O pinion
Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine Is a Jewish Imperative
BY RABBI MICAH PELTZ
VAC C I N E S
AG A I N S T
COVID-19 have been invented
and approved for use at a record
pace. While polls indicate that
Americans in overwhelming
numbers are ready to take the
shot — and are already doing so
— there are some holdouts. We
must consider as a community
what our position is regarding
vaccination and other precau-
tions against the pandemic.

Now that a vaccine is avail-
able, there arise inevitable
questions about the moral-re-
ligious obligation to receive
the shot, whether our Jewish
institutions should mandate
it for workers, congregants
and students, and how we can
ensure the fair distribution of
this lifesaving intervention.

The Conservative movement,
along with the other dominant
streams of American Judaism,
leaves very little room for
ambiguity on these matters.

As I recently wrote in a
teshuvah (rabbinic response)
that was
unanimously approved by the Conservative
movement’s Committee on
Jewish Law and Standards,
vaccination is a Jewish imper-
ative when recommended by
medical professionals. Even
when vaccines are approved
by an emergency process, as
the COVID-19 vaccines have
been, they meet the halakhic
standards of a refuah b’dukah,
an established treatment.

This is especially true in the
midst of this terrible pandemic,
which has claimed more than
420,000 lives in the United States
and over 2 million lives world-
wide. The Moderna and Pfizer
vaccines, approved for use in the
United States and now having
gone into the arms of more
than 10 million of our citizens,
including my own, clearly meet
these standards.

The Conservative movement
has been accompanied by the
main bodies for Reform and
Orthodox rabbis in stressing the
necessity and justice of being so
vaccinated. And for good reason:
Jewish law is replete with injunc-
tions to take steps to protect our
health and avoid danger.

“Be careful and watch
yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:9),
Moses instructs the Israelites.

The Torah even commands
us put guardrails on our
roofs (Deuteronomy 22:8).

Maimonides extrapolated
from this specific case that we
should take measures to protect
ourselves and others.

Rabbi Moses Isserles, in the
great code of Jewish law the
Shulhan Arukh, insists that
we are to avoid all things that
endanger ourselves and instructs
us that these concerns are to be
treated “more stringently than
ritual prohibitions.”
Leviticus (19:16) echoes these
same messages, with its exhor-
tation to “not stand idly by the
blood of your neighbor.” This is
understood in our tradition to
mean that we do everything we
can to safeguard the health of
others. One would think that none
of this should be controversial,
that there would be unanimity
among rabbis and Jews on
these points. Common sense
practices that prevent the spread
of COVID-19, such as wearing
masks, maintaining physical
distancing and washing hands
are not just recommended but
are obligated by Jewish law.

Nevertheless, there have been
well-publicized cases of physical
distancing being ignored at large
weddings and funerals, and even
protests against wearing masks
in some communities.

There is a strong consensus
among mainstream Con-
servative, Reform and Orthodox
Jews. Jewish law and tradition
include ethical obligations to
pursue healthy living and to
embrace established scientific
practices that contribute to the
well-being of all. That well-being
can be physical, and it can
also be spiritual. To that end,
many of my Conservative rabbi
colleagues have written prayers
and meditations to help people
who are coping with illness and
who are receiving or adminis-
tering vaccines.

Our movement’s religious
opinion on these matters stipu-
lates best practices for this time.

Taking preventive measures
against the spread of COVID-19
by wearing masks, washing
hands and physical distancing
are to be regarded as mitzvot
and mandated by Jewish law.

Vaccines approved by govern-
ment health agencies are to
be regarded as refuot b’dukot,
established medical proce-
dures, and with proper medical
guidance Jews are obligated to be
vaccinated. Jewish institutions
are permitted by Jewish law to
require employees, students and
congregants to be vaccinated
against COVID-19, though
secular legal counsel should be
consulted. On a more collective level,
we are obligated to ensure the
ethical distribution of vaccines
globally and nationally. We
should favor the most vulner-
able, and we should maximize
the social benefit by prioritizing
first responders and those
who can set an example by
receiving the vaccine that will
encourage others to be vacci-
nated. Jewish ethics prohibit us
from using personal connec-
tions, wealth or influence to
receive the vaccine sooner than
triage criteria would indicate.

