The COVID-19 vaccination clinic for Holocaust survivors in a local synagogue started out a bit ominously: A police cruiser was stationed outside and a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd was deployed inside, zealously looking for explosives.
“Unfortunately, it’s because we’re Jewish,” said Rabbi Danielle Eskow, who organized the clinic Thursday at Congregation Kehillath Israel, a conservative synagogue in Brookline. “We have to worry about these things.”
The idea for the clinic came from the rabbi’s physician sister, Marisa Tieger. They’d been chatting about how unfair it was that as healthy women in their 30s they had easy access to the vaccine by virtue of their professions, while people much older especially Holocaust survivors are struggling to get it. The state’s overwhelmed vaccination program has been riddled with problems, including an inadequate vaccine allotment, scant appointments, and a clunky appointment booking system prone to crashing. Another hurdle
An employee shows the Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Northwell Health’s Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital in New York, U.S., December 21, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
With more than 48 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in the US, local Jewish communities are partnering with health workers to inoculate survivors of the Holocaust, an aged and often vulnerable demographic that may not have easy access to the shot.
In the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, over 300 Holocaust survivors were vaccinated at a pop-up site organized at the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House, reported Gothamist Friday.