Saray Fray Haifa Mother of 7 Killed Falling Thru Her Balcony

Tragedy struck the Haifa community on Thursday, when a Chareidi woman in her early sixties, was R”L Niftar after she fell from the balcony of her third-story apartment in the Hadar neighborhood of the city. Volunteers from United Hatzalah and ambulance teams from Magen David Adom attempted to resuscitate the woman, but sadly, she was Niftar at the scene.

Police investigators who arrived at the location noted in their report that the woman’s apartment was undergoing renovations. According to reports from the forces at the scene, the woman fell through a hole that suddenly developed in her balcony, plummeted three stories, and was Niftar on impact.

The Niftar was identified as Mrs. Saray Fray. She leaves behind her husband, 5 sons and 2 daughters – all married – and grandchildren.

United Hatzalah volunteer Nati Dana related that: “Due to the nature of the incident the organization’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit is providing psychological and emotional stabilization to eyewitnesses as well as family members of the deceased.”

Zaka volunteer Motti Cohen said: “Zaka volunteers dealt with the body as appropriately befitting with all of the elements involved in kavod hames after she was pronounced dead by MDA paramedics at the scene.”

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'I recovered from COVID and then got infected again'

 

Shira Hillel from Beit Shemesh recovered from the coronavirus about two months ago. This week, she discovered that the disease had struck her again. She did not need a coronavirus test to realize that she was infected again, having recognized the muscle aches she had experienced in the past.

Yesterday, Shira received the test results which confirmed her suspicions: she was indeed infected with the coronavirus a second time after having previously recovered from the virus.

Shira spoke to Arutz Sheva about the doctor's shock upon seeing her test results and of the weakness she has experienced as a result of the coronavirus.

"I did not believe it would come back," she said. "There are so many rumors, but you think that they are probably untrue, except it happened. I got infected again."

She told of the first time she had contracted the virus. "I felt good, except for the muscle aches I had for a few days and a lack of taste and smell, but other than that I had nothing else," she said. "This time, because it was very similar to last time, I recognized it straight away. That's why I immediately suspected that maybe it had come back to me. I have headaches now."

She said, "I always made sure to walk around with a mask on. But I naturally felt it was no problem to go to a place with a lot of people and said: 'well, I have nothing to worry about. Everyone here is at risk, but I am not', That's what's in our heads: everyone is immune and we can act like normal."

She also has an explanation. "I realized that the body on the one hand develops antibodies and on the other hand the body is very very weak after this period and is sensitive to a lot of a lot of things," she said. "It severely damages the corona immune system. The iron is low, there is severe hair loss. It does not pass even after it passes, so it makes sense to become infected again. It is rare and the doctor who called me was shocked when she informed me about it. It seems that the wheel has come full circle since the corona has been here for a long time."

Shira wanted to convey a message. "I think one should not believe all the rumors because there is absolutely no evidence," she said. "Take care of yourself, even those who went through it should just stay home. With how difficult this lockdown is, there is no other choice."

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Young Israel denounces Donny Deutsch from MSNBC who compared Trump to Hitler

 

The Sick Donny Deutsch

The National Council of Young Israel today issued the following statement after MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch compared President Trump to Adolf Hitler on a segment this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program and sharply criticized Jewish people who continue to support the president.

“And on a personal level, and I for a second want to talk to my Jewish friends who are voting for Donald Trump,” Deutsch said. “How dare you? How dare you, with what our people have gone through in history, and you see a man who is a dictator. And once you give a man absolute power, he is possible of anything. And if you are a Jew in this country and you are supporting Donald Trump, you are not looking back at our history. And you are blind, and you are walking like a lemming off a cliff. It is time to wake up. I’m sorry. This is where we are. There is no difference from what Donald Trump is preaching, from what Adolf Hitler preached in the early ‘30s. Let’s just say it once and for all.”

"The National Council of Young Israel is comprised of members who support each of the major party candidates for president, each of whom has made statements in support of Israel, taken action in furtherance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and expressed strong opposition to the dangerous rise in anti-Semitism," Young Israel responded.

"Since Donny Deutsch’s comments were directed against Jews who support President Trump, we should note that President Trump has taken a number of critical steps relative to Israel, including moving the Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and acknowledging Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. In addition, on the domestic front, President Trump signed an Executive Order on Combatting Anti-Semitism last year. To in any way liken President Trump to Adolf Hitler, who is arguably the most heinous anti-Semite in world history, is unequivocally repugnant, and trivializing the Holocaust to make a cheap political point on television is a tremendous insult to the victims and their progeny.

