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“It’s not a time for happy partying because we’re getting this vaccine,” she said on Sunday.
“It’s a time to remember: remember what this means, remember the losses that we had, remember that we want to protect every other person we can protect from getting this disease.”
That was echoed by Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, 67, who has lived at Maimonides since 2012 following a brain-stem stroke that left him quadriplegic.
“It’s the greatest mitzvah — it’s the greatest act of love and kindness that we can do for our fellow humans,” Cahana said of vaccination. “If we have a chance to save others, we should run at that chance.”
Kitra Cahana, one of the rabbi’s five children, expressed concern for residents’ ongoing vulnerability, but said she is “overjoyed” about the vaccine and grateful to staff who have helped her father over the past 10 months.
“They’ve sacrificed themselves and their own families, their own health, their own safety. They’re worked to exhaustion, and we have an endless gratitude for what they have given.”
Before the pandemic, Cahana was undergoing physiotherapy three times per week and visiting family for Shabbat every Friday, with friends and congregants dropping by his residence routinely.
Restrictions ended all that, and Cahana has rarely left his bed since March, losing 30 pounds during the first wave, his daughter said.
Kitra also noted her frustration over how governments have handled a pandemic that killed more than four dozen residents of Maimonides.
“For those individuals the vaccine has come too late,” she said.
“We’re seeing a repeat of what happened in the springtime in the second wave, and it’s been devastating. It’s been devastating to see how our elders and those who are most vulnerable amongst us and the heroes that care for them have been treated.”
