According to the Chevra Kadisha in France, at least 1,300 Jews have passed away from the coronavirus, with some sources saying the figure is as high as 2,000, Makor Rishon reported on Friday.
The number reflects only the Jews who received a Jewish burial since there are no statistics available on the religion of COVID-19 patients who passed away but did not receive a Jewish burial.
Hundreds of Jews who passed away from the coronavirus were flown to Israel for burial, the report said.
French Jewry, with about 500,000 Jews, has been the worst hit in Europe from the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the tally of 1,300 Jewish fatalities, Jews comprise about 5% of Frances’s 25,897 fatalities from the coronavirus, which reflects a death toll six times that of the general population.
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3 comments:
I'm presently in France. This '1300' figure seems highly exagerated, it comes from an israeli media named Makor Rishon, and is under investigation.
Alas, Philly is the cult personality yeshiva where the rank & file have to follow the leader - but the head honcho doesn't listen to his own rebbi, the saintly Rav Aron Kotler ztl!
March 22, 1953, at 10:45 PM, Dr. Jonas Salk, a Jewish researcher from Brooklyn, announced on a CBS radio program that tremendous progress was being made. He said that clinical trials were optimistic but that there was still no vaccine available. Finally, on April 12th, 1955, Salk announced that a safe and effective vaccine was now available. The entire country let out a collective sigh of relief and Dr. Salk became a national hero.
Soon, the U.S. government went into action in regard to the Salk vaccine. On August 12th, The Poliomyelitis Vaccination Assistance Act of 1955 was passed. This established a temporary federal aid program that would help each state carry out mass inoculations with the Salk vaccine. On February 15, 1956 more funding was made available and the free vaccines were also made available to more people.
New Jersey’s then governor, the Honorable Robert Mayner, took New Jersey’s allocation and distributed the vaccine at no charge to as many New Jersey residents as he could.
One institution that received the vaccines was Beth Midrash Gavoha of Lakewood – then located at 617 7th Street at the corner of Forest Avenue. There were about 80 bochurim in the Yeshiva and a fledgling Kollel that numbered about one dozen.
A nurse was dispatched to the Yeshiva to administer the vaccines, paid for by the state of New Jersey. At the time, there were both questions and dissent. “Is it safe?” “Should we take this injection?” There were a number of people that eschewed the advice of doctors and were not supportive of the vaccine. But soon enough, the dissent was rapidly dispelled.
One of the very first people to get the vaccine, was none other than BMG’s own Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Aharon zt”l himself. He did so to dispel the notion of ignoring the advice of doctors.
“I remember being right outside his office at the time,” recalled Rav Yaakov Schnaidman, the current Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Beis Moshe in Scranton. “There were a few other bochurim there. Rav Aharon rolled up his sleeve and received the injection. After that, there was just no more dissent.”
Rav Aharon’s office was an outside porch that was covered and glass panes were put up around so everyone could see inside. His office door was always open. Aside from the Bais Medrash there was a room outside and Rav Aharon’s office was adjacent to it.
Rav Yechiel Perr, Shlita, added, “Rav Aharon [zt”l], was very meticulous in listening to doctors. If a doctor instructed him to take his medication every four hours – he would look at his watch and take it every four hours – on the dot.”
In the 1950’s there were approximately 12,000 deaths from Polio and almost a quarter million Polio cases. Taking into account the population of the United States at the time this means that about 1 in 600 people were stricken by it. In the 1960’s, on account of the polio vaccines, In the 1960’s there were less than 2500 cases, and in the entire 1970’s there were only 171 total cases. This was on account of the vaccinations. In the 1980’s there were only 100 cases. In the 1990’s there were 59 cases and in the 2000’s there only two cases.
https://www.change.org/p/emek-early-childhood-center-los-angeles-jewish-schools-parents-are-struggling-suspend-tuition-payments-immediately
Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn - Yeshivat Yavneh
Rabbi Ari Segal - Shalhevet High School
Rabbi Mordechai Shifman - Emek Hebrew Academy Teichman Family Torah Center
Rabbi Joshua Spodek - YULA Girls High School
Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger - Valley Torah High School
Rabbi Arye Sufrin - YULA Boys High School
Rabbi Boruch Sufrin - Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy
Rabbi Aharon Wilk - Gindi Maimonides Academy
To say the letter signed by the above is sickening & disturbing is an understatement!
The administrators of EIGHT schools, with all their collective access to manpower, creativity & financial resources, collaborated NOT to help economically devastated families; NOT to help families with Coronavirus-stricken members; NOT to help with shopping for our elderly who can't leave their homes. At a time when we most need our leaders & educators to band together to strengthen us as a community, they band together to protect their finances!
Families in Los Angeles are in a state of complete financial devastation, with many of us completely uncertain of not only our financial future, but how we are going to cover our daily expenses. They cynically abuse our fundamental Emunah to tell us WE must survive on pure Emunah, while in the same breath they demand payment from us since THEY in no way rely on Emunah to help with their financials; only economic certainty will do for them.
CEOs & employees of for-profit companies around the world are either not being paid or, if lucky, taking a huge pay cut. It is beyond outrageous that a non-profit community resource such as our schools think they are so above that to the point where "our expenses are not expected to diminish in any material way". While salaries of our cherished teachers & administrators are well deserved, they should not be exempt from the reality that the rest of us face. To maintain $400k+ salary for an administrator & demand that parents scrape together tuition is scandalous!
This email was sent on the eve of a $2 trillion stimulus that includes BILLIONS for businesses that pay their employees as well as money for employees that were laid off. You couldn't wait until it was released to see if there was any possibility of easing the burden for your community?
Finally, and perhaps most tragically, you could've just asked. We are a strong, supportive community. You could've called & we would've worked with you to come up with creative solutions. GoFundMe for teachers. Maybe a payment plan. Whatever the outcome, we would've found a sensitive way to make everyone happy. But you didn't do that. You separated yourselves aloofly from your communities & banded together to save yourselves in the easiest way possible for you. Some even report you threatened to kick out a child if the parents didn't pay.
Shame on you!
Do we really want them at the helm of our schools?
What can we do to take back our schools from the hands of their Boards & turn them into a resource run by the community & FOR the community?
What does Halacha say? Do we really owe tuition to a school that's closed?
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You can submit your experience with a Jewish school in LA to the following email & we will publish it anonymously: ShameOnYouLA@gmail.com. You can create a fake email, but please omit any personal identifying information.
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