Crisis, Reaction, and Hope: Jewish Adaptations to Past Adversity

  Introduction As we contemplate a post-Covid-19 world, we must never forget that the Jewish people are survivors, with a history of adapting to change in reaction to the most extreme life-threatening circumstances. No matter how often the Jewish people are perched on the brink of destruction, their spirit and calling have ensured their continued existence.1 The Jewish people have weathered storms of disappointment, despair, and devastation from enslavement in Egypt and wanderings in the wilderness to the destruction of two Temples; from the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt to Roman e