Jewish, Christian congregations leaderless due to COVID-19 deaths
Among the NY congregations were at least 60 different rabbis who died, with at least 20 of them being in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Boro Park.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFAn Orthodox Jewish man wears a mask while talking on a cellphone in the Orthodox Jewish community of the Borough Park neighborhood during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., April 30, 2020.(photo credit: REUTERS/CAITLIN OCHS)
At least 75 congregations of different faiths and denominations throughout New York City have been left leaderless over the past two months, with several rabbis, priests and ministers dying as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, The New York Post reported.Among them were at least 60 different rabbis, according to reports tallied from Jewish media by The Jerusalem Post, with at least 20 of these deaths being in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Boro Park alone.Notable deaths from the Jewish community include Rabbi Mordechai Dovid Rubin – the 95-year-old rabbi who led a congregation of Sasregen Hassidim in Flatbush, Brooklyn – and Rabbi Chaim Mertz, whose congregation in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn sparked controversy when his funeral ceremony violated social distancing rules.In addition, at least two members of the New York Board of Rabbis died from the coronavirus in April, the board's executive vice president Joseph Potasnik said, according to The New York Post. These rabbis were Solomon Wulliger of Flatbush and Moshe Kwalbrun of Queens.“We lost two extraordinary rabbis,” Potasnik said. “We cannot replace such special human beings.”In addition to rabbis, eight priests – seven Catholic priests and one Greek Orthodox priest – died after confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19, according to the New York Archdiocese, Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan and Brooklyn Diocese.
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