Banned from holding normal shiva services, Jewish people around the world are turning to synagogues reserved for coronavirus-positive worshipers to mourn on their behalf.

“All the time, we get requests from all over the Jewish world for us to say Kaddish for people who died of coronavirus,” said Elazar Cohen, who prays at one of the Jewish world’s few functioning synagogues — at a so-called virus hotel in Israel.

Kaddish, or the mourners prayer, is traditionally only said in a quorum of 10 men, called a minyan, but most communal prayer services in Israel and around the world have been halted as part of the effort to stop the spread of the virus.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Nachum, another worshiper who did not want to publish his family name, said: “We are one of the only minyanim that is functioning properly so we feel this is a big responsibility — we’re doing this for the whole People of Israel,” he said.

Israel has turned several hotels in to centers for coronavirus patients with light symptoms, and given that everyone there has tested positive for the virus, people are allowed to mingle and socialize. And as they stay together — prohibited by law from leaving the hotel — they also pray together.

Cohen, a 22-year-old from Ashkelon who returned positive from New York where he had been studying at Chabad’s headquarters, is at Jerusalem’s Prima Palace, along with 120 other coronavirus patients. Worshipers at the hotel synagogue sit with long lists of names that they have received from people across Israel and the Diaspora, and pray on their behalf — as they do at some other Israeli hotels.

“My friend in the hotel with me has a list with about 1,000 people who he says Kaddish for,” said Cohen, explaining that the names include coronavirus victims, others who have died in recent months, and those whose death anniversaries are being observed.

Observant Jews are obligated to say Kaddish in a minyan during daily prayers in the first year following the death of their relative and then every year on the anniversary.

In some countries, mourners are required to hold tiny funerals that do not allow a prayer quorum. In others, a quorum is possible for the funeral, but when people return home to sit shiva, they are barred from receiving enough visitors for communal prayer.

So, while some are relying on rabbinic opinions that allow Kaddish on online services or getting neighbors to answer “amen” from balconies, thousands are filling in online forms that people in the virus hotels have put forms online, offering to say the memorial prayer on their behalf.

At the virus hotels, Kaddish is normally recited in the three or four daily services, but there are also urgent late-night requests, once the day’s prayers are finished, for special prayers to be convened for families who have just buried their loved ones. “People have called from New York at midnight and we assemble a special minyan for them,” said Cohen. “This happens virtually every night.”

Nachum, another student who returned to Israel from Chabad HQ in New York and went to the Prima Palace, said that worshipers at the hotels are not only mourning on behalf of the Jewish world, but also celebrating. Requests have been received for them to recite the “Mi sheberach” prayer to bless new baby girls and name them.

There was even dancing at the Prima Palace last week, to mark the birthday of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. In order to ensure there are enough materials for religious text study, a special van with a printer was taken to the hotel.

While the guests in the hotels can pray together because everyone is coronavirus positive, on at least one army base, communal prayers are permitted for the opposite reason — confidence that nobody has coronavirus.

At the Netzach Yehuda base of the ultra-Orthodox Nahal Haredi battalion, the green light was given for soldiers to hold communal prayers after they spent more than two weeks together completely isolated from anyone outside the base, and nobody had coronavirus symptoms.

Soldiers at the services are saying Kaddish for anyone who asks. One paratrooper is commemorating his grandmother. “Over the last few weeks, I have been lost because I cannot say Kaddish for my mother,” said Shmuel Schwartz. “Then my soul was immediately revitalized when my son offered to say Kaddish for my mother in his unit. I felt so relieved and at comfort that my mother could be properly honored during my time of mourning.”