Effectively, “jumping in line” is
prohibited. We have made it through an
awful period of plague, but we
might be able to soon turn the
corner thanks to vaccination. Let
us do our part as members of the
Jewish community, Americans
and citizens of the world. l
Rabbi Micah Peltz is the senior
rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is
a member of the Conservative
movement’s Committee on Jewish
Law and Standards, which sets
halakhic policy for Rabbinical
Assembly rabbis and for the
Conservative movement as a
whole. Capitol Events Make Me Recall History, Personal and Institutional
of the rioters, recalled an earlier
age when discrimination was
an accepted part of life.

While attending
the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School of Business
MBA program in 1959, I made
several appointments for job
interviews with recruiters of
major companies. As students
at one of the top business
BY HERBERT CHUBIN
schools in the country,
Wharton’s MBA candidates —
FOR ME, the attempted coup mostly white Christian men
at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and — were highly sought-after.

the racism and anti-Semitism
But I knew that few
14 JANUARY 28, 2021
companies would hire Jews,
even from Wharton. The two
interviews I had with compa-
nies that did hire Jews resulted
in job offers. Yet I signed up
for other interviews simply to
aggravate the recruiters; this
was my way of fighting back
against the many companies
which still discriminated
against Jews. I almost felt sorry
for the person who sat opposite
me at the table and had to
pretend that he was conducting
a real 10-minute interview
with a Jew.

JEWISH EXPONENT
So, as recently as 1959,
anti-Semitism was still very
much present in its covert
form, although America was
well past the years when overt
anti-Semitism flourished.

As my father used to tell me,
anti-Semitism was both overt
and mainstream in the 1920s
in America, and continued
as such through the 1940s.

During those decades, the Ku
Klux Klan and the Nazi party
openly expressed their anti-Se-
mitic views. They held rallies
and marches. There were others
who showed hatred for Jews
on radio stations and in many
publications. The United States’
entry into World War II in
December 1941 ended most of
the overt Jew hating; however,
anti-Semitism continued to
exist as a major issue for Jews
until the 1960s.

Although overt white
supremacist displays like the
march in Charlottesville,
Virginia, in 2017 had been
rare in recent years, I knew
See Chubin, Page 25
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
I’m a Student and I’m Afraid of
Where My Party’s Headed
BY SOPHIA RODNEY
I AM A PROUD JEW, a proud
American, a proud supporter of
Israel and a Democrat too. But
there are two main reasons why
I am struggling to reconcile my
identity as a supporter of Israel
and a Democrat.

First, I believe President Joe
Biden’s plans to rejoin the Iran
nuclear deal poses an enormous
threat to the safety and even
existence of Israel.

Second, I believe the
Democratic congresswomen
who are part of “The Squad”
are contributing to a heightened
climate of hatred of Israel and
Jews. Let’s discuss the Iran deal.

During former President
Barack Obama’s first term in
office, Iran had allegedly been
developing a nuclear program.

So, various countries, including
the United States, imposed
crippling economic sanctions
on the country. In 2015, Iran
agreed to a deal that lifted these
sanctions. This was the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action,
now informally known as the
Iran nuclear deal.

The deal was a disaster for
three main reasons: Iran did
not comply and lied about it,
Iran used its new access to
the formerly frozen assets to
increase its ballistic missile
program, which now poses a
threat to Israel, and Iran used
these assets to also fund Israel-
hating proxy militant groups
across the Middle East.

In terms of Iran’s lack of
compliance, in 2018, Netanyahu
announced, according to the
Daily Mail, that Israel’s intelli-
gence services had documents
that proved Iran secretly
continued developing a nuclear
program that violated the treaty.

In terms of how Iran used
its new access to the once
frozen assets, according to the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, Iran used deal-ac-
quired finances to strengthen its
ballistic missile program. Also,
in March of 2016, Iran tested
ballistic missiles with the words
“Israel must be wiped out” on
them, as CBS News reported.

So, Americans are naive to think
Iran would never use its new
ballistic missile power to attack
Israel. In terms of how Iran used
funding from the deal to
strengthen proxy groups that
seek to destroy Israel, Nathan
Sales, the former U.S. State
Department’s top counter-ter-
rorism official, averred in early
2020 that Iran gives Hezbollah
$700 million and Hamas $100
million annually. These are
funds that would be much
harder to provide if the Iran
nuclear deal had not made Iran
so much wealthier.

Biden is reportedly going to
settle for some version of this
extremely flawed deal again.

Then there’s “The Squad,” the
nickname applied to four female
Democrat members of Congress,
STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the signed opinion columns and letters to the editor
published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of
the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing Group, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
or the Jewish Exponent. Send letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to 215-569-3389.

