THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
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A longtime Chabad emissary in Massachusetts was fired after months of social media posts in which he railed against pandemic-related lockdowns and mask mandates.
In more recent weeks Rabbi Michoel Green, the Hasidic movement’s envoy in Westborough for 20 years, encouraged his followers not to be vaccinated with the new COVID vaccines.
“It’s NOT immunization. It’s pathogenic priming & mass sterilization,” he wrote last week, according to Haaretz.
Anti-vaxxers constitute a small minority in Orthodox communities. In 2019, anti-vaxxers contributed to an outbreak of measles in Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Rockland County, New York, that was resolved through vaccination campaigns by government and community groups, as well as barring unvaccinated children from schools.
During the COVID pandemic, in which some Orthodox communities have seen little compliance with mask wearing and social distancing, misinformation about the new vaccines has been spreading for months. Green apparently had been promoting his anti-vaccine views since the 2019 measles crisis, but the posts intensified during the pandemic.
Rabbi Mendel Fogelman, director of the Central Massachusetts Chabad, told Haaretz that Green’s social media posts were “contrary to the organization’s mission and a direct conflict with the sacred task for which he was appointed.”
“It became clear that dismissal was our only choice,” Fogelman said.
Green was dismissed on Jan. 27.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
מכת נשיכות תנים בגליל המערבי: בתוך יומיים הגיעו למרכז הרפואי לגליל תשעה אנשים שננשכו על ידי תנים. האקולוג דן אלון: "אוכלוסיית התנים בישראל גדולה מאוד בגלל עודף של מזון זמין עבורם. זו תוצאה של ניהול לא נכון של משק הפסולת"
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 2, 2021
(מיכל וסרמן ואורלי אלקלעי) pic.twitter.com/pg8O8UoC7J
Nine Israelis sought treatment in hospitals for jackal bites over two days, Channel 12 News reported on Tuesday evening.
Most of the incidents occurred in the Nahriya area in northern Israel, with most victims taken to the Galilee Medical Center for treatment.
One man was sitting in his office at work when a jackal entered, jumped on him and bit his leg. Another man – as can be seen in the video below – was at work at a distribution center when a jackal entered and bit him on his leg.
Fortunately, all of the victims suffered only mild bites on their limbs. However, a jackal bite also poses a risk of rabies and all victims must be evaluated to ensure they are properly vaccinated against rabies.
The jackal population in Israel is large, especially in the north, according to Dan Alon, a representative of the Society for the Protection of Nature. Alon told Channel 12 News that the increase in the jackal population is due to a surplus of readily available food for them – a result of improper waste management.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
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| Rav Chaim Shalom Krishevsky, z'l, next to his father Reb Pesach, יבלחט"א. |
The residents of the Kerem Avraham Geula neighborhood in Jerusalem are in shock after five residents of the neighborhood passed away, including a mother and son and two Gedolim, in the course of a day and a half, B‘Chadrei Chareidim reported.
It began after midnight on Motzei Shabbos with the bitter news from Laniado Hospital in Kiryat Sanz, Netanya on the demise of Mrs. Chaya Bracha Krishevsky, a’h, from COVID-19 at the age of 84. The nifteres was the wife of Reb Pesach Krishevsky, יבלחט”א, the famed drummer who plays at weddings per the Yerushalmi minhag and also known for being severely injured in a severe terror stabbing attack on Rechov Malchei Yisrael five years ago.
On Sunday morning, the residents of the neighborhood, along with the Torah world worldwide, were again plunged into mourning with the news of the petira of the Brisker Rosh Yeshivah, z’tl, HaGaon HaRav Meshulam Dovid Halevi Soloveitchik, who resided for over 50 years in his humble home on Rechov Amos. Although the Rosh Yeshivah, z’tl, had moved out of the neighborhood almost a year prior to an apartment near Brisk in Gush Shemonim, the residents of the neighborhood still maintained close ties with him.
Later in the day, on Sunday afternoon, the residents of the neighborhood and all of Klal Yisrael were again struck by bitter news, the loss of the Kaminetzer Rosh Yeshivah, HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Scheiner, z’tl, who had lived in the neighborhood for years on Rechov Tzefania.
