One of my few pleasures during the current misery is the Zoom religious service, a weekly chance in my home to greet the Sabbath and to pray for healing.
But some are so sick as to be beyond the reach of prayer — and it has nothing to do with a virus.
Rabbi Jeremy Kridel, whose flock in the capital includes several members of my family, was leading a recent Shabbat service for Humanistic Jews. About 10 minutes into the service, one man unmuted himself and started shouting “Jewish scum” and “Heil Hitler.” Before he could be blocked from the call, he lifted up his shirt to reveal a large swastika tattooed on his chest
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Other hooligans began interrupting, and while the rabbi shut down the virtual service, another man dropped his pants on camera. Remarked Kridel: “This is just another indication of the fact that the current crisis isn’t the only one we face.”
Kridel was a victim in the new pandemic of hate. The Anti-Defamation League reports similar “Zoombombing” incidents around the country.
Trump We see the best of America in the health-care workers and first-responders risking (and sometimes losing) their lives to help others. But we also see the pathologies that have surfaced (or recurred in new mutations) during Trump’s presidency: the scapegoating of religious minorities, attacks on science and scientists, and promotion of globalist conspiracy theories (in this case, that the World Health Organization conspired with communist China to conceal the virus).
This country’s woeful response to the virus has an obvious cause: a president who refused to heed warnings and to prepare, instead offering false assurances while the nation snoozed. Even now, inexcusable delays limit tests, ventilators and respirators, and even now President Trump resists a nationwide stay-at-home order.
