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THIS WEEK'S EDITION: Counting the days

Shabbat shalom,

I've never been a consistent counter of the Omer, but this year, that ritual way of marking time seems particularly pertinent. We are stuck in what can easily seem like a suspension of time -- insert Groundhog Day reference here -- with no clear sense of the next phase.

And yet we are all counting. Today ends our sixth full week of working remotely here at the Forward. There were 868,954 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States and 44,572 deaths as of 11:21 a.m. ET on Friday, according to this frequently updating graphic by my former colleagues at The New York Times. My son, Lev, and I are tied at 19 games each in ping-pong; yesterday, we decided to make sets of 21 and then start over, and wondered if we'd get to 21 sets.

Growing up, instead of the Omer, I counted the days until I could start Camp Yavneh -- often, from the day I left the summer before. Now, of course, I'm just praying the camps will open in 2020, as I wrote earlier this week; in case you missed it, my little love letter to Jewish sleepaway camps is one of the 10 stories I've collected for you in a PDF that you can download or print via the button above, and savor through the weekend.

Among them, you'll find a powerful essay by a Palestinian-American about the hit Netflix show Fauda; a dispatch from Israel about the Dead Sea Scrolls in isolation; our exclusive story about Orthodox Jews who have recovered from Covid-19 donating plasma; another column by the nonagenarian laid-off Zabar's lox slicer; and one of the entries into our youth essay contest about freedom.

Besides all the great journalism we published this week, the Forward also convened two compelling "Zoomversations" (Zoominars? I'm dying to get one of these to catch on), and if you missed them, don't worry, there's video! Here's the link to watch our Opinion editor, Batya Ungar-Sargon, moderating a debate on anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and here's me hosting a panel on the crises challenging Jewish journalism. We've got two more great ones coming up next week: I'm moderating a discussion on "Unorthodox" Monday at 2 p.m. ET (sign up here), and Batya's doing another debate Tuesday evening on "How should American Jews observe Israeli Independence Day" (register here).

Oh, and this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. ET our new national editor, Rob Eshman, is doing a #QuarantineShabbat cooking demo on Instagram!

Tonight we count the 16th day of the Omer. That's 16 of the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot. Days of Zoom-meetings and socially-distanced walks, of home-cooked meals (or takeout to support local businesses!), of masks and gloves, puzzles and ping-pong games. How many more will there be? Nobody knows, but our journalists will be right there with you -- covering how this pandemic is affecting every aspect of Jewish life. Including the Omer.

Thanks for reading,
Jodi Rudoren
Editor-in-Chief

P.S. We've revived our Scribe platform for personal essays: send yours to [email protected]. If you know someone acting heroically, please share their story here, and if someone you know has died of Covid-19, share a memory here. Love this newsletter? Don't keep it to yourself. Forward to a friend.

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