The Jewish world in the age of coronavirus – A special Israel Hayom project
Part XIII: Learning from Israel's coronavirus experience
With Brazil being one of the worst-hit nations in the coronavirus pandemic, the Jewish community has had to find ways to cope with the new reality.
Leaders have said that even as they have followed closely close what has been unfolding in Israel, they have also had to reinvent themselves.
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"This was also our way of coping with the new fundraising reality," President of the Jewish Confederation of Brazil and WJC Vice President Fernando Lottenberg told Israel Hayom, recalling that more than many Jews have died from the disease in the country.
Lottenberg, who has a PhD in international public law, has described the impact of the virus on the community as "super dramatic." According to Lottenberg, "During normal times it's hard to maintain contact, but now people keep approaching me and asking whether they can lend a helping hand to the community. Perhaps next year, we will be able to congregate in our synagogues once again and hold the normal meetings, but I hope that we won't forget the positive impact that has been imposed on us due to the pandemic."
He also noted that the Jewish-built hospital in São Paulo has played an important role in highlighting the community's contribution to public health. Rabbi Ezra Dayan, who oversees kashrut supervision in Brazil, says he has been doing his work through Zoom for the past five months. "The biggest challenge is to make sure the kashrut system does not collapse and thank G-d it hasn't. "We supervise hundreds of establishments, and now online supervision is just a fact of life. It's amazing how we can do all this from São Paulo, considering that Brazil is the size of a continent.
"We closed the synagogues and the schools started working from home and preparing for the lockdown psychologically. The sense of community helps strengthen us in such uncertain times."
He said that looking at how Israel has coped with the pandemic has helped the Jewish community in its own struggle. "Many members of our community have a strong Zionist fervor and have friends and family in Israel, or spent some time studying there," he said. "So as soon as the crisis started, the Jewish community began to take its cues from Israel by adopting the various social distancing measures, while the local authorities here were slow to react."
He says that "there is a great deal of interest in what happens in Israel and we feel that both sides are close, through the Jewish Agency's aid but also in our hearts. We have to enjoy the advantages of community and make them even stronger, especially in this protracted crisis that has ups and downs."
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