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Our Ongoing Closure

12/21/2020 04:35:54 PM

Dec21

 

yeshecyishlach

Our Ongoing Closure

 


Greetings Friends,

 

Our synagogue has been closed for the last 4 weeks and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Since March, our closure, reopening, and operating decisions have all been made under the guidance of our medical committee - a group of medical professionals, scientists, and policy experts.


The current closure is largely based upon the local 7-day positivity averages of each of the areas in which our local membership lives. Despite the relatively low Covid positivity rate of our synagogue’s zip code (10003), the recent uptick of positivity on the Lower East Side (10002 - 6.51%) and Alphabet City / Stuyvesant Town (10009 - 3.03%) deeply concerns us, as does the reality that rates of positivity and hospitalization are increasing in all neighborhoods of NYC. In addition, the citywide rate is excessively high - being above 5% for the last month.


Together, we monitor a variety of metrics and discuss the conditions multiple times each week. It continues to be our assessment that the socially-distant and masked services (A.K.A. The Six Feet Synagogue) operating model is appropriate only when local positivity rates and other metrics are low.

 

Most obviously, we share your disappointment, but we believe that this is an appropriately cautious measure, one that demonstrates our understanding of the realities that we continue to face, as well as our continuous commitment to act boldly (and creatively) to protect our community, our neighborhood, and beyond.

 

Finally, we are grateful to our team of professionals who continue to advise us and keep us safe. We pray for and look forward to the eventual end of this plague, or at the very least, relatively safer local conditions that would allow us to re-open.

 

 

 
Best,
 
Gavriel Bellino, Rabbi

Elie Yudewitz, President

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784