Item

Humans of Covid-19 AU: Gersh Lazarow

Title (Dublin Core)

Humans of Covid-19 AU: Gersh Lazarow

Description (Dublin Core)

“Pretty early we shutdown the synagogue, and my family and I made the decision to go into isolation, as I am immune-compromised due to recovering from cancer. Since then we have been lucky to be able to launch a virtual congregation, and that’s been quite amazing. We have daily activities, prayer services and events. We are finding that people are engaging in our program now more than ever before because they are looking for content and, in isolation, are recognising the beauty that community brings to their lives.
Things have been brought from the periphery to the centre of our consciousness, including the importance of relationships, value of community, sense of connectedness - many things that we take for granted until they are taken away.
As a rabbi, my tradition is a great source of comfort to me, inspiring me to find paths to continue, rather than to stop Jewish life, just as past leaders have done over our long 4,000 year history. The synagogue may be shut, but our community never closes. We accept the need for social distancing but reject any possibility for social isolation.
This year we added a paper clip to the Passover seder plate as a symbol of life right now. COVID-19 has required from us immense flexibility: the ability to bend and turn, but like the paper clip, the capacity to hold us together. The colour of the traditional paper clip, silver, is also symbolic, representing that even in this chaos there are silver linings, such as time, awakenings, valuable lessons, great blessings.”

Instagram post on Gersh Lazarow, Rabbi, and his experience during the pandemic, which was created by a psychology student living in Melbourne who was interested to hear about how COVID-19 was impacting on different peoples’ lives.

Date (Dublin Core)

April 27, 2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

Amira Moshinsky

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Jen Rodriguez

Type (Dublin Core)

Instagram post

Link (Bibliographic Ontology)

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Religion
English Social Distance
English Community & Community Organizations

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Passover
personal experience
quarantine
virtual congregation
prayer services
Australia
synagogue

Collection (Dublin Core)

Religion

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

06/03/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

06/22/2020
06/27/2020

Date Created (Dublin Core)

04/27/2020

Item sets

This item was submitted on June 22, 2020 by Jen Rodriguez using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

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