Aliyah interest surges 50% amid pandemic

Eighteen new Olim will arrive at Ben Gurion airport this evening as part of a Nefesh B’Nefesh group Aliyah flight, in cooperation with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund-USA. These Olim arrived amidst a wave of increased Aliyah interest among North American Jews.

Throughout April 2020, 455 new Aliyah applications were submitted to Nefesh B’Nefesh (in comparison to 302 in April 2019) and 642 individuals downloaded and began working on their Aliyah applications (in comparison to 417 downloaded applications in April 2019).

Today's new Olim will move directly into a designated quarantine hotel for fourteen days as mandated by the Israeli government for all new arrivals into the country.

Olim on this flight will range in ages from a three-year-old to a 66-year-old. The Olim hail from New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida and Illinois, and will be living in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, Ramat Gan and Yafo. This group flight follows twenty Olim making Aliyah last Thursday through Guided Aliyah, a process in which individuals already living in Israel officially change their status to Israeli citizens.

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Pandemic a Century Ago Fueled Nazi Rise

Nazis rose to power in Germany in part because of dislocations caused by a mass-death pandemic a century ago, research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday .

When the mayor of the most important city in the entire world singles out Jews; doubles down and refuses to apologize, then its time to pack up and get the hell out of the country ASAP!

This mayor was endorsed and supported by all the Frum Moisdois and rebbelich.... and yet he bites them in the proverbial tuches .. he just made it easier for anyone running for office to run on a platform of anti-semitism ... in a city that has the second largest population of Jews in the entire world....

Guys im begging you ... the handwriting is on the world..

The paper, written by bank economistKristian Blickle, examined how the German political system reacted to the influenza pandemic that struck the world between 1918 and 1920.

Those events have been back in the world’s consciousness as nations attempt to navigate the coronavirus crisis. The current crisis has resulted in large death tolls, profound economic dislocations and great political uncertainty, at a time when many nations have seen the rise of nationalist political movements that seek to reverse decades of economic and political international linkages.

A century ago, “influenza deaths themselves had a strong effect on the share of votes won by extremists, specifically the extremist national socialist party,” the paper said in reference to the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany in 1933.

“This effect dominates many other effects and is persistent even when we control for the influences of local unemployment, city spending, population changes brought about by the war, and local demographics or when we instrument for influenza mortality,” Mr. Blickle wrote.

The changed voting patterns specifically appeared to boost Nazis over other movements, the paper said. “The same patterns were not observable for the votes won by other extremist parties, such as the communists.”

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New York Post Highlights the Life of Rabbi Hershel Scheiner Who Died of the Virus

New York Post Highlighted today Rabbi Scheiner of Crown Heights 

Rabbi Scheiner, who died March 29, had two great loves: his family and his devotion to Judaism.

And sometimes, as it did more than 30 years ago, when his son Shuey begged to go to a Yankees game, the two loves converged. The rabbi, Shuey and Shuey’s twin sister, Chanie, were sitting in the bleachers when they saw their father pull out a Torah.

“I wanted to die,” Shuey recalls. “You’re in the bleachers, you’re next to a guy drinking beer and my father’s sitting down learning Torah.”

But even with his eyes on the scripture, the father of four also kept his mind on the game, which the Yankees won that day.

“Every time there was a home run, he jumped up,” says Shuey, recalling how the rabbi slapped his kids five, and jumped up and down to celebrate when the team won. “He did it [because] he knew how much it meant to us … He was the best father you could have.”

Scheiner, who went on to have 16 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, studied in a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva in Brooklyn, and stayed dedicated to the movement for life. Even when Parkinson’s disease slowed him down the past several years, he went to the synagogue daily to study with his Torah class. In December, when Shuey’s son Dani had his bar mitzvah, Scheiner still wanted to celebrate.

“We held him by the hand,” Shuey says, “and he was able to dance with my son.”

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Monsey Boy Moshe Just Killed In Hit-And-Run In Arizona

Moshe Just (Yust)  from Monsey was killed in a hit and run accident in Arizona. He was 18.

Three boys were on a cross country trip, when they stopped on the 89 Freeway near Flagstaff Arizona late Sunday night to make a Kiddush Hashem. The boys noticed a vehicle stuck with a flat tire on the side of the road, and stopped to offer their assistance. Minutes later, a speeding vehicle passed by, and struck Moshe. The vehicle sped away and never stopped. He was R”L Niftar at the scene.

Misaskim of NY received a phone call about the tragedy and immediately reached out to the Chabad Shliach in Flagstaff Arizona, Rabbi Dovie Schapiro, who rushed to the scene. Meanwhile, a crew from Misaskim of Los Angeles boarded a private jet to head to the tragic scene, and were there in just a few hours to start performing their Avodas Hakodesh.

