Jordana Horn talks about the prayer of shehecheyanu she made while receiving her COVID-19 vaccine, as well as when her 17-year-old son received the vaccine.
Michael Kramer wrote a song in order to encourage members of the Jewish community to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The video is set up as Kramer convincing a skeptical friend to receive the vaccine.
Yvette Alt Miller talks about the parallels between the values of surviving the pandemic as well as Jewish values. Notably, the importance of knowing your neighbor and keeping a sense of community even while we are apart.
Talya Jankovits describes the bittersweetness of returning to the synagogue after so long. She follows the news of antisemitic attacks across the country and describes her worry for her family as they return to shul.
Holly Lebowitz Rossi offers advice for readers who are planning a bar and bat mitzvah. The advice covers in-person celebrations, through Zoom, and hybrid options.
Cantor Rebecca Moses tested positive for COVID-19 early on in the pandemic and has since struggled to return to her cantor duties. Her symptoms made it difficult for her to struggle and restrictions have also halted services for the time being.
Though there are obvious downsides to quarantine restrictions, Rachel Levy Lesser talks about the amount of creativity that is flowing through people's homes.
During the height of pandemic restrictions, writer Jordana Horn talks about the death of her 92-year old father-in-law and navigating burial afterward.
Writer Lisa Stein talks about her brother, Matthew, who is a puzzle designer, and his work during the quarantine. "Escape the Plagues" is an escape-room style puzzle game that was inspired by not only the pandemic but also social justice issues that were raised in the past year.
This is an article written for Svara's, 'Hot off the Shtender' section of their website. This article was written by Monica Gomery at the start of the pandemic.
Four Jewish students and thinkers have created a Passover Seder companion reflecting on the pandemic and envisioning the future. The collection includes poetry and art from young Jewish artists.
Even before the pandemic, students attending universities and colleges with a smaller population of Jewish students found it difficult to eat kosher on-campus. In the fall of 2020, senior at Merrimack College Alyssa Ardai changed the entire structure of the college's dining hall to be more inclusive to kosher diets. She found that COVID-19 pre-packaged meals blatantly ignored kosher diets and decided to petition the school to be aware of not only kosher diets but Halal and vegan diets as well.
Editor of New Voices Magazine, Rena Yehuda Newman, talks about her experience working with other Jewish educators in creating a space for learning on the Zoom platform. The educators were challenged to create new content for other Hebrew school teachers to engage their students online. The handbook included lessons on asynchronous learning, mailing packages to students, and chat functions.
The Editor of UChicago's journal for Jewish Studies, Jonah Lubin, talks about the changes he made to the journal this year, notably its shift to the digital world. As a response to quarantine, Lubin found that the digital direction was the best way forward for the journal, especially in reaching a wider audience.