What the Charedi World is Really Like

Chaim Lebovits’ son, Nachum, donating blood (Forward)

The latest efforts have seen more than 120 Hasidic Jews from Monsey and New Square, perhaps the most insular Hasidic village in Rockland County, N.Y., take an entire day to travel to Delaware to get hooked up at the nearest blood bank that had the capacity to take them.  

Rabbi Yisroel Reisman and Rabbi Reuven Feinstein — have said that Jews are encouraged to donate plasma — and can even drive on Shabbat and holidays in order to do so. The Orthodox Union and Agudath Israel of America, the two largest Orthodox umbrella organizations, are sending messages to the community about the science of plasma and its use in treating Covid-19. 

(He) hopes to organize more than 45,000 people from the Orthodox community around New York City to donate plasma. Dr. David Reich, president and chief operating officer of the Mount Sinai hospital system, said that more than half of the donors to their plasma collection efforts have been Orthodox…

On Sunday, the Mayo Clinic received 1,000 blood samples to test for antibodies from donors in Lakewood, N.J., a major Orthodox hub, to be tested for antibodies, according to Dr. Mike Joyner, who leads the convalescent plasma program at Mayo…

Joyner said he expects to process thousands more tests from Orthodox Jews, and that the community’s contribution to making New York a center of plasma donation could help people across the country recover from the disease faster. He said he wants New York City to become the “Saudi Arabia” of supplying plasma. 

“The plasma isn’t just used for frum” — religious — “people or Jewish people, it’s for people in general,” Lebovits said. “We as observant Jews have an obligation to preserve life, and save life, and help as many people as we can.”