The Orthodox Jewish Community and the Coronavirus: Halacha Grapples with the Pandemic

Abstract

Many general population surveys have been conducted relating to the coronavirus/COVID-19. Some have reported on small samples of Jewish respondents, but issues specific to Judaism have not been well explored. This paper provides findings from the first broad coronavirus-related survey of the U.S. Orthodox Jewish community, conducted in May 2020 among 502 Jewish respondents who resided in the United States, self-identified as Orthodox Jews, and indicated whether they were Modern Orthodox or Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”). The survey broadly probed the impact of the pandemic through the lens of Jewish individual and communal attitudes, behaviors and practices, exploring such issues as people’s health, finances, Jewish prayer and religious study, synagogues and their programs, what services their communities and its Jewish organizations are offering, the extent to which they avail themselves of these services and how they are perceived, changes in the perceived value of Jewish communal connection, and many other aspects, including how people assess the pandemic’s impact on their overall “feelings of Jewishness.” While many communal changes arising from the pandemic will prove to be transitory, others may become more permanent or, at the very least, create introspection with respect to normative religious observance. This paper references findings relating to the former, while focusing on the latter. Thus, we focus on and report survey findings relating to how the Orthodox community has melded its adherence to Halacha (Jewish law) and tradition with the need for change and flexibility required to deal safely with the pandemic. We will also share some of the communal views that have arisen on how such changes might play out in the years ahead.