Rabbi: Why I Restrict Synagogue Attendance to Vaccinated

Iam a biographer, a Jewish studies scholar and professor, and a Tablet columnist. I am also a rabbi; I have served the Fire Island Synagogue since 1997. I write this essay, as the new year dawns, as a rabbi. I do so in part because Liel Leibovitz’s recent essay "Our Bodies, Our Shuls," in which he urges us rabbis to admit congregants to services regardless of their vaccination status, is written as an open letter to rabbis, and thus an open letter to me.