Bnei Brak resident went to Daven while knowing he has coronavirus

A resident of Bnei Brak who tested positive for coronavirus was found on Thursday night staying with the city's Ponovitz Yeshiva, despite being told explicitly of the restrictions, according to Maariv, sister publication of The Jerusalem Post.

The man stayed in the yeshiva along with another 16 men in order to pray.
In a separate location in Bnei Brak, 18 people were found praying together, despite the restrictions on religious gatherings in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Bnei Brak has been hit particularly hard by the novel coronavirus, with over 1,000 people having been diagnosed with the illness. On Friday, the police enforced a total lockdown of the city, with over 1,000 officers being deployed there to enforce the shutdown with roadblocks at the entrances and exits to the city.

Armed troops from the IDF’s Paratrooper Brigade will be deployed in to the largely haredi (ultra-Orthodox) city to work with Home Front Command, as well.

"We will do everything it takes to support the civilian effort in general, and Bnei Brak in particular, during this challenging crisis,” said IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

One of the main missions of the IDF in Bnei Brak is to remove those known to be sick with coronavirus from the city, Ynet reports.

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Zera Shimshon Pesach

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Sasregen Rebbe of Flatbush Passes on

 

Rav Rubin zt”l, Sasregener Rebbe of Midwood, Brooklyn.

The rebbe was a son of Rav Yaakov Yisroel Yeshurun Rubin zt”l, Sulitza-Sasregen Rebbe who hailed from the Ropshitz dynasty, and Rebbetzin Alta Nechama Malka (Dachner) Rubin. Both of the rebbe’s parents were killed in the Holocaust.

The rebbetzin‘s wife shetichyeh is a daughter of Rav Yehoshua Eichenstein zt”l.

The rebbe carried on the legacy of Sasregen, a chassidishe dynasty from Szászrégen (Reghin), Transylvania, Romania.

The rebbe was the author of Kol Hamikra’os ShebeTalmud Bavli, which he began in 1955 and published in 1987, containing the full pesukim and location of any posuk mentioned in the Gemara. He led a popular shul, K’hal Sasregen, in the heart of Flatbush, Brooklyn.

The rebbe was a brother of the Muzhayer Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Rubin, and the Sulitzer Rebbe, Rav Shmuel Shmelke Rubin,both of New York.

Yehi zichro boruch.

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R Avrahom Rubashkin Victim of Corona

Reb Avrohom Aharon Rubashkin Z”L unfortunately died from COVID-19. He was 92.

The Niftar was born in the 1920’s in the Russian town Nevel in the former Soviet Union. He is the son of Reb Getzel and Rosa Lubavicher Chasidim, who raised their two sons and daughters as observant Jews in spite of the anti-religious repression in the Soviet Union. When the Germans occupied Nevel in July 1941, the Rubashkin family fled east, eventually reaching the Uzbek city of Samarkand, where he married Rivka Chazanov of the Chein family of Nevel.

After the war, the Rubashkin family left the Soviet Union via Lemberg and spent time in Austria, before they settled in Paris in 1947. In Paris, his father ran a grocery shop and his mother served as a cook at a Jewish girls school, and he became a butcher. In 1953, the family moved to New York City, where he and his partner opened Lieberman & Rubashkin Glatt Kosher Butchers on 14th Avenue in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.

But he was best known for the slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory Agriprocessors, that he founded in 1987 in Postville, Iowa. Managed by two of his sons and a son-in-law, it was the largest kosher meat operation in the country with distribution centers in Brooklyn and Miami, Florida.

The New York Times dubbed the family a “kosher meat dynasty.” With the operation of the plant, Rubashkin employed many Jews who moved with their families to the remote city, a 90-minute drive from the nearest shopping malls. He and his family built for there a vibrant Jewish community with a shul, schools and a host of institutions.

The Rubashkin family was also known for their generosity, giving tzedaka to many Jewish institutions and causes. This was in addition to the steep discounts he gave to families in need and shuls around the country.

Boruch Dayan HaEmmes…

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I’m an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. We are not criminals.

By Menachem Bombach

I am a Chareidie and I am the principal of a Haredi school network.

If you read the media both in Israel and around the world, you would conclude that I am a criminal who violates the rules of the state and doesn’t care about the lives of others.

I see the way people are writing about me and my community on social media. I hear the way people are talking about me and my community on the radio.

And it is extremely painful.

It’s painful to hear an entire community – a community that is filled with good-hearted people who view preserving human life as the most sacred value – portrayed as the most lowly, despicable people on Earth.

