The bad news came out of nowhere, on the eve of Passover: the Jewish Chronicle, the oldest Jewish newspaper in Britain, founded 179 years ago, was beginning to lay workers off and preparing to shut down due to the effects the coronavirus epidemic is having on the British economy, which impacted ad sales and caused daily circulation to plummet as people were quarantined indoors.
Another Jewish paper, the Jewish News, is also on the brink of closing. The two papers were supposed to have merged in an attempt to survive the economic difficulties that the world of journalism at large is facing, but the deal wasn't inked before the epidemic hit the UK, and now, unless a last-minute solution is found, the two papers will be added to the long list of the virus' victims.
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Even more serious are the numbers of the British Jewish community who are dying of corona. On Passover Eve, the Jewish burial society reported 121 deaths throughout the Jewish community in Britain. For a community that numbers 300,000, this is a serious blow, and a much higher fatality rate than what the British population is seeing as a whole. In Britain, like everywhere else in the Jewish world, mass infection began on the eve of Purim last month, and was especially heavy in the country's Haredi communities. Unlike other countries, the British government at first espoused a policy of herd immunity and refrained from instituting social distancing or restricting movement for the general population, which caused the virus to spread quickly and led to a high mortality rate.
On a single day last week, London's Jewish burial society handled 14 burials, compared to an average of four per day. Jewish community leaders in Britain found themselves fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslim leaders against emergency orders from the government that authorized district health services to cremate bodies of corona victims to avoid further spread, despite the dictates of the victims' religions. Quick outreach to some of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet members, including the health secretary who himself caught the virus, caused the orders to be revoked, and Jewish and Islamic burial customs to continue.
One of the first members of the Jewish community to catch the virus was Yitzhak Sonnenschein, who represents the World Zionist Congress in Britain. After two weeks in bed in moderate condition (with respiratory trouble and a 103F temperature), he is recovering.
"The people here have a very heavy sense of uncertainty. In general, the members of the Jewish communities, even the Haredim, are disciplined. But after the initial policy of 'Let's infect one another so we all become immune,' now people with moderate symptoms are being told to stay home and not go to hospital, and you don' t know if you'll come out of it alive or dead," he says.
According to Sonnenschein, the Jewish communities are well-organized and there are teams of volunteers who shop for elderly community members who cannot leave their homes. However, not all the country's Jews have permanent ties to the communities and not all of them are aware of what help is available. Synagogues and community centers are closed. Some communities are staying in touch remotely via the Internet, but there are plenty of people who don't know what to do in the emergency situation that has arisen. The haredi community in Britain has lost two of its leaders to coronavirus: Rabbi Uri Ashkenazi of the Stanislav Hassidism and Rabbi Yehuda Yaakov Refson, 73, of Leeds, who served as head of the regional rabbinical court for the last four decades. The Haredim in Britain are also panicked at reports of how fast the virus is spreading in their Haredi communities in the US and Israel.
Jake Berger, who is in charge of education and youth in the Board of Deputies of British Jews, admits that the corona crisis poses a major challenge for the community.
"We are supporting a fundraising campaign for the three main nursing homes in the community. We hired another employee who will focus on helping communities outside London organize. We encourage members of the community to volunteer and help their neighbors who are in the higher-risk groups. Synagogues, which have set up online prayers, are also responsible for volunteer work. There is no evidence that the Haredi communities have been harder struck by the virus than others. The virus harms everyone. We aren't aware of any shortage of kosher food items, even for Passover. However, in extreme cases, the rules of kashruth are less stringently followed," he said.
