Based on Genesis 47:29, ensuring the proper care for and burial of the dead is known in the rabbinic tradition as the “kindness of truth” (ḥesed shel emet), since one cannot expect to receive anything in return, even a gesture thanks, from the deceased. The organization Chesed Shel Emes—which takes its name from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the phrase—provides ritual purification and burial for Jewish dead without means or without synagogue affiliations. In a photo essay, Mark Abramson shows how COVID-19 has affected the group’s mission. Isadora Kosofsky writes:

Their work focuses primarily on the forgotten and the anonymous. With contacts in the death bureaucracy of New York and the surrounding areas, Chesed Shel Emes identifies Jews bound for potter’s fields and claims them instead for their cemetery in upstate New York. The group is often on scene after suicides or accidents and at hospitals for patients who have just died. Chesed Shel Emes operates through WhatsApp and with a Ford pickup converted into a hearse.

As COVID-19 hit New York last spring, the virus claimed the lives of hundreds of Orthodox Jews. Families feared their loved ones would be cremated instead of buried. They read false social-media messages warning that their deceased relatives might not get proper taharot, or ceremonial baths. They dreaded the possibility that their parent or sibling would be left indefinitely in a temporary morgue truck.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.