A group of doctors and Hatzalah coordinators from the Crown Heights community request that no one visit New York for Gimmel Tammuz, in light of the medical danger it can present to the community.
By Anash.org reporter
A group of doctors and Hatzalah coordinators from the Crown Heights community request that no one visit New York for Gimmel Tammuz, in light of the medical danger it can present to the community.
The letter, signed by 14 doctors and 5 Hatzalah coordinators, follows the similar call of the Beis Din not to visit Crown Heights in the coming months.
Below is the text of their letter:
17 Sivan 5780
An open letter to all Anash, globally, from Chabad physicians living in Crown Heights:
Gimmel Tammuz is just a few short weeks away, and we wish that we would not have to write this appeal, knowing how important a visit to our Rebbe on this day is to so many of us.
After weathering a dreadful outbreak of COVID-19 locally, there remains a significant number of our elderly here in the Crown Heights community who remain at risk for contracting the virus and potentially becoming seriously ill (ch”v). Presently, we believe that one of the most important factors protecting this vulnerable population is the fact that they are mostly surrounded by people who have already been sick and are presumably immune.
However, if this year on Gimmel Tammuz we are visited by Anash from other communities around the world that are in different phases of this pandemic, and these guests either carry the virus with them from their community or contract it along their journey here, then this could pose a real risk of infecting those vulnerable members of our community.
Therefore, we are making the following bakasha nafshis: This year Gimmel Tammuz (and the surrounding days), please do not plan to come to Crown Heights. As hard as it is to make this request from our fellow members of Anash, we feel that the safety of our own precious ziknei anash and other vulnerable individuals compels us to do so.
In the merit of this mesiras nefesh, may we, as one k’hal chassidim, be speedily reunited with our Rebbe, before Gimmel Tammuz, in Yerushalayim.
Respectfully,
Dr. Mordechai Apfelbaum
Dr. Simcha Yaakov Dubroff
Dr. Reuven Feldman
Dr. Dovid Feldman
Dr. Moshe Gaerman
Dr. Baruch Grossman
Dr. Rebel Ilyayev
Dr. Reuven lngber
Dr. Shlomo Minkowitz
Dr. Zev Nelken
Dr. Shlomo Neufield
Dr. Eli Rosen
Dr. Chaim Schwartzberg
Dr. Libbat Shaham
Crown Heights Hatzalah coordinators: R’ Avraham Bistritsky, R’ Menachem Mendel Gorodetsky, R’ Yosef Hakohen Friedman, R’ Yakov Yoel Hakohen Katz, Rav Yosef Simpson
