May 28, 2021 11:07 am Rivka Nissel, right, works with a client during a mental health counseling session at the Jewish Board s Seymour Askin Clinic in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, N.Y. (Kate Lord)
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When New York was caught in the midst of a brutal wave of COVID-19 last spring, the daily death toll reaching as high as 800, the stress for many Orthodox Jewish schoolchildren was overwhelming.
They were catching the coronavirus in high numbers. And their parents or grandparents were frequently falling ill many subsequently died or developed long-haul symptoms.
Now, a year on, that trauma hasn’t subsided.
“That was very hard for children to live with,” said psychologist Norman Blumenthal, director of the trauma, bereavement and crisis response team at Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services.