Rabbi Jack Meyer, Founder of Misaskim said that he commends the outstanding dedication of the Arizona Highway Patrol, who kept the road closed for Misaskim, and assisted them with whatever they needed.

Police have since located the vehicle that fled the scene, and Detectives are hopeful they will make an arrest soon.

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Little Back Toddler Says Tehillim "Mizmor Le'Dovid" Ch 23

A Kentucky toddler reciting the contents of Psalm 23 has gone viral, according to a Facebook video of the encounter.

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‘Unorthodox’ Star Amit Rahav Shares Video of Transformation Into Character Yanky Shapiro

Israeli actor Amit Rahav, who stars as Yanky Shapiro in the Netflix mini-series “Unorthodox,” posted on Instagram on Thursday a video that showed him getting clip-on sidelocks, also known as payot, to help him transform into his ultra-Orthodox Satmar character.

The sped-up clip shows the 24-year-old sitting in a chair as his makeup and hair artist Jens Bartram gives him the sidelocks, sported by many ultra-Orthodox Jews, by attaching the ringlets to the sides of his short hair.

Bartram clips the payot to each side of Rahav’s head before blending them in with the rest of the actor’s hair.

Rahav praised the artist’s work in the video’s caption, explaining that Bartram soaked the payot in oil overnight “so I’ll have the shiniest curlers on screen.”

In the Netflix mini-series, Yanky Shapiro is the spouse of the lead character Esty (played by Israeli actress Shira Haas), who feels like she is suffocating in the ultra-Orthodox community she was raised in and ultimately decides to flee to Berlin.

Watch Amit Rahav’s transformation into Yanky Shapiro in the clip below:

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View this post on Instagram

Shout out to Jens Bartram, the most phenomenal hair and make up artist and my bff on set, who used to soak these beautiful payos each night in a special oil so I’ll have the shiniest curlers on screen✨ #unorthodoxnetflix @netflix

A post shared by Amit Rahav (@amitrahav8) on Apr 29, 2020 at 9:32am PDT

Yisroel Chaim Yehuda Grumer Rov In Cleveland

HaRav Yisroel Chaim Yehuda Grumer passed away  He was around 87 years old.

The Niftar was the Cleveland Rosh Av Beis Din and Mora D’Asra of Congregation Shomre Shabbos. He was appointed Rov in 1981, and the Av Beis Din in 1984.

He was a legendary Masmid, who spent his life engaged in Harbotzas HaTorah and P’sak alacha.

No communal issue was too large, too small, or beyond the Rov’s realm of expertise.

Rav Grumer was a selfless rov, who had a heart that had room for all people.

He is survived by his wife, Rebbetzin Rochel Grumer, who stood as his side for all these years

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Nurse Describes What’s REALLY Going On In Hospitals During COVID-19

The following is a letter to the frum blog Matzav.

Dear Matzav,

I have been meaning to write this for weeks but, in addition to having my 5 kids at home due to coronavirus, I’ve also been working like crazy as an acute care nurse practitioner in an ICU dealing with many covid patients.

I want to just share a bit of what it’s like, because I see so many posts about opening up the country, about closet-minyanim, about people who just want life to return to normal. I want you to know that you should have a healthy fear of this virus, and if you are unlucky enough to face it daily, you would be extremely hesitant to go back to life as normal or to surreptitiously get around the restrictions that are in place to save lives. Your lives, and mine.

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'Unorthodox Star' Shira Haas sings Hallelujah in previously unseen audition video

Unorthodox star Shira Haas shared her previously unseen audition video on Instagram on Wednesday as she took on the role of Esty Shapiro for the first time. 

Singing Leonard Cohen song, Hallelujah, it was clear to see why the 24-yeara-old was picked for the role for the Netflix four-parter. 

Unorthodox tells the story of a 19-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who flees her arranged marriage and religious community in Williamsburg to start a new life in Berlin. 

'Thank you, everyone, for all the love. Hallelujah.'

And in fact, her onscreen estranged husband Amit Rahav, who plays Yanky Shapiro, wrote in the comments: 'I can listen to this forever.' 

Esty famously sings Mi Bon Siach in a particularly poignant scene in the series.

Shira previously recalled her shock and nerves at having to shave her head for the drama series. 

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Why De Blasio is unafraid of New York’s Jews

Well of course Mayor Bill de Blasio felt safe blaspheming the entire Jewish population of New York City for a lockdown breach committed by a few.

These were Williamsburg faithful who crowded around a cemetery for their rabbi’s funeral – and to do so was a mistake.

But it could have been corrected by a whisper. Instead, read this, the Mayor went to twitter to vent his anger at the mourners, to the point of threatening their arrest, and by extension roping together all Jews as pandemic scofflaws. As you’d expect, of the 1.1 million Jewish New Yorkers, this outraged the 99 percent who abide the rules.

