By Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt
Director, Halachah & Medicine Commission
Rabbinical Alliance of America/Igud HaRabbonim

There is a small, yet very vocal and influential group of “anti-vaxxers” living in our heimishecommunities. While I am not questioning their love for their children, they are making a tremendous chillul Hashem and putting all Jews at great risk, both from measles, and rachmana leztlan, anti-semitism. I plead that everyone read this critically important pikuach nefashos article.

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Last month, a traveler raising money for tzeddaka in Brooklyn drove through the night to Detroit – his next fundraising stop. He felt sick en route and saw a doctor when he got there. But the doctor, who had never seen measles, misdiagnosed the man’s fever and cough as bronchitis.
Over the next two weeks, the traveler would become Michigan’s Patient Zero, spreading the highly contagious respiratory virus to 39 people as he stayed in private homes, attended synagogue daily and shopped in kosher markets. His case offers a cautionary tale about how easily one of the most infectious pathogens on the planet spreads within close-knit communities – especially those whose members live, work and socialize outside the mainstream.

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