In the late hours of Sunday afternoon came more bitter tidings – the petira of Rav Avraham Meir Britzel-Lifschitz, a Karliner-Stoliner chassid and respected member of the neighborhood Har Tzvi shul, who also resided on Rechov Tzefania. Rav Avraham Meir, who passed away in his home from a heart attack, spent the latter years of his life tirelessly collecting tzedaka for various causes throughout Israel and also served as a Rebbe to young Cheder children.
The next day came another shocking blow – the sudden death of Rav Chaim Shalom Krishevsky, z’l, who passed away at the age of 60 while sitting shiva for his mother, the above-mentioned Mrs. Chaya Bracha Krishevsky, a’h, only 24 hours after her death.
Rav Chaim Shalom, z’l, a Rachmastrivka chassid, resided on Rechov Malachi and was a member of the Har Tzvi shul. The niftar collapsed in his home on Monday morning and was evacuated to Hadassah Har HaTzofim Hospital, where the doctors fought to save his life to no avail.
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Marcus Bloom was an unlikely spy. A bon viveur who followed a playboy lifestyle of swish apartments, expense accounts and he was far from the dashing, image of a secret agent.
He drove a pale blue convertible Delage classic car, an icon of French style, was often seen at the wheel sporting a white pilot's flying helmet, and owned a Great Dane called Sphinx.
In his mid-30s with a balding head, reddish moustache and a figure turned decidedly portly from the good life, he even struggled to enlist at the start of World War Two.
But his intelligence and ingenuity elevated him to the elite level of British spies risking their lives to disrupt and derail the Nazi war machine in France.
For almost a year he adopted the persona of French citizen Michel Boileau living near Toulouse while dodging German patrols to operate a prized radio set that relayed vital information between his Special Operations Executive (SOE) handlers and Resistance groups.
Bloom was instrumental in saving downed Allied airmen, took part in sabotage missions and supplied his French comrades with arms, money and information until he was betrayed, beaten up, tortured and then shipped to a notorious concentration camp.
Witness reports tell of him being dragged bloodied through the streets of Toulouse and being systematically beaten when transferred to a prison, in Paris.
He did not crack but was one of 104 agents – 13 of them women – who were killed or executed in France.
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| The chateau home of Count Jean D’Aligny, who had hidden 35 tons of French military supplies on his estate, where the Gestapo captured Bloom after his network was betrayed |
Every bit of Marcus Bloom's story is astonishing and it is only coming to full light now thanks to the research of historian Paul McCue and archivist Martin Sugarman, of the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and women (AJEX).
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A traveling ICU nurse has revealed the heartbreaking conversation she has with COVID-19 patients before they are intubated and put on a ventilator - a terrifying scenario from which some people never wake up.
Savanna, who lives in Tennessee but is currently stationed at a hospital in New York City, shared a TikTok video of herself re-enacting how she tells patients with advanced coronavirus cases that they need to be intubated.
'Every single day, I help someone's body fight off death with a huge team of others in the hospital,' the 28-year-old told BuzzFeed. 'I hope people take away that healthcare workers are here to help them.'
But at the same time, they need to understand that what may seem like a simple choice to not wear a mask on the subway could end a life and devastate a family,' she added. 'Small choices right now have big consequences.'
Savannah, who is known as @thatICUnurse on TikTok, said she has seen people in their twenties, thirties, and forties die from the virus.
Patients are intubated when they can't breathe on their own. During the medical procedure, a tube is inserted through the mouth and into the airway, so the person can be placed on a ventilator to assist with breathing.
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has tried to find out questions from reporters before her press briefings, it emerged Tuesday.
The attempts to probe for what she will be asked at the on-camera briefings caused such concern that it was raised at a private meeting of the White House Correspondents Association, the Daily Beast reported.
Multiple sources said leaders of the White House Correspondents Association, a group dedicated to maintaining journalists' access to the executive branch of government, advised reporters to push back against any of these requests from Biden's press team or to not reply.
White House reporters also expressed concern that the disclosure that Psaki's team were trying to find out what she would be asked could create the perception they are coordinating with the messaging political communication staff are trying to push for their bosses.
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This is like a master class in liars tells.
— Cerno (@Cernovich) February 1, 2021
Blinks blinks blinks. Looks down. Swallows hard.
