring to a shiva call
After a Jewish funeral, families typically commemorate the deceased loved one by sitting shiva for seven days, during which they stay at home and welcome guests to mourn with them and share memories. It can be daunting to make a shiva call, or visit a family in mourning. But the most helpful thing you can…
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Life How to light a Yahrzeit Candle
Judaism provides several rituals to guide families through the difficult days and months after a loved one’s death. During shiva, the first seven days after a funeral, mourners gather in their homes with friends and family. For the next thirty days, a period known as sheloshim, they avoid parties and public entertainment. Even after these…
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Fast Forward Biden Fundraising Letter Features Rabbi’s Story About Senator Making Shiva Call
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Delaware rabbi wrote a fundraising endorsement for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign citing his appearance at the shiva for a constituent of modest means. Rabbi Michael Beals was leading a minyan in 2006 for Sylvia Greenhouse, who lived in a senior living facility in Claymont, a town at the northern tip of…
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