"While Mr. Deutsch claims there is no difference between the rhetoric of Hitler and President Trump as it relates to anti-Semitism, President Trump’s words and deeds relative to his strong condemnation of anti-Semitism clearly illustrate how seriously he regards the threats posed by the bigotry directed at the Jewish community, which is wholly antithetical to the persecution and prejudice promoted by Hitler as he masterminded the heartless murder of six-million Jews.

"Donny Deutsch’s remarks intimating that our president is a dictator are disingenuous and defamatory and demonstrate a total lack of understanding as to what a dictatorship actually is. Comparing the President of the United States to a dictator is an outrageous charge that flies in the face of the democratic system of government that our nation is privileged to enjoy.

"The United States has treated its Jewish population better than any other country in history. Support of freedom for the Jewish community and the protection of their civil rights in the United States were noted by President George Washington and has continued to this day. Jewish Americans have the inherent and absolute right to support either candidate for president without being condemned for exercising the liberties granted to them by the U.S. Constitution.

"The fact that Donny Deutsch is Jewish in no way absolves him for making such abhorrent comments, which are eerily reminiscent of statements that we would typically expect to hear from white supremacists. 

We call on Mr. Deutsch to apologize for his repugnant remarks, and if he fails to do so, we urge MSNBC to take immediate steps to terminate its professional relationship with him in light of the offensive comments that he made on air."

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Reckless Yeshivas are asking teachers not to test for COVID-19, to try to prevent school closures

 

Charedi yeshivas in Brooklyn are asking teachers not to get tested for COVID-19, and also not sharing information about students who test positive, to try to avoid school closures, said three sources with direct knowledge of specific schools said in interviews.

 

The news comes amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases in six Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods which include the “Ocean Parkway Cluster” of Borough Park, Midwood and Bensonhurst — named after the avenue that links them, according to a Department of Health statement issued Tuesday.

 

At Bais Yaakov of Borough Park, administrators called teachers individually and asked them to do the school a “favor” and not test — “even if you have fever,” wrote one teacher in a text shared with the Forward and confirmed by the teacher. The school, which is a girls’ elementary school with almost 2,000 students, told faculty to only seek testing if the school asked for it, according to the text.

 

That school is one of many who have adopted this and similar strategies in order to remain open, said parents of students in Haredi schools in Borough Park, a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to several Orthodox Jewish communities, including Satmar, Bobov and Belz communities.

 

“This is one of the more open-minded schools in Borough Park, so I wouldn’t put it past other schools doing the same thing,” said one Borough Park resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity and who has direct knowledge of similar policies in this school and others. “They want to keep schools open at whatever costs.”

 

Other schools in the Satmar and Bobov communities have similar policies, said a Borough Park parent, who has children in several schools: “Schools tell students with COVID to stay home, but don’t tell anyone that there was a student with COVID in school.”

 

The parent noted that there are several outliers; Borough Park’s Bais Brocho, affiliated with the Karlin Stolin movement, tried to keep its classes socially distant when they had their first case a few weeks ago. The Stoliner Rebbe is one of the few Hasidic rebbes who is encouraging social distancing [https://t.co/pGcEhlLA0c] among his followers.

 

The Department of Health said in its statement that the current increases could “evolve into more widespread community transmission and spread to other neighborhoods unless action is taken. We are monitoring the situation for the need to take further steps in these areas.”

 

New York’s Haredi neighborhoods had been hit hard by the virus earlier this spring, with some estimating [https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1093954?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=link] at least 700 deaths in the early weeks of the virus.

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YouTube shuts down lecture featuring convicted terrorist Leila Khaled

 

A webcast hosted by academics and students at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and featuring terrorist Leila Khaled was shut down 20 minutes into the livestream on Wednesday, Jewish Insider reported.

The event had been moved to YouTube after Zoom and Facebook both refused to allow the webcast to stream on their platforms.

Khaled is a terrorist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who was involved in a series of airplane hijackings which targeted Israel in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1969 she was part of a terrorist cell which hijacked TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv, forcing the plane to land in Syria.

A year later, Khaled participated in the attempted hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York. After the hijacking attempt was foiled. Khaled was arrested, but later released by British authorities following a subsequent hijacking.