Let me first say that my entire school network of schools for Haredi boys and girls closed on the day that the Health Ministry ordered schools to close. Let me also say that my synagogue and synagogues throughout Beitar Illit, the Haredi city where I live, followed every single rule issued by the government from the moment they were announced.

I will now jump to the end of the story and then I will go back to explain the past week.

Now, at this time, with the exception of a small group of crazy extremists in Jerusalem, Bet Shemesh and Bnei Brak, the Haredi population is keeping to all the rules. So please stop bashing us now!

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Rav Tuvia Weiss Head of Eda Haredit, initially resistant on virus rules, is infected

The leader of the Eda Haredit, a hardline anti-Zionist Haredi group based in Jerusalem that initially sought to avoid some government regulations aimed at thwarting the spread of the coronavirus, has contracted the disease.

Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, 95, was diagnosed on Thursday after being tested the previous day. He had been admitted to the hospital on Wednesday with a high fever and low blood pressure, according to reports in Haredi media.

His positive test results were announced in a Yiddish audio message released by Rabbi Yitzchok Shlomo Bloi, the secretary to the Eda Haredit’s rabbinical court, calling for the ultra-Orthodox community’s prayers.

Weiss, 95, was a community leader in Antwerp before taking on the leadership of the Eda Haredit in 2004. He was born in Slovakia and arrived in Great Britain as part of the Kindertransport prior to the outbreak of World War II.

The group initially refused to shut down its affiliated educational institutions, closing kindergartens but keeping schools and yeshivas open in defiance of government guidelines. Its former spokesman said it did limit physical proximity there. 

On Monday, however, it released a notice instructing its followers in the ultra-Orthodox community to heed the Health Ministry’s orders or commit a “big sin.”

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J Street's "Haggada" Criticises Israel Even While the Virus Rages On!

Recently, many Jewish organizations have been sending out emails about the coronavirus. 

On March 19 J Street sent out a very different sort – they used their email to pitch their version of the Haggadah: A booklet that attacks Israel with the narrative of the alleged "occupation."  

While the email appears to be about the coronavirus crisis and Passover, 

J Street's intention was made clear by linking their Haggadah – which concentrates its focus on criticism of Israel over the "occupation" rather than the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

Shaina Wasserman, J Street's Director of Rabbinic and Community Engagement, signed the email. 

The email stated:

 "For Jews around the world, this will be a very different Passover than what we're used to. Because of the COVID-19 crisis, many of us are downsizing seders or attempting to do them virtually." Wasserman's email also provided a link to a 20-plus-page Haggadah where the word "occupation" was used twenty times.

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Charedi statistics show that social distancing works

The ultra-Orthodox sector has unwittingly served as a control group in the experiment seeking to combat the global pandemic.

 by  Ruthie Blum

The carry-on about the dangerous spread of COVID-19 within the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community in Israel is understandable. While the rest of us are cooped up at home, with increasingly severe limitations on our freedom of movement, certain ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods have been conducting business as usual.

Indeed, the contrast between Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood and the city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv with the shuttered shops and empty playgrounds of cities from Metula to Eilat naturally causes rage on the part of a populace forced to comply with regulations aimed at flattening the curve of the coronavirus. 

Video footage from a funeral in Bnei Brak this past Saturday night – attended by masses of members of an extreme haredi sect all huddled together, yet not arrested by police for ignoring the two-meter-apart rule – elicited furious reactions from secular and religious Israelis alike.

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Will the Chinese Take Over the Entire World Very Soon

Ladies ..Watch out! Mikveh-peeping DC rabbi set for early prison release

Rabbi Barry Freundel, a once-prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi in Washington, DC, who was convicted for secretly videotaping women in his synagogue’s mikveh, was scheduled to be released early from prison.

First, however, an assistant US attorney was asking his victims whether they object to Freundel getting his freedom on April 15.

Freundel, 68, who began serving his prison term in May 2015, was sentenced to 6.5 years after pleading guilty to 52 counts of voyeurism, a charge that carries up to a year’s incarceration. He was due out toward the end of 2021.

A message this week to Freundel’s victims from Amy Zubrensky of the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, said Freundel had accrued “good time” credit for “classes and/or other rehabilitative conduct.” She said he may be released even earlier because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Zubrensky said she wanted to hear from victims before deciding whether to oppose early release. She must register any objections by Friday.

JTA has reached out to Zubrensky and to Freundel’s attorney in 2015, Jeff Harris, for comment.

For at least six months and on dozens of occasions, JTA has asked Keena Blackmon, the spokeswoman for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, for information on Freundel’s date of release. She has never returned calls.

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