Elevated Jewish Mortality from Coronavirus in England and Wales: An Epidemiological and Demographic Detective Story

Contemporary Challenges to the Regulation of Religions in Europe

“…Both communities mobilised grassroot resources to actively contribute to the local and national efforts to mitigate against public health risks of the pandemic, whilst also considering the toll on their own members and communal vulnerabilities. Emerging research suggests that the pandemic affected different parts of Muslim and Jewish communities differently, which helps account for complex and sometimes diverging responses from different groups to the pandemic restrictions (Staetsky, 2021;Al-Astewani, 2021). A report from Public Health England (2020) found that ethnic minorities experienced some of the worst impacts.…”

Health, Religiosity and Hatred: A Study of the Impacts of COVID-19 on World Jewry

“…Of the dozens of studies examining and comparing the many ways COVID-19 has impacted populations around the world, only a handful specifically examined how the pandemic impacted the lives, public health, religiosity, and public safety of Jews-some of the key studies being those of Bankier-Karp and Shain (2022) who studied the impact COVID-19 has had on the mental health of Orthodox Jews, Gaughan et al (2021) and Staetsky (2021) who studied the variation in risk of COVID-19 deaths among differing religious groups across England and Wales, Gilbert and Gilbert (2021) who examined how South African Jewish communities aided with community outreach and support, Rutland (2021) who examined the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on Australian Jews, Staetsky and Paltiel (2020) who undertook the first global assessment of COVID-19 mortality rates, Trencher (2021) who examined how COVID-19 impacted the lives of American Orthodox Jews, and Livne and Bejarano (2021) who studied the impact COVID-19 has had on the lives of Jewish seniors around the world. Recognizing the scarcity of scholarship specific to how COVID-19 has impacted world Jewry, this study demonstrates that by reflecting on the few regional studies that do existtogether with a comparison of national and regional Jewish populations against general population counts-a limited, yet still informative contextual account of the impact COVID-19 has had on Jews and Jewish communities can be achieved.…”

“We've all got the virus inside us now”: Disaggregating public health relations and responsibilities for health protection in pandemic London

“…Haredi neighbourhoods in the UK, Israel, US and Europe have experienced disproportionate rates of COVID-19 infection ( Zyskind et al, 2021 ; Birenbaum-Carmeli and Chassida, 2020 ; Staetsky, 2021 ; removed for review, 2021) and suboptimal COVID-19 vaccination coverage ( Gorelik et al, 2021 ). Studies indicate that Haredi Jews in Israel made decisions on how to respond to PH guidance by consulting religious and scientific sources of information, though were less likely to approve of PH control measures affecting religious institutions ( Taragin-Zeller et al, 2020 ).…”