Wednesday’s livestream cut off during a video clip of an interview with Khaled, in which she says in Arabic, “Isn’t it our right to resist? When we hijacked the planes the whole world wondered who we were.”

Following the video’s removal, the livestream was briefly hosted on the YouTube page of National Students for Justice in Palestine, but taken down by YouTube within minutes.

The organizers of the event, including the university’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies Program, the Women and Gender Studies Department and the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) at SFSU, had scrambled in the hours before the event to find a new platform after Zoom and Facebook denied the use of their services.

The event drew heavy criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Act-il project, which lobbied Zoom to deny the event use of its services.

A statement provided by Zoom on Tuesday read, “In light of the speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event,” the statement read.

San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney released a statement Wednesday morning denouncing Zoom’s decision.

“Although we disagree with, and are disappointed by, Zoom’s decision not to allow the event to proceed on its platform, we also recognize that Zoom is a private company that has the right to set its own terms of service in its contracts with users,” she wrote. “We worked hard to prevent this outcome and have been actively engaging with Zoom. Based on the information we have been able to gather to date, the University does not believe that the class panel discussion violates Zoom’s terms of service or the law.”

Khaled set off controversy in September of 2017, when she took part in an event at the European Parliament in Brussels titled “The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Resistance.” The event was organized by far-left Spanish MEPs.

The President of the EU Parliament Antonio Tajani later announced that representatives of terrorist organizations or former terrorists would no longer be allowed to participate in events in parliament.

In November of 2017, Italy refused entry to Khaled, who was stopped by Italian border police in Rome after she disembarked a flight from Amman. She was expected in the Italian capital as well as in the southern city of Naples to give  give talks on the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the PFLP, but was sent back to Amman.

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Candy Man Dies From Eating Bags Of Black Licorice

 

A Massachusetts construction worker’s love of black licorice wound up costing him his life. Eating a bag and a half every day for a few weeks threw his nutrients out of whack and caused the 54-year-old man’s heart to stop, doctors reported Wednesday.

“Even a small amount of licorice you eat can increase your blood pressure a little bit,” said Dr. Neel Butala, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who described the case in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The problem is glycyrrhizic acid, found in black licorice and in many other foods and dietary supplements containing licorice root extract. It can cause dangerously low potassium and imbalances in other minerals called electrolytes.

Eating as little as 2 ounces of black licorice a day for two weeks could cause a heart rhythm problem, especially for folks over 40, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns.

“It’s more than licorice sticks. It could be jelly beans, licorice teas, a lot of things over the counter. Even some beers, like Belgian beers, have this compound in it,” as do some chewing tobaccos, said Dr. Robert Eckel, a University of Colorado cardiologist and former American Heart Association president. He had no role in the Massachusetts man’s care.

The death was clearly an extreme case. The man had switched from red, fruit-flavored twists to the black licorice version of the candy a few weeks before his death last year. He collapsed while having lunch at a fast-food restaurant. Doctors found he had dangerously low potassium, which led to heart rhythm and other problems. Emergency responders did CPR and he revived but died the next day.

The FDA permits up to 3.1% of a food’s content to have glycyrrhizic acid, but many candies and other licorice products don’t reveal how much of it is contained per ounce, Butala said. Doctors have reported the case to the FDA in hope of raising attention to the risk.

Jeff Beckman, a spokesman for the Hershey Company, which makes the popular Twizzlers licorice twists, said in an email that “all of our products are safe to eat and formulated in full compliance with FDA regulations,” and that all foods, including candy, “should be enjoyed in moderation.”

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Rabbi David Yosef, Son of Rabbi Ovadia:’Close All Shuls Immediately, Even On Yom Kippur’

 Rabbi David Yosef, the son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and a member of the Higher Rabbinical Council, declared Wednesday that all shuls should be closed immediately in the wake of the steep rise in coronavirus infections. Rabbi Yosef stressed that even on Yom Kippur shuls should remain closed since “danger is worse than Torah prohibitions.” Rabbi Yosef stressed that if prayers cannot take place outdoors, people should pray at home individually.

However other rabbinical figures including Rabbi Yosef’s brother, Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, maintains that the shuls can remain open under specific restrictions. In a letter on the matter the chief rabbi wrote that “people must maintain distancing rules, open windows and wear a mask.”

