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‘Bubbies Know Best’ Star Beats Coronavirus

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April 20, 2020
Linda Rich (top row) is one of the stars of JLTV’s ”Bubbies Know Best.” She was recently diagnosed with COVID-19 but has fully recovered. Courtesy of JLTV

Linda Rich is one of the co-stars of Jewish Life Television’s (JTLV) reality matchmaking series, “Bubbies Know Best.” She also recently was diagnosed with COVID-19, but said she is now fully recovered.

Rich told the Journal that on March 14 she started feeling feverish and achy, and had difficulty breathing. She went straight to the emergency room at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, where she said she was diagnosed with bronchitis. She was denied a COVID-19 test, even though she had attended a party earlier that month with approximately 100 people, including someone who had tested positive.

When her symptoms worsened, she and her husband, Philip, went to a drive-through testing facility in Glendale, where she obtained a test. On March 29, she learned she had tested positive.

“I got a call from the doctor and I was sort of praying, ‘Please say negative,’ and he said, ‘Positive,’ ” Rich said. “I thought, ‘What do I do now?’ ”

 “I don’t ask a lot of things from God, but I thank Her or Him a lot. It brings out a lot of gratitude in me. When I first came down with this, my first thought was, ‘Thank you God, it’s not worse.’ ” — Linda Rich

What she did was get plenty of rest. Her condition gradually improved. However, her husband also tested positive earlier this month, despite having initially taken a test on April 2 that said he was negative. Rich said he, too, has recovered.

Before joining the cast of “Bubbies Know Best,” where she, along with two other “bubbies” help match people of all ages and backgrounds looking to date, Rich was a cantor. In the 1970s, she became the first female cantor to be ordained in the Conservative movement. She said her faith helped her through the challenging weeks with COVID-19.

“I do have a close relationship with God,” she said. “I am always so grateful. I don’t ask a lot of things from God, but I thank Her or Him a lot. It brings out a lot of gratitude in me. When I first came down with this, my first thought was, ‘Thank you God, it’s not worse.’ ”

While she did not tell many people about her diagnosis, Rich did share the news with her co-stars, Bunny Gibson and S.J. Mendelson. “They are like family,” she said, and were supportive of her.

Presuming she is now immune to the disease, Rich wants to donate her antibodies to the Red Cross to help others. “I feel like I have a purpose in a way,” she said.

Born in Boyle Heights, Rich is the daughter of Cantor Israel Reich, who served at the historic Breed Street Shul in the 1940s and ’50s. She was a theater major with acting dreams but fell in love with singing in synagogue. “The minute I got on the bimah, I thought, ‘This feels right,’ ” she said.

In 2012, she was working as a cantor when her congregation, Temple Ner Maarav in Encino, merged with another congregation. Retiring from the bimah, she returned to acting and sent in an audition tape for “Bubbies Know Best.”

Brad Pomerance, executive producer of “Bubbies Know Best” and outgoing president of Open Temple in Venice, said the program has resonated with audiences. “People like to hear from Jewish grandmothers, whether you are Jewish or not,” he said. “There is a sense that Jewish grandmothers are wise … yentas in the best sense, that have been setting people up for centuries.”

Pomerance recently was interviewed on Fox local news after he lost four friends and family members to COVID-19, and spent 14 days in isolation after returning from Japan following the outbreak.

As for Rich, she’s looking forward to the end of the coronavirus, “[when we can] finally flatline this thing and go back to our lives.”

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