Like virtually all businesses, we at The Jewish Link have been terribly impacted by the onset of COVID-19 and all of its attendant restrictions and lockdowns since mid-March. In between worrying about the health of our families and our friends and ensuring that we were still able to print our weekly edition, we were also worrying about the

A foundational principle of Jewish life is “do not oppress the stranger, for you know the very life of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Shemot 23:9). Our very identity as a Jewish nation is grounded in the reality that we were once enslaved. We are commanded to express compassion for the plight of those who

In last week’s paper we published a short news release announcing that I had been appointed to serve on Governor Phil Murphy’s “Restart and Recovery Committee Advisory Council.” At the committee’s first meeting last Thursday it was expressed that our goal is to help our state’s residents and businesses return to normal life

As more and more Jewish organizations release guidelines and checklists for a safe-as-possible and reordered reopening of our communities (see our cover story by our own Harry Glazer), we are cognizant of the many changes that have already been made to our lives, with or without our express consent or choice.

No one, in any of our communities, has escaped the broad and deep effects of the pandemic. The complexity of experiences, and the level to which everyone has been touched by COVID-19 takes as many forms as there are people.

There are those who are grieving, and those who have been sick. There are those

(Note: It’s election time in Teaneck, where just under half of The Jewish Link readership lives and where we currently deliver our newspaper via free home delivery, to nearly 4,000 households.)

By the time you read this, all Teaneck homes and voters should have received by mail—I hope—the ballots for the upcoming town council election.

The coronavirus pandemic has enabled us to see certain things more clearly. We see who and what are truly essential to us, and what we can do without. We certainly miss being together with those we love, we miss going to shul and davening b’tzibur, and our kids miss all their activities, even—and slightly ironically—going to school.

There is no doubt that we are in the fight of our lives. If the virus hasn’t gotten us directly, it has taken or affected someone we know. Sleeplessness, worry, terror and grief are our daily companions. As many among us, many close friends, prepare to get up from shiva alone to begin Pesach in unimaginable circumstances, others

Thank you and thank you again to the many who have emailed, called and messaged our publishers, our editors, our writers and our staff over the past few weeks to thank us for continuing to publish weekly in spite of the sweeping and drastic impact that the COVID-19/coronavirus has had upon nearly every aspect of our lives. While we always

(Introductory Note: Like many these days during these strange and unsettling days, I have spent perhaps a bit more time than usual in front of my computer and on my phone reading, watching and participating in online events, ranging from virtual minyanim to shiurim by rabbis from near and far, watching my children’s

In just over a week we will seclude ourselves during the Yom Tov of Pesach. We are already preparing your Jewish Link Pesach edition and hope it will be of some comfort during the long afternoons in isolation.

The fortunate ones among us will share the Seder table with close family members; those who

Over the past few weeks, multiple comparisons have been made about what our current predicament is like for our children. Some have said it’s like our children’s 9/11, meaning it’s the first time they’ve ever been faced with a real question about their personal collective safety and the first time that the pain of significant loss