Illustrative: A man receives a COVID-19 vaccine injection in Jerusalem, on January 28, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
JTA The email offered what felt like a lifeline to the dozens of rabbis in the Chicago area who received it last week. “Vaccines are now available for clergy,” an official with the Chicago Board of Rabbis wrote, passing along a link to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Days later, some of those rabbis were rolling up their sleeves to get the shot that would start to make their pre-pandemic lives possible once again. Lizzi Heydemann, rabbi and founder of Mishkan, a nondenominational congregation in Chicago, marked her vaccination with a public Facebook post accompanied by a translation of the Shehecheyanu prayer: “That we lived and stood up and reached this time.”