May 1, 2020       The Kohen shall don the sacred vestments      Acharei  16:32

Having mobilized all the key practices for Personal Protective Equipment and safe distancing and with no options to suspend vital activities, our Jewish agencies are courageously maintaining essential services to their dependent clients. JFSA and JCC are delivering meals to homebound elderly and holocaust survivors. At JFSA, counselling and services to dementia and Alzheimer victims are on-going as are programs for the mentally ill and in residential homes for developmentally challenged. Domestic violence programming continues unabated as well. Bellefaire, while protecting and assisting its residential clients, is exploiting digital communication to its dispersed client base as are our various day schools. With heightened precautions, Menorah Park/Montefiore is protecting both residents and vulnerable staff and contradicting every bit of public anxiety about nursing homes and infection. All of this is being done despite severe financial constraints, woefully little guidance from government, and the added burdens the epidemic has imposed. No politics this week. Just gratefulness! 

April 24, 2020 “God pardons all sins save the evil tongue”    Zohar 53a on Metzorah

Flaunting his cupidity for political gain, Trump has been promoting the far-right’s campaign to end life-saving stay-at-home orders without, however, even a hint of strategy for containing the spread of Covid-19 when business-as-usual resumes. South Korea successfully mobilized its pharmaceutical industry to mass-produce tests back in January when Trump and his Fox stooges were still calling the epidemic a hoax. There, and in Germany and Japan, instituting a regimen of testing, contact tracing and quarantine greatly limited the spread of infection and safely permitted relaxation of lockdowns. Here, where unilaterally vacating stay-at-home orders will just re-propel this opportunistic virus, the cost in human suffering seems not to enter into Trump’s solely mercenary calculation. 

April 17, 2020 Shemini 10:10 That you not die, distinguish between the contaminated and the pure    

Outside of New York, the Jewish community is, thankfully, barely stricken and is not surprisingly less attuned to the crisis of infection, impoverishment, and food insecurity among the urban poor. Similarly, we are less appalled at how the rate of infection has skewed higher due to the administration’s failure to mobilize testing. Where are the tests? Among the Presidential bloviations in this month of fear, his promise of a vigorous testing regimen rings the most hollow. His seminal 3/13 broadcast touted actually non-existent corporate commitments to nationwide drive-in drugstore-based testing and similarly non-existent Google test management software. South Korea and China contained the virus by testing symptomatic citizens and tracking their movements, quarantining those exposed. U.S. testing capacity is woefully late and inadequate except in misleading Trump press conferences. 2 years ago, despite SARS, MERS, H1N1 and predictions of a new pandemic, he disbanded the NSC pandemic directorate that might have advised the him regarding the real dangers of Covid-19 earlier and effectively. How many of our 23,000 deaths could testing have prevented?

April 4, 2020 “This is the Bread of Affliction” Passover Hagaddah

Thoughts on a crisis: Fascinating to watch the administration dragged into, for instance, acknowledging the gravity of the Covid-19 crisis or invoking the Defense Production Act, after first disputing the need for so many ventilators. A Kol HaKavod to Democrats for holding out for protections restricting corporations from using emergency disaster funds for purposes other than employee retention and essential activities, unlike the 2017 corporate tax cut that indulged pervasive stock buybacks/dividend increases. Everywhere, the most needy are the most vulnerable. The extraordinary SBA disaster loan program will support lots of workers – of income levels up to $100K; yet while the $2 Trillion CARES Act includes a 50% increase in SNAP (already exhausted), it offers a pittance for now desperate food banks. Fortunately, the House Families First Act (significantly diluted by the Senate) permits Women/Infants/Children (WIC) and Food Stamp waivers. Cleveland Jewish agencies are largely still staffed and brilliantly prioritizing needed services. Our sages describe matzoh both as Bread Affliction and Bread of Redemption. May we all soon be redeemed from this terrifying affliction. May you be blessed with a Happy and Safe Passover.