My husband and I were both vaccine-injured as children. After my 1st vaccine I had a fever and seizures. By the age of two I was exempted from further vaccinations and treated with anti-seizure meds for a long time. I never had any more seizures but, never-the-less, ended up with autoimmune issues. My husband was 12 month old, had a high fever for many days, and was taken to hospital in critical condition. Doctors diagnosed him as having adverse reactions to vaccines and a heart murmur as a result. He didn’t have it before vaccination. As a result of the heart murmur he was exempted from further vaccines and received an army exemption, as well.

We both had all the infectious diseases naturally without any adverse effects, measles included. Hashem gives us an immune system to handle it all. There was no need to have the government involved to make decisions. Even doctors in the USSR had rachmones and gave exemptions to those who needed it.

Hashem planned and brought my husband and me together. I knew we are not going to vaccinate our children and after many years we finally had those precious children. We received perfectly legal NYC REs (religious exemptions). Each child was exempt until the age of 18. There was nothing to worry about. 

Our local yeshiva accepted our children’s RE exemptions several years ago when my children started kindergarten. 

In the middle of November 2018 I received a phone call from the school requesting that they receive the MMR. I was surprised and reminded them about the RE. I was told that school principal no longer has to accept the exemption and that I now had to bring a medical exemption and was given 2 days to comply. Before the two days were up, he forgot about the medical exemption and had my children sitting with a guard until I finally saw the message and called him back to remind him of his promise. I made a doctor’s appointment but not within two days; it would take several weeks to see him. 

So, after the allotted two days they were home. For the first couple of days the kids rested and then they started to ask when they can return back to school. 

After two weeks we wrote a letter and asked the school for a reprieve explaining that it takes a long time to get a doctor’s appointment. He granted us an extension and allowed the kids to return to school. They were thrilled to be back in school. It was right before their Chanukah Hagiga. However, before they returned home on that same day, I found another message from the school that the principal changed his mind. He couldn’t take a chance because they had a pregnant teacher (fully vaccinated) and he, himself (missing MMR!) couldn’t take a chance. Our children became enemies of the state, just like in Russia when Stalin accused Jewish doctors of murdering their patients and rounded them up in 1953 (he died on Purim in the middle of the roundups).

I can’t even describe what was going on with the kids. My children became very depressed; one of them even wanting to die. One wouldn’t get up till noon and the other one wouldn’t get out of bed without being dragged out and made to wash up and eat.

I started to call frantically to different agencies to find out if the law had been changed. It had not.

Right before Chanukah the DOH sent a letter excluding unvaccinated children from attending schools in particular zip codes. Even though my children’s school was outside of those zip codes it didn’t matter. My children were doomed.

At the end of December, I received a call from Child Protective Services (my phone calls to HHS helped, lol), demanding to see them right away, even on Shabbos. I refused and asked to come on a different  day. The entire Friday night and Shabbos were horrible. We all huddled in bed together with shaking children waiting for a knock on the door. That’s how my family lived through Stalin’s purges in the 1930s through 1953. The social worker came in on Monday. She was very surprised to see a normal Jewish family with all paperwork in order, exemption approved, food in the fridge, etc.

The school administration got the message and offered the kids the opportunity to come to school for a limited amount of hours but the principal isolated them in a separate room in the basement all by themselves. Teachers were supposed to give them study sheets, but couldn’t teach them (they never gave them). He discouraged every teacher from even coming nearby. Very few dared to even visit. Kids could visit only from outside, but not to cross the door step. They could not participate in picture day with their friends. This man made a perfect show – keeping two dangerous animals in the cage.

While our kids were out of school, the rabbi of the shul where we were members for two decades, and who married us, refused to help us or intervene with the school for what he said he didn’t believe; neither was he willing to meet with us or friend who would bring along a doctor to explain the situation from a medical and immunological point of view. He was too busy with other responsibilities, and his opinion, as he said, is irrelevant in this matter.

When the DOH finally sent a letter excluding children living in those particular zip codes from attending school, whether or not the school itself was in that area, my children were home once again, this time for an indefinite period. After a total of 3 months, when outbreak was officially over, they were allowed to return.

Our troubles, however, were not over. That was not the end of our tzorres: 

A few weeks later, just before Shavuot 2019, we received a call from a new shul board member (the oldest members did not have the guts to call us) to request an MMR for all the kids or not to come. I called the rabbi who said he was perfectly aware of the situation. The next day we received a message: our kids were banned from shul. I could not break the news to them for 2-3 weeks, finding new excuses to stay away from the shul.

My children were born into this shul and had friends there. They had a hideout there when they were younger. Now they are banned from everywhere: shul, schools…etc…. Worse segregation that even blacks had.

If I would have known that my family would be banned by their own kind due to being unvaccinated I would never ever have become religious!

It’s a such a chillul Hashem!