I so greatly appreciated Dr. Dube’s storytelling and the impact of religious entities on stigma and health. Throughout the COVID pandemic, this has also been seen, but in other religions as well. In the Orthodox Jewish communities of both New York and in Israel, there have been ongoing conversations on striking the balance between religious law and controlling infectious disease.

Early in the pandemic, celebrations for Jewish holidays served as super-spreader events. This eventually led to tension between the government entities involved in curbing the spread and religious leaders. However, a key component of stopping infection is to work WITH communities and not against. There have been examples of this unity in both the United States and Israel where there are large populations of Orthodox Jews (see here and here).Similar to the stories Dr. Dube shared, community and respect for religious leaders are incredibly important to this population. By engaging both, a mutual benefitting relationship can be formed. Interestingly, in Israel experts had to use various strategies to educate the public on COVID safety. Not only did they seek out guidance from Rabbis, they utilized Orthodox telephone news hotlines called nayes to stop misinformation.

Like in Dr. Dube’s story, once these religious figures were educated on the risk, they saw the value in speaking on it and implementing safety measures. However, the Jewish Orthodox oftentimes being a closed off community, this meant a give and take had to take place. With the help of Rabbis, members of the Synagogue could worship together if masking was enforced and vaccinations were encouraged. We have learned from these stories of the pandemics that change occurs not from outside dictation, but from community buy-in.