Israeli study: 4th shots were key to saving lives among over-60s in Omicron wave

 

New Israeli research indicates fourth shots of the Pfizer–BioNTech coronavirus vaccine significantly curtailed deaths in Israel’s older population during the Omicron wave.

It also raises the question of how many lives may have been lost due to the world’s slow adoption of fourth shots.

Israelis who topped up their triple-vaccine protection with a fourth shot of the vaccine reduced their chances of death by 78 percent, according to Clalit Health Services and Sapir College.

This was calculated by studying death rates among Israelis aged 60-plus who were four months after their third vaccine, over a 40-day period during the Omicron wave. For every five deaths among those who didn’t get a fourth shot, there was just one death among those who did.

One-year-old Avraham Saadia drowns in bucket of paint

 Avraham Saadia, 15 months old, drowned Monday evening in a bucket of paint in the yard of his Netivot home.

Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics attempted to resuscitate the infant, but were forced to declare his death.

MDA paramedics Maoz Wiberman and Osher Assuliin, who arrived at the scene on MDA motorcycles, said, "When we entered the courtyard of the building we saw the infant unconscious and covered in paint. We immediately began providing medical treatment, including [chest] massages and assisted respiration, while drawing out the paint which had entered his lungs, using special medical equipment."

"We continued the resuscitation, together with staff from the mobile ICU, but in the end we were forced to declare his death."

The Saadia family had been painting its home and yard ahead of the upcoming Passover holiday. The infant walked out the back door as his family painted the house, and entered the bucket, where his sister Hilda found him. He is survived by his parents and seven siblings.

Nachum Segal plans to rebuild after fire destroys studio

 

The Lower East Side studio of Jewish radio personality Nachum Segal was destroyed in a fire on Sunday.

The studio, at 551 Grand Street in Manhattan, was the headquarters for the Nachum Segal Network since 2002, where Segal hosted his popular radio show, “Jewish Moments in the Morning.” Also known as “JM in the AM,” the show was broadcast on WFMU in Jersey City until 2016, and now streams on Segal’s own platforms.

Segal said that fire marshals believe the blaze was an electrical fire, which ended up consuming almost all of the studio. “That destruction is difficult to deal with,” he told the New York Jewish Week.

Numerous photographs had adorned the walls of the studio, which included leading rabbis, Jewish politicians, major league sports stars and more. All were destroyed. “The walls, just themselves, were a tremendous loss,” Segal said.

He added that a 20-volume scrapbook showcasing his career and the network’s growth over the years was salvaged in the fire. “We lost mostly everything,” he said. “All the equipment is destroyed and a lot of the memorabilia is going to be missed, but that multi-volume scrapbook is really important to me and I’m glad it survived.”

Segal said there has been an outpouring of support from his listeners, with many calling and texting to comfort him. “It’s a tremendous feeling of hope and resilience and rebuilding — that’s what we want to focus on today,” he said.

The network launched an online fundraising campaign to help offset the costs of the damage. The campaign, which launched on Sunday, has raised more than $70,000 as of this writing.

“I never expected this kind of outpouring,” Segal said. “It’s hard to believe how much my audience always comes through. There is a tremendous amount of appreciation for what we do.”

Segal will do the show remotely for the time being, though he plans to put money from the campaign toward a new broadcasting space. “I look forward to using the funds to build and rebuild a really beautiful, state of the art studio,” he said. “One that is befitting the mission that we’re on, one that we can take great pride in.”

The show, streaming for three hours each weekday, includes a mix of Jewish music, interviews and rabbinical and political commentary. It is most popular in religious homes; Segal has occasionally done remote feeds from Modern Orthodox redoubts like Teaneck and Tenafly, New Jersey.

Segal, who got his start on Yeshiva University’s radio station, said that the network is “unabashadley pro-Israel,” but also includes Torah study and other religious themes. “Someone said to me that there is so much Torah that emanates from your studio that today’s fire is reminiscent of the destruction of the temple,” Segal said. “They don’t mean literally, but people view it as an important hub of Jewish activity, Jewish education and Jewish themes.”

Segal added that he was “thankful to the Almighty” that nothing worse happened from the fire.

“It could have, God forbid, taken someone’s life,” he said. “It could have been so much more devastating. We get to be in a position to continue, and hopefully continue stronger.”

Watch the Moment When President Trump Is Told That Ruth Bader Ginsburg Died

 

In An Ironic Twist ...Holocaust survivors flee from Ukraine to Germany for Safety

 

When the bombs started falling on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, last month, Tatyana Zhuravliova had a horrible deja vu: the 83-year-old Ukrainian Jew felt the same panic she suffered as a little girl when the Nazis were flying air attacks on her hometown of Odesa.

“My whole body was shaking, and those fears crept up again through my entire body — fears which I didn’t even know were still hidden inside me,” Zhuravliova said.

Her eyes welled up with tears as she remembered how she hid under the table from the bombs during World War II, and eventually fled with her mother to Kazakhstan when the Nazis and their henchmen started massacring ten of thousands of Jews in Odesa.

“Now I’m too old to run to the bunker. So I just stayed inside my apartment and prayed that the bombs would not kill me,” Zhuravliova, a retired doctor, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

But as Russia’s military attacks on Ukraine become even more brutal and demolished residential apartment blocks, she realized that she had to flee again if she didn’t want to die. So Zhuravliova accepted an offer from a Jewish organization to bring her out of Ukraine to safety.

In an unexpected twist of history, some of the 10,000 Holocaust survivors who had been living in Ukraine have now been taken to safety in Germany — the country that unleashed World War II and organized the murder of 6 million Jews across Europe.

Zhuravliova was part of the first group of four Jewish Holocaust survivors evacuated from Ukraine by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference. The group represents the world’s Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs, and provides welfare for Holocaust survivors around the globe.