Moreover Rabbi Yosef stressed that “our Torah is a Torah of life which commands us to guard our health zealously and states that saving lives precedes the entire Torah.” He detailed the various requirements for public prayer

• Each person should pray close to his home
• Hataras Nedarim (releasing of vows) can be done via telephone and other technological devices. Those who cannot hear it should rely on the previous year’s ceremony
• It is best not to immerse in a mikve unless it is a private one. Immersing in a mikve is an important custom but is not a halachic imperative and in the place where there may be infection, one should forgo immersion even if one goes every day
• Large shuls should not conduct prayers in large, crowded groups but should rather divide the community in a way which maintains health ministry regulations. They should make thick nylon curtains, divide up the shul and open all the windows if there is an air conditioner
• Shuls outdoors should have a canopy
• If there is not enough room for a large community, the women should pray at home
• Older people and those with preconditions should preferably pray outdoors
• In order not to spend too much time together communities should abbreviate singing tunes and additional prayers

Rabbi Yosef also quoted Rabbi Akiva Eiger who wrote during a cholera epidemic: “I have warned repeatedly that they should act in accordance with doctors regulations and protocols and should not violate their words.”

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Beit Shemesh to Remove First Names of Ladies on Street Signs

I have a great idea, why don't Chareidim name their newborn daughters names of a male? Also they could cut out all names of women from the Torah and ban Megilas Esther....

The Beit Shemesh city council decided on Wednesday to leave women's first names off new street signs in the new neighbourhood of Neveh Shamir as part of a deal between secular and haredi council members, according to Israel Hayom.

Originally, the plan for the new neighborhood was to name the streets after haredi figures and subjects, but the plan later changed to include Sarah Aaronsohn and Anne Frank, although their first names will only be written in small print on the signs.

The new neighborhood is being built for the general public, not just the haredi public, but haredi representatives make up a majority on the city council leading to the decision to make the first names of Aaronsohn and Frank less visible.

"The neighborhoods of Ramat Beit Shemesh Hei and Neveh Shamir are for the general public. I was glad to hear that the street names in the neighborhood would be changed to the 'Zionist-Israeli' names but if, God forbid, as a compromise they avoid choosing street names with names of women the issue will be very serious," Gadi Damari, a resident of Beit Shemesh told Israel Hayom.

"Just as we don't set street names in haredi neighborhoods, the haredim should do their best not to interfere in the names of our streets."

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With Months to Live, Neurologist Oliver Sacks Gave a Class on "How to Die"

 On a Friday night in February 2015, the legendary British Jewish neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks gathered his inner circle in his New York City apartment. For much of his life, Sacks had penned poignant books about his disabled patients, sharing insights about their lives. On this night, however, Sacks gave his audience a heartfelt message about his own life: He had received a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Over the next six months, Sacks gave what one of his friends, the author Lawrence Weschler, called “a master class in how to die.” He continued to write thoughtful prose, this time meditating on mortality, in the company of family, friends and his partner Bill Hayes.

Sitting for filming sessions with award-winning documentarian Ric Burns, Sacks reflected on an extraordinary, sometimes tumultuous life — running away from an Orthodox upbringing, wrestling with his homosexuality, facing rejection by the scientific community for much of his career and finally winning admiration from academia and the public. The year he died, 70 percent of neurology majors at Columbia University Medical School credited Sacks, at least in part, as the inspiration for their choice of study.

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Jerusalem Bridge lights up to tune of $1 million

 

The iconic Chords Bridge in Jerusalem has received a NIS 3.3 million ($950,000) makeover, with 14,400 new LED lightbulbs that hang on 58 of the bridge’s support cables.

The new light system, which allows for the display of short clips and messages to passersby, is the product of the Jerusalem municipality’s efforts over the past year to upgrade one of the city’s most notable landmarks.

The bridge had already sported a changeable light system prior to the new work, but it was deemed in need of an upgrade by city officials.

The Jewish New Year greeting “Shana Tova” was the first message on the newly renovated bridge, inaugurated Thursday by Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion.

“Tonight we rekindled the Chords Bridge, which in recent years has become one of the most unique symbols of the city of Jerusalem,” Lion said. “We will continue to promote, enhance and improve the appearance of the city for the benefit of all residents.”

Inaugurated in 2008, the bridge serves as an overpass for both the light rail and pedestrians crossing the busy intersection near the main entrance to Jerusalem.

Constructed of steel, concrete, stone and glass, it includes a futuristic pedestrian illuminated walkway. Despite its hefty weight at 4,200 tons, the bridge’s design by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava presents an image of loftiness that plays with the concept of the lightness of illumination.

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