Melbourne’s Jewish population is being asked to contribute their experiences of COVID-19 to a new digital archive capturing life during the pandemic.
Led by Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, researchers are aiming to collect a range of materials from individuals, families and community organisations that reflect the ways Melbourne Jews adapted to life in lockdown.
Participants are asked to contribute digital artefacts and reflections on how their life has changed, particularly focusing on their Jewishness and Jewish practice to the archive, entitled Journal of the Plague Year.
Project lead Associate Professor Rebecca Forgasz said she and her collaborators, Associate Professor David Slucki and Dr Jordy Silverstein, were interested in the ways that lives of individuals and families were affected.
“Jewish people have, of course, been affected by the pandemic the same way as everyone else,” Associate Professor Forgasz said. “However, there have been additional impacts on their sense of identity and wellbeing, due to the disruption to Jewish religious and cultural life, so much of which is lived communally.
“We want to know how the disruptions and adaptations to the daily and weekly cycles affected you, your schools, community organisations, educational and cultural programming. Not to mention the celebration of holidays and memorial days including Pesach, Yom Hashoah, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Shavuot.
Read the article in The National Tribune.