Yochonon Donn is liveblogging events from quarantine in New York City
(Photo: AP Images)
Tuesday marks a week in quarantine, seven days of not stepping foot out of the house, 22 tefillos recited at home. Any thought I’d had that this was a 14-day affair was dashed sometime in day two or three. We’re going to be here for a long, long time.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that he couldn’t envision reopening the school system again this year. Camp registrations have been put on ice. I gave in and bought store matzah for the first time in my life this week, rather than participate in a chaburah of friends and bake ourselves.
Our home school — I call it Yeshivas Chananya ben Chizkiya ben Gurion after the sage who went up to an attic and stayed there for three years to save the sefer Yechezkel from being hidden away — is up and running. A routine, weird as it is to call it that, is settling in. A friend, Chaskel Bennett, made a chasunah today and we participated via Zoom instead of the physical dancing that will have to await more solid times. And a disconcerting number of friends are coming down with the coronavirus.
Today has brought more bad news. Additional victims from the coronavirus include Reb Avrohom Aharon ben Rasha Roiza and Rifka bas Hinda Rubashkin, the elderly parents of Sholom Mordechai. They’ve been an inspiration during their son’s long saga, and it’s painful to hear that they must go through a health crisis. They are émigrés from Russia and are renowned philanthropists in Boro Park through their butcher shop on 14th Avenue.
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