local
assistance.” But beyond sending money to reliable
sources, many advocates for Ukrainian
refugees have their hands tied, warned
HIAS Pennsylvania Executive Director
Cathryn Miller-Wilson.

“Unfortunately, right now, there’s
very little that we’re able to do,” Miller-
Wilson said.

HIAS PA is unable to begin reset-
tling Ukrainians until the U.S. gov-
ernment grants Temporary Protected
Status to those who have already fl ed to
the U.S. and asylum to those still trying
to leave the country.

For Ukranians in the U.S. on a tem-
porary visa, the lack of TPS puts them at
risk of deportation. Th ough Ukrainians
here permanently can petition for rela-
tives to immigrate, the process can take
years, and many of the U.S. consulates
in Ukraine are now closed.

Additionally, petitioning occurs
through the Lautenberg Amendment,
a federal law created in response to the
attacks on Soviet Jews, and the amend-
ment needs to be reauthorized every
year, which has not been done in 2022.

Mi l ler-Wi lson
encourages Philadelphia residents, particularly
U.S. citizens, to call their Congress
members to request that the Biden
administration grant refugee status to
Ukrainians. She hopes that as the cri-
sis evolves, the U.S. will loosen more
bureaucratic restrictions on those try-
ing to fl ee their war-torn countries.

“Don’t keep being wedded to struc-
tures that, even in the best of times, were
terrible, and now are useless,” she said
For Jews in particular, supporting
Ukrainian refugees goes beyond just
showing solidarity for Ukraine, Krug
believes. “Although it plays out in Ukraine, it’s
not about Ukraine at all,” Krug said.

Krug argued that Putin’s decision
to invade Ukraine is part of a greater
eff ort to rebuild a Soviet stronghold in
the region, an attempt that more and
more resembles the events of Nazi rule
leading up to the Holocaust.

“Every Jewish person should be very
sensitive to this issue,” he said. JE
Children from the Mishpacha Children’s Orphanage leave Odessa.

Courtesy of Moussia Goldstein
SHARE your engagement,
wedding birth,
Bar/Bat Mitzvah
announcement and any other
simcha on both
jewishexponent.com and the weekly
Jewish Exponent
newspaper for ...

FREE .

J E W I S H E X P O N E N T . C O M / S U B M I T - M A Z E L - T O V
8 MARCH 10, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



local
Residents Refl ect on COVID Era
Two Years in
BY JARRAD SAFFREN
I n Philadelphia, the mask require-
ment for indoor establishments is
no more, and the same is true
across most of the United States.

It feels like a post-COVID moment,
especially as the news cycle rushes
thumb-fi rst into a new memetic war:
the literal war in Ukraine started by
Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But in the Greater Philadelphia area,
there’s a feeling that is probably also
common around the country: COVID
may be ending, but we have changed,
and we’re not sure if that’s good or bad.

In reality, it’s probably both.

Local Jews did their best to fi nd clar-
ity about this confusing time.

Lela Casey, a Doylestown resi-
dent and mother of three, said there
were two big things she’d miss from
pre-pandemic days — moving about
in the world without a heavy feeling of
risk and being able to talk to her neigh-
bors without some political implication
hanging over them.

Casey used to be able to travel
without thinking twice. Th e writer’s
social life once existed in New York
City, where she’d meet up with writer
friends. Now, neither of those things
are true.

Th e mom also used to be able to
talk to her neighbors without group-
ing them into the mask or anti-mask
categories. But in March 2022, she no
longer can.

“It’s become this identifying factor,
and that’s diffi cult to stop,” Casey said.

“I hope it goes away.”
Th ere may not be an upside to the
political creep into neighborhoods that
we’ve all experienced during the pan-
demic, but there is an upside to trav-
eling less, according to Casey. She now
focuses much more on local issues.

In November, Casey was part of
a group of parents that lobbied the
Central Bucks School District to
condemn the antisemitism that was
breaking out in the district. Central
Bucks leaders listened and denounced
antisemitism at a December school
board meeting.

Casey said it’s “healthy for all of us to
take care of our communities.”
“And not only to take care of our
communities, but to have a commu-
nity,” she added. “When you’re always
running off to work or wherever, you
don’t pay attention to it.”
Daniela Burg of Furlong has under-
gone a similar shift during the past
couple of years.

Burg, who works for an insur-
ance company, spent her week-
days in an offi ce before March 2020.

She also formed a tight bond with a
group of female classmates at a local
Orangetheory Fitness.

But COVID moved Burg’s offi ce to
her kitchen table and her workout rou-
tine to the screen on which she takes
her Peloton classes. (Burg has “hacked”
the Peloton system by not buying the
bike, she explains, paying only $13 a
month.) “Sometimes, I do miss getting up
and leaving the house,” Burg said.

At the same time, the mother of two
has a lot more time to fi nish work,
attend to her children and talk to her
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 9