Board of Deputies President urges a Covid-secure Chanukah

Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl is urging the community to stay Covid secure in the run-up to Chanukah.

Marie said: “We are all looking forward to Chanukah. While plenty of shuls are now operating services, Chanukah lightings are often an opportunity for us to gather across the generations, and so it is vital that we remain Covid secure. It is vital that anyone who qualifies for a booster jab takes it up as soon as possible.”

Working with the Jewish community’s burial boards, regional Jewish communities and the Jewish Small Communities Network as of the week ending 19th November 2021 there have been 954 Jewish funerals carried out where the deceased contracted Covid-19. This represents an increase of 3 reported funeral on the previous week.

We wish bereaved families a long life, and pray that the memory of their loved ones should be for a blessing.

The Board of Deputies is liaising with seven of the largest denominational burial boards to collate an indicator of deaths where Covid-19 was a factor. These denominational burial boards are: The Adath Yisroel Burial Society, the Federation of Synagogues Burial Society, the Joint Jewish Burial Board, Liberal Judaism, the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi Community, the United Synagogue Burial Society and the Western Charitable Foundation. The Board of Deputies has either received reports from the following regional communities, or has accounted for them through the largest denominational burial boards where they cover that particular community: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bognor Regis, Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove, Canvey Island, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Cornwall, Darlington, Eastbourne, Edinburgh, Exeter, Gateshead, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Solihull, Southend, Southport, St Annes, Stoke on Trent and Swansea. The indicator enumerates how many funerals were carried out by these burial societies and communities where COVID-19 appeared on the death certificate of the deceased. As such it covers both deaths in hospitals and in the wider community. When making comparisons of data, please note that data separate to this indicator may not have similar parameters. Please do not take successive figures as indicative of exact trend as smaller communities cannot report weekly.

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