They all knew.
pic.twitter.com/Ssdkj7TIuR
MSNBC Did Not Ask Lincoln Project Founders About John Weaver Despite Booking Them 17 Times After The Story First Brokehttps://t.co/ZZf0BElPf7
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 1, 2021
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As a child, visits to my maternal grandfather and grandmother (of Italian and Polish heritage, respectively) involved eating a lot pasta and pierogi. Dessert, in turn, was sometimes cannoli and poppyseed roll, but often a platter of Stella D’Oro cookies — assorted dainty corrugated rings and logs of buttery dough with almond undertones. My grandfather had developed a taste for them early in his youth as an immigrant from Genoa, and my grandparents’ pantry was never without at least one package. Truth be told, my juvenile palate found the cookies too bland (re: insufficiently sugary), but they held a special place in my heart because they were a favorite of my beloved sometimes salty, comparatively sweeter Pop-Pop.
Up until my second year in college, I associated Stella D’Oro (Italian for “Star of Gold”) exclusively with Italian-American culture. While “grocery” shopping in the 7-Eleven near our dorm (hey, we didn’t have cars, OK?) with a friend who also happened to be Jewish, I came upon a package and remarked upon my personal nostalgic ties. “Stella D’Oro?” he replied with a puzzled grin. “That’s a Jewish thing.”
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President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, hired a new criminal defense attorney late last year to defend him in the federal government’s criminal investigation into his business dealings.
Then, on the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, Joe Biden tapped a close colleague of Hunter Biden’s new lawyer to oversee that Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, which is reportedly investigating Hunter Biden.
The news, first reported late last week by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, comes after Hunter Biden admitted late last year that he was under federal criminal investigation over his taxes, although subsequent reporting indicated that the investigation was also into foreign business dealings.
“In one of his very first acts as president, Joe Biden appointed someone called Nicholas McQuaid to run the DOJ’s Criminal Division, the all-important Criminal Division. Turns out that’s the same Criminal Division that’s currently investigating Biden’s son, Hunter. So, who is this Nicholas McQuaid exactly? Well, this show can tell you that he is a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s new criminal defense attorney, a man called Christopher Clark,” Carlson reported last week. “Hunter Biden apparently hired Clark in December to help him with a federal investigation into his business dealings, the criminal investigation that the DOJ is conducting. ”
“Both McQuaid and Clark were law partners together at Latham and Watkins, they worked on the same cases right up until McQuaid took the job at the Department of Justice,” Carlson added. “On January 21st of this year, the same day, Nicholas McQuaid was featured in a Justice Department press release, Latham and Watkins filed a motion in court to withdraw McQuade as an attorney he was working on with Christopher Clark. So that means Joe Biden put as the head of the Criminal Division, the partner of the guy his son had hired to defend him against the Criminal Division.”
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
A 47-year-old Pennsylvania man shot a neighboring couple dead in the street before taking his own life during a snow shoveling dispute Monday morning, The Citizens' Voice reports.
James Goy, 50, and his wife Lisa Goy, 48, were shoveling snow outside their Bergh Street home in Plains Township when neighbor Jeffrey Spaide came out with a pistol and opened fire around 9:20 a.m., police told the news outlet.
Spaide then went back inside his house and got an AR-15-style rifle to shoot the pair again, police said.
Responding police heard another gunshot, which turned out to be the sound of Spaide taking his own life, authorities said. He was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot, police said.
“Apparently there’s been an ongoing dispute between neighbors, some of which involved a dispute about snow disposal and removal,” Luzerne County First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said told the Citizen's Voice.
"They’re across the street from each other, and when they would remove snow they would throw it across the street at the other person’s property.”
The Goys' 15-year-old son was home at the time of the shooting,police said. He was being cared for by his grandparents.
Spaide lived alone, and no other individuals were being sought in the shooting, authorities said.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
Also Jen Psaki: "Wow, Space Force-- it's the plane of today." pic.twitter.com/hiadBB7ydz
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 3, 2021
Ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee has called on the White House Press Secretary to "immediately apologize" for her response to a Space Force question during a Tuesday press briefing.
Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers took offense to Jen Psaki’s answer in jest to a question about the future of Space Force under the Biden administration.
"Wow. Space Force. It’s the plane of today," Psaki said, appearing to compare the question to one posed by a reporter two weeks ago, asking about Air Force One’s color scheme.