A second group of 14 Holocaust survivors, many of them ill and bed-ridden, were brought out of Ukraine on Sunday. The Claims Conference is working with its partners, among them the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, to get as many Holocaust survivors out of Ukraine as possible.

Around 500 Holocaust survivors in Ukraine are especially in need of help because of their ailing health — their evacuation is a top priority, says the JDC.

It’s a highly difficult and complex operation to transport such frail people out of Ukraine, where constant shelling and artillery fire make any evacuation very dangerous. It involves finding medical staff and ambulances in numerous war zones, crossing international borders and even convincing survivors, who are ill and unable to leave their homes without help, to flee into uncertainty again, this time without the vigor of youth.

Kew Gardens Neighbors Fighting Hatzala's New Building

 

Rendering of a proposed Hatzolah depot on 68th Road in Kew Gardens Hills.

 The Kew Garden Hills block is something out of a bygone era, with many of its mostly Jewish residents living on the same street for half a century, treating each other like family.

But some of the Queens homeowners say they are now living in fear of the “800-pound gorilla” haunting the community — a proposed Hatzolah ambulance depot on their block.

Opposition to the project on 68th Road at Main Street has brought alleged threats and other forms of intimidation, with protesters noting that a key opponent was left in a burn ICU after a mysterious fire started in his car.

“We [are being] blackmailed into being silenced,” said a resident, too afraid to publicly share his name, to the Post.

Locals opposed to the plans by the Queens Hatzolah — a local Jewish ambulance service that aims to provide more culturally sensitive services — have formed a block association to fight the project. The proposed depot would have five ambulance garages and be taller than the houses on the block.

The residents say they are worried about the quality-of-life ramifications to their idyllic block if an outpost of Hatzolah, which responds to 7,000 emergency calls a year, is located there. And that’s not to mention the effect it might have on their home values.

Avi Koenigsberg, president of the 68th Road Block Association, said he used to volunteer for Hatzolah and knows how valuable the service can be to the Jewish community.

The elder Koenigsberg said the plan was made with “no consideration for the neighborhood” and that he and many other residents were never asked for their thoughts.

“People are generally in favor of the operation of this Hatzolah group  because they are helpful to the community,’’ Mordecai said.

“We said it may be true that you are doing a lot of valuable things for the community, but there has to be some oversight,” he recalled of conversations with backers of the plans.

Then the threats came, he and other project opponents said.

Backers of the plan reportedly told those who oppose the building that the protests could make volunteers not as willing to help those in the area, Mordecai Koenigsberg said.

“That’s a nasty thing to say,” Mordecai said.

The block is home to many religious Jews .

A supporter of the project allegedly “goes over to a neighbor and says, ‘You have a daughter that’s 21 or 22. If you fight us, your daughter will not get married,’ ” said another block resident, who asked not to be named. “A widow was approached and told, ‘What do you care if your house goes down in value? You will leave it to your children.’

“Our quality of life is being destroyed,” the neighbor said. “I don’t need to live where people are intimidating me, intimidating my children.”

These sentiments were felt even before fire broke out at Avi Koenigsberg’s house in the early morning on March 3. The blaze started in his car, which had been turned off about four hours earlier when he got home and parked it in the driveway.

The smoke traveled upward from the car to the garage and then to Avi’s room above. Firefighters pulled him out of the house unconscious.

“If I had been upstairs for even a few more minutes, I wouldn’t be here anymore,” Avi said.

His insurance company and city fire marshals are still investigating how the fire started, he said. It appears the fire started in the trunk or in his backseat, Avi said, adding that there is no proof it was arson but it also hasn’t been ruled out. The FDNY did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.

Some residents noted that the fire happened at the address to which the block association is registered and said they were worried an overzealous supporter of the depot is out there.

There is no indication Hatzolah was involved in the blaze. 

Hatzolah did not respond to multiple requests for comments from The Post.

While the block association is trying to stop them in court, it is likely the depot will be built, foes said.

“The irony of this is that nobody [at the top] at Hatzolah — the coordinators, the president — would even think or allow this to happen to their block,” a homeowner said. 

Another resident who spoke on condition of anonymity added, “We have the best neighborhood anyone could ask for.

“They put a pall over the block.”

MK Barkat to gun owners: Bring your gun with you - and shoot terrorists

 

MK Nir Barkat (Likud) called on Israeli gun owners to carry their firearms with them at all times, and to be prepared to gun down terrorists should they be present at the scene of an attack.

Barkat, the former Mayor of Jerusalem, tweeted Sunday night following the deadly shooting attack in Hadera, urged licensed gun owners to remain armed at all times.

“The scenes from the deadly attack in Hadera are disturbing,” tweeted Barkat. “I offer my condolences to the families of the murdered, and I join the whole country in praying for the wounded victims’ recovery.”

“I call on citizens who are licensed to carry [guns] to keep their weapons on their person, and to be prepared to confront and neutralize any terrorist immediately. The police on their own cannot handle the many threats, therefore it is incumbent on citizens to carry the burden of self-defense.”

Barkat also called on the government to loosen gun ownership laws, making it easier for ex-soldiers leaving the army to purchase firearms.

“The government must change its policies and instead of preventing [gun ownership], it must allow demobilized soldiers from combat units to immediately be able to receive a gun license and to own a gun in order to neutralize terrorists as quickly as possible. Every disgusting terrorist who tries to murder Jews should know that his blood will be on his own head.”

Father of Murdered IDF Soldier Relates His Conversation with R' Chaim Kanievski

 

Biden's Speechwriter?

 

This is the funniest thing on the internet today

pic.twitter.com/Sm1kHfQXpX

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 23, 2022

Zera Shimshon Parshas Shemini