Jewish Covid-19 Mortality total for 8 January: 691

Working with the Jewish community’s burial boards, regional Jewish communities and the Jewish Small Communities Network as of the week ending 8^th January there have been 691 Jewish funerals carried out where the deceased contracted Covid-19. The Board of Deputies received reports of 43 such funerals for the week ending 8 January, the highest weekly total since April..

We wish bereaving families a long life, and pray that the memory of their loved ones should be for a blessing.

Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl said: “We have recorded our biggest weekly increase in Covid-19 funerals in some time. This is the deadliest week for the Jewish community since April, and we must all follow government guidance scrupulously to protect our older and more vulnerable loves ones, as well as the health system on which we all rely.”

The Board of Deputies counts funerals where the deceased contracted Covid-19 from throughout the UK community. During the first wave, the Board initially counted only from the six largest burial societies in addition to the Orthodox burial societies in Manchester. This ‘core group’ reported 22 such funerals for the week ending 1^st May, a figure not reached until the reports this week, totalling 35. (The total above of 43 includes other provincial reports). The week with the highest Jewish mortality as recorded by the Board was the week ending 17^th April, the week of Pesach, where the ‘core group’ recorded 104 such funerals. For more information of how the Board of Deputies collates its Jewish Covid19 mortality figure. See below:

The Board of Deputies is liaising with seven of the largest denominational burial boards to collate an indicator of deaths where Covid-19 was a factor. These denominational burial boards are: The Adath Yisroel Burial Society, the Federation of Synagogues Burial Society, the Joint Jewish Burial Board, Liberal Judaism, the Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi Community, the United Synagogue Burial Society and the Western Charitable Foundation. The Board of Deputies has either received reports from the following regional communities, or has accounted for them through the largest denominational burial boards where they cover that particular community: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bognor Regis, Bournemouth, Brighton and Hove, Canvey Island, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Cornwall, Darlington, Eastbourne, Edinburgh, Exeter, Gateshead, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Solihull, Southend, Southport, St Annes, Stoke on Trent and Swansea. The indicator enumerates how many funerals were carried out by these burial societies and communities where COVID-19 appeared on the death certificate of the deceased. As such it covers both deaths in hospitals and in the wider community. When making comparisons of data, please note that data separate to this indicator may not have similar parameters. Please do not take successive figures as indicative of exact trend as smaller communities cannot report weekly.