Nouvel éclairage sur la COVID après une étude sur des Juifs hassidiques US timesofisrael.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofisrael.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Hundreds of mourners gather in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 28, 2020, to observe a funeral for Rabbi Chaim Mertz, a Hasidic Orthodox leader whose death was reportedly tied to the coronavirus.(Peter Gerber via AP)
JTA One year after COVID-19 first walloped Jewish communities in the United States, a scientific study has confirmed something that many in the communities have long believed: gatherings during the week of Purim served as superspreader events.
A paper published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, a peer-review journal that is open to the public, concludes that the coronavirus was spreading widely in Orthodox communities across the country last spring around that Jewish holiday before public health warnings were given about the dangers of large assemblies.
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Students at the Leffell School in Westchester County, which emerged as an early epicenter for the coronavirus last spring in New York state, celebrated Purim from home in 2020. (Courtesy of Yael Buechler/ via JTA)
JTA In any other year, the mask-decorating party planned for later this month at Congregation Beth El Ner Tamid in Broomall, Pennsylvania, would make perfect sense: Costumes are part of the ritual for festive Jewish holiday of Purim, which begins February 25.
This year, though, the masks being decorated aren’t meant for a carnival they’ll be appropriate to use as personal protective equipment as long as the coronavirus pandemic lasts. The gathering, and the subsequent synagogue-wide celebration, will take place on Zoom.