What did they do? 

Says here, they expressed their “anger and disappointment” against the Mayor by – sending him a letter. 

Yes, yes, more than 100 Jewish leaders sent him a letter to “discuss constructive approaches to the pandemic.” Etc. Then they DEMANDED a meeting,

Will the Mayor accede to their demands? Why should he?

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Biden Claims ‘600,000 Dead’ from Coronavirus, Accuses Trump of Not Having ‘Intercourse’ with World

Joe Biden’s mental blunders during a Friday MSNBC appearance were overshadowed by his denial of Tara Reade’s sexual assault claims, but they continue to underscore his apparent cognitive decline.

Biden twice told Morning Joe that 600,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus.

“Over 600,000 dead, many of them who are those workers, those nurses, doctors, some of them,” he said.

A hot mic picked up a gasp from one of the hosts, but he continued, “Because they have put themselves in the position to save other people’s lives, protect the rest of society.”

“And we talk about that number like 600-plus thousand people,” he said, before host Joe Scarborough interjected, “Sixty.”

“Sixty thousand,” Scarborough said.

“Six— sixty thousand,” Biden responded. “I misp— 60,000.”

According to reported statistics, the actual number as of Friday is 65,068 deaths.

For a second time, he awkwardly used the word “intercourse,” when he seemingly wanted to say “discourse” or “interaction.”

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Belz Yerushalayim Finds Cure for Covid-19

Those of us who are blessed to live in Israel, know that unfortunately, the virus hit the Chareidie world like no other community, and that's because the nature of these communities is to constantly be together, be it three times a day in huge shuls, be it at a wedding or any other simcha that is B"H on a daily basis..

Kiryat Belz in Yerushalayim was especially hit hard, since the Rebbe continued with his tishim and continued with his minyanim...

So how do you get around this and keep the sheep grazing so that they are kept in the dark?

You simple remove the bad news from the newspapers!

The two hebrew newspapers that target the  Chassidishe world, Hamodia and  Hamevaser simply removed the fact that the Belz Community in Yerushalyim are dropping like flies ...

If it's not in the newspaper, then it didn't happen ...

I wonder why the secular news media hasn't come up with this cure?

Notice the newspaper that targets the Litvisher oilom, the Yated has the bad news in its by-line ...

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Watch the Story Of the Biggest Pandemic Ever - In 1918

Here's a much longer, detailed documentary on the 1918 pandemic:

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The Virus has strengthened Americans' faith - but not for Jews'

To be honest I don't know how many those surveyed were frum, but this is very scary.... even if the ones surveyed weren't frum...

There is a virus out there that's killing people left and right...the economy shut down, malls and bars and nightclubs are shut down... and practically every country in the world is effected, yet there are Jews out there that won't make a "din ve'cheshbon" a self accounting? 

I think that there is something very wrong in our "religious" education. Even if you want to say that those surveyed were not  frum.... then we have to rethink the way we do  "kiruv"..
It seems that we are not reaching our brothers and sisters that have yet to become more observant. 

A new survey found that only 7% of American Jews feel that the coronavirus crisis has strengthened their faith, as opposed to nearly a quarter of Americans as a whole.

The survey, published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, found that Jews had the lowest percentage of respondents whose faith has been strengthened by the crisis. 

Along with the 7% of Jews whose faith has grown stronger, 69% say their faith hasn’t changed much and 22% say they weren’t religious to begin with. A very small percentage, not represented numerically in the study, say their faith has gotten weaker.

In the United States as a whole, 24% of people say their faith has gotten stronger, 2% say it’s gotten weaker, 47% say it hasn’t changed much and 26% say they aren’t religious. 

The group with the largest number of respondents say their faith has gotten stronger is black Protestants, 56% of whom reported strengthening faith.

Maybe we can "dan lekaf zchus'" and say that It’s possible that few Jews responded positively to the “faith” question because the question’s wording referenced “religious faith,” a terminology that tends to be less common among Jews than among Christians.

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B&H Photo furloughs 400 workers after resisting cuts during Pesach

B&H Photo & Electronics furloughed hundreds of employees this week — a move the iconic retailer had resisted for more than a month after its megastore in Manhattan was forced to shutter because of the coronavirus lockdown, The Post has learned.

The 47-year-old electronics seller — whose Manhattan flagship is known for its Orthodox Jewish staff and the elaborate conveyor-belt system that moves merchandise around the shop — furloughed about 400 of its 2,000 employees on Wednesday, sources close to the company said.

In a memo to affected employees, human resources director Izzy Friedman said B&H “waited as long as possible” before making the cuts, and noted the company had been paying and providing benefits for affected workers “through the Passover holiday break, and beyond to make this easier.”

