Please help keep everyone safe at YNY by getting the updated 2024-2025 vaccine. Click here for more info from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
COVID-19 Policy – Yiddish New York 2024
To ensure everyone’s safety, all YNY participants, faculty, and staff are required to follow the guidelines listed below and support each other in creating a community of care for all. Remember, your needs around safety may not be the same as the person next to you.
MASKING
- Proper mask wearing (covering mouth and nose) will be required in all spaces (including indoor classrooms, indoor performance spaces, hallways, on-site social gatherings, all lobbies, and bathrooms) and events throughout the festival week, with a few specific exceptions listed below. Please bring your own high-quality (N95, etc) mask.
- Participants may remove masks when eating or drinking, but should put masks back on immediately after.
- Wind instrument players must be masked except in the act of playing.
- If there are other instrument-specific precautions, we encourage you to implement them (e.g., bell covers for winds).
- Dance workshop participants are strongly encouraged to mask. We recommend “duck” masks for dancers, as they are more comfortable for active participation. Handkerchiefs will be provided to help with social distancing in dance lines.
- Presenters/teachers may remove their masks at their own discretion.
- Anyone in the above categories that removes their mask is encouraged to test daily and use social distancing whenever possible.
VACCINATION
- All participants, faculty, and staff are required to be vaccinated (i.e., have had at least one COVID vaccination). We additionally recommend the Fall 2024 COVID and flu vaccinations.
- Fully vaccinated children are welcome at YNY Events. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate unvaccinated children at this time.
TESTING
- All daytime program participants, faculty, and staff are required to take a COVID test no more than 24 hours before arrival. You must test negative and be symptom-free to attend events.
- If you have had a known exposure to someone with COVID-19 within a week of the festival, test multiple times (and continue to test each day) before coming onsite to the festival. If you are symptomatic or test positive for COVID-19, do not come to YNY events on-site.
- We recommend that all participants, faculty, and staff do rapid self-tests daily to help ensure the safety of all YNY attendees.
- Please bring your own supply of rapid self-tests. We will only have a limited supply of rapid self-tests on-site.
As a non-residential event, attendees are subject to the risks of usual New York commuting– use extra precautions to limit exposure including masking in public transportation and other settings.
COMMUNITY SAFETY TEAM: We are looking for volunteers for a “Community Safety Team” to remind attendees about masking requirements, as needed. If you are interested in joining our team, please contact Clara at ynycoordinator@gmail.com.
YNY reserves the right to implement further safety precautions throughout the Festival, including implementing further masking and testing requirements. If you have questions about this policy, please contact Clara at ynycoordinator@gmail.com.