Letters should be a maximum of 200 words and may be edited for clarity and brevity. Unsigned
letters will not be published.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM including Rashida Tlaib,
Ilhan Omar and Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez. When Biden announced his
nominee for Secretary of State,
Antony Blinken, who happens
to be Jewish, Tlaib tweeted,
“So long as he doesn’t suppress
my First Amendment right to
speak out against Netanyahu’s
racist and inhumane policies.

The Palestinian people deserve
equality and justice.”
So Biden nominates a Jew to
his cabinet and Tlaib automat-
ically assumes he wants to
suppress her right to speak out
... because he is Jewish? This is
anti-Semitism. In March of 2019, Omar said
at a public forum, “I want to talk
about the political influence in
this country that says it is OK for
people to push for allegiance to a
foreign country,” while speaking
about the US-Israel relationship.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO
of the Anti-Defamation League,
explained why Omar’s remarks
were anti-Semitic: “Accusing
Jews of having allegiance to a
foreign government has long
been a vile anti-Semitic slur
used to harass, marginalize, and
persecute the Jewish people for
centuries.” Last but not least, we have
Ocasio-Cortez, who is affiliated
with Democratic Socialists of
America, which has voted to
adopt the anti-Israel boycott,
divestment and sanctions
movement. BDS is anti-Semitic
for many reasons, as CAMERA
has outlined. But, for starters,
a South African BDS leader
alleged in March 2020 that
COVID-19-related materials
were not printed in Arabic,
which was false. This is blatant
anti-Semitism. How can I, a Jewish person
who believes in the Jewish right
to self-determination, associate
myself with these people? When
See Rodney, Page 25
JEWISH EXPONENT
KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
More on Cemetery Issues
I HAVE BEEN READING the Jewish Exponent for over 50
years and always see similar articles about Jewish cemeteries
being neglected, kept in disorder and being overgrown.

First of all, it is the owners of these cemeteries’ business to
keep the grounds and cemetery in good order.

Secondly, they ought to make tools like hand mowers and
clippers available for the families with loved ones at the cemetery
and options to keep their family plot in trimmed order.

The community at large and the synagogues must be made
aware of their responsibility to keep the sacred grounds in
orderly fashion in respect of their departed loved ones.

Harry Leibson | Elkins Park
My husband and I spent Martin Luther King Day cleaning debris
at Har Jehuda Cemetery (“Har Jehuda Cemetery Struggles as
Business Declines,” Jan. 7) from the gravesites in the vicinity of
E17, 67, line 1. This area was totally entwined with thorny vines
and weeds, which climbed into the trees, totally obliterating
everything in the area.

We managed to clear away 90% of the mess, storing it on the
side so the trash would not hide any gravesite. We were specifically
looking for the great-grandmother of my husband, Toube Krauss.

After many attempts, we finally were able to cut away many of the
vines, which were hiding her stone. Many of the stones in her area
sadly had been pushed over or fallen on their own.

We did our best to clear every gravesite in her area. We will
need to return to put the trash in at least 12 bags and transport
them to our home for disposal. We will be back to continue this
cleanup project. May their memory be for a blessing.

Ann Krauss | Havertown
More on Interfaith Debate
Regarding the current debate about the Exponent’s covering
of interfaith family holiday practices and also Jesse Bernstein’s
recent review of Rachel Gross’ book about viewing Jewish
cultural practice, like eating kosher-style pastrami sandwiches
at Hymie’s, as Jewish religious practice, I concur with Bernstein’s
dubiousness. As a former shomer-shabbat, kosher-in-and-out Ramahnik
whose religious practice has waned over the decades as I transi-
tioned from my childhood theism to my current devout atheism,
I have long struggled to identify what about Jewish ritual for
me is the baby to be preserved and what is the bathwater that I
can safely discard. The more I looked, the more appeared to be
bathwater and the less baby, until I belatedly (and embarrass-
ingly) realized that the baby is the bathwater.

The fact is that, unless you live in Israel, if you want there to
be even a slim chance of your great-grandchildren being Jewish
then you better observe the Sabbath and keep kosher. Eating
kosher-style pastrami sandwiches at Hymie’s just ain’t gonna cut
it. Besides, I much prefer their extra-lean corned beef specials.

Steve Mendelsohn | Penn Valley
See Letters, Page 25
JANUARY 28, 2021
15