B&H was likewise waiting to “evaluate the various stimulus benefits available,” but was forced in the end to furlough workers because the “crisis has continued with no clear end in sight,” Friedman added.

The furloughs came as a surprise to one B&H staffer, who said the company’s call center, which takes orders from customers across the US, has been “busy as hell” fielding demand for “computers, movie cameras and accessories for setting up a home office” as COVID-19 forces millions nationwide to work from home.

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B&H closed its two-story store at 420 Ninth Ave. at the corner of West 34th Street on March 16, but customers can still pick up their purchases at the side entrance within 30 minutes of placing an order, according to the website.

Owned by the Schreiber family — married couple Blimie and Herman Schreiber opened the first store in 1973 at 17 Warren St. in Tribeca — B&H waited longer than most retailers in the Big Apple to trim its ranks.

“It is our sincerest hope and prayer that this global pandemic and its economic impacts will be temporary, and that in the future we will be able to reverse many of these furloughs,” Friedman wrote in the Wednesday memo.

Kiryas Joel's Open Letter Supporting De'Blasio

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows Satmar mentality ..... They are always  "rosh ve'rishon" first to write "open letters" to rashaim that want to destroy the Jewish people.

It wasn't long ago that the Satmar Rebbe, R' Aron Teitelbaum wrote and encouraged his naive Roumanian followers to write letters to congress backing the murderous Iran deal, that literally handed nuclear weapons to the Mullas of Iran who vowed to wipe Israel off the map! ....

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Zera Shimshon............ Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

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Saudi Writer Attacks Palestinians: You Aren’t Arabs, The Land Belongs To Israel

During the last few days social media has seen a “tweeting war” between Palestinians and Saudis after Palestinian media published caricatures gloating over the Saudi losses from the sharp drop in oil prices. 

The Palestinians even mocked Saudi consort Mohammed Bin Salman and criticized them for broadcasting pro-Israel sitcoms. 

The Saudis, incensed at Palestinian ingratitude for their financial support, responded angrily. A prominent Saudi writer, Rawff Bin-a-Sa’in, harshly condemned the Palestinians.

Bin-a-Sa’in wrote: 

Palestinian, you are no Arab. You have no land and there is no such thing as the “Palestinian issue.” The land belongs to Israel. Yitzhak Shamir, Rabin, and Golda were heroes. Netanyahu is a coward. Netanyahu, burn these gangsters! Free us and the world from the presence of the Palestinians. Why leave them?

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A Chasidic Woman in Israel asks: Will this Virus cause Many To turn their Backs to Religion?

One of the most highly regarded rabbis in the community said recently that the word “corona” — the first syllable of which means coldness in Hebrew — has “brought a great spiritual coldness into hearts.”

Before we start shivering, let’s clarify: 

spiritual warmth, or varemkeit, as it is called in Yiddish, is one of the essential components of the Haredi lifestyle, in studying the Torah, and in keeping the commandments. The great rabbi, the Chofetz Chaim, said: The only difference between people is that they are either cold or warm Jews. The ardor, or bren, in performing the commandments, the ever-renewing excitement, the devotion and the joy — this is the glue that binds the one who fulfills the commandments with the holy law, and with all others who perform likewise. The moment these actions turn into a recurring ritual, a technocratic exercise, they lose their taste and are in danger of dissipating.

But this is what the coronavirus has done. It has injected coldness into the entire system. When talk first surfaced about calling off the prayer quorums, I chuckled. I, not one of the fanatics, said to my friends: there’s no way they’ll stop praying in minyans in the synagogues; it just won’t happen. It hasn’t happened since the founding of the state.

But then it did. After a week of trying hard to digest the decree, followed by half a week of outdoor prayer, the daily rituals were then conducted in houses and on balconies. The ritual of skipping out thrice daily to the synagogue was severed! When you pray at home, you can abbreviate the service or skip over the arid passages or not pray at all. When a ritual starts to disintegrate, it keeps on disintegrating and does not stop at a pre-determined point.

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Germany bans Hezbollah, raids mosques

Germany on Thursday completely banned Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from carrying out activities on its soil, as police raided mosques and venues linked to the group.

Like the European Union, Germany had until now only outlawed Hezbollah's military wing while tolerating its political wing.

But in a shift immediately welcomed by the United States and Israel, the German interior ministry said it now considered the entire movement a "Shiite terrorist organisation".

"Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation deemed responsible for numerous attacks and kidnappings worldwide," Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told Germany's Bild daily.

The interior minister "has banned the operation of the group" in Germany with immediate effect, his spokesman tweeted.

"Even in times of crisis the rule of law is upheld," he wrote.

Raids were taking place in several places across the country, he added.

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