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Hundreds of rabbis back NY government in shutdown of Hasidic neighborhoods

Some 400 rabbis and other Jewish religious leaders from across the spectrum of Jewish institutions have signed a statement in support of efforts in New York to shut down schools and limit synagogue attendance in Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods hit hard by COVID-19.

The statement comes in response to chaotic protests that have broken out in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, driven by Hasidic Jews opposed to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to shut down yeshivas and limit the number of people attending synagogues in ZIP codes with large numbers of Orthodox Jews.

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

A phrase from the book of Deuter­onomy hangs framed on the wall of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court chamber: “Justice, justice you shall pursue.”

For Ginsburg, who died at home surrounded by her family on September 18 at the age of 87, the phrase summed up perfectly her calling as jurist and a Jew.

In a 2018 interview with Jane Eisner, then editor of the Jewish daily Forward, Ginsburg said that she grew up in the shadow of World War II and the Holocaust and it left a deep and lasting imprint on her.