"It is an interesting question," she said after the reporter pushed back on the validity of the question. "I am happy to check with our Space Force point of contact. I’m not sure who that is. I will find out and see if we have any update on that."
Space Force was enacted by Congress in December 2019 as an extension of the U.S. military and aims to protect U.S. special interests in space capabilities.
"It’s concerning to see the Biden administration’s press secretary blatantly diminish an entire branch of our military as the punchline of a joke, which I’m sure China would find funny," Rogers said in a statement.
"The Space Force was passed with near unanimous support in Congress, the same type of ‘unity’ President Biden is supposedly working towards," he added. "Jen Psaki needs to immediately apologize to the men and women of the Space Force for this disgraceful comment."
Biden has not publically commented on the newest military force that was formed during the Trump administration. But several lawmakers see Space Force as a continuation of the U.S.’s efforts to combat China’s growing presence.
"While the Biden Administration continues to think about whether or not the [Chinese Communist Party] is a threat, China is working overtime to become the dominant force in space," Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., one of the founding members of the House Space Force Caucus, said Tuesday.
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White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday downplayed the fact that US President Joe Biden has not yet called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu since taking office.
Asked during her press briefing whether the fact that Biden has not yet called Netanyahu is surprising, she replied, “I don't know that it's surprising less than two weeks into an administration. He hasn't called every foreign leader yet.”
Psaki continued, “He certainly would love to spend more time talking to foreign leaders. His first love is foreign policy. But I expect he'll continue to have additional engagements in the weeks ahead. And, obviously, we have a long and abiding relationship with Israel, important security relationship. I'm sure they'll discuss that and a range of issues when they do connect.”
Her comments follow reports that the Biden administration is beginning to renew ties with the Palestinian Authority that have been frozen since 2017.
Barak Ravid of Axios reported on Monday that the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hady Amr, spoke by phone with multiple PA officials on Monday, in the first publicly announced interactions between the sides.
The PA had been boycotting the US since 2017, when then-President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced that the US embassy will be relocated there.
The Biden administration is planning to roll back many of Trump’s policies related to Israel and the PA, noted Ravid in his report.
When Netanyahu and Biden do speak, it is more than likely that the issue of Iran’s nuclear program will come up.
While Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement nearly three years ago and proceeded to reimpose crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Biden has expressed a desire to return to the deal.
Netanyahu is opposed to the original agreement, but Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, recently said he does not anticipate a crisis with the new Biden administration over the differences of opinion on the Iran deal.
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Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch announced on Tuesday that she will not be part of the Blue and White slate in the upcoming elections.
Kan 11 News reported that in a conversation with her associates, Yankelevitch explained, "I cannot continue in this party. It is going in an anti-haredi and anti-settler direction."
Among other things, Yankelevitch was furious about the decision of Defense Minister Benny Gantz to stop the government's decision to normalize young communities in Judea and Samaria.
Meanwhile, Blue and White is preparing for an independent run in the elections, without alliances with other parties.
Gantz declared on Monday that he has no intention of dropping out of the elections for the Knesset, despite the facts that polls project Blue and White to win a very low number of seats, if it even passes the electoral threshold.
With the deadline for submitting Knesset slates looming on Thursday, Gantz was busy on Tuesday evening putting the slate together.
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Rindenow, a father of nine from Passaic, New Jersey, had lived in Israel in the past but settled in Passaic in 1998 and served as a communal rabbi and also worked as a psychotherapist. He was a member of the staff of the Passaic Torah Institute, and the rabbi of the Carlebach minyan. Rabbi Rindenow and his wife, Mindy, come from a long line of Chassidic rebbes, including the Chernobyl Rebbe and the Twersky family, and the family is famous for its acts of chessed and warm approach to all Jews.
Many of his children subsequently immigrated to Israel and recently Rindenow and his wife decided to move to Tzfat, where he fell ill with coronavirus and died a short time later.
“He was a father to us but also a father to everyone”, his daughter Beila Clement who arrived from the US, said. “He would help everyone. Anybody who needed a place to sleep would sleep in our house.
“After my brother was killed something changed in him. You could see the pain on his face. He was only happy with the children and grandchildren. A wonderful grandfather who would get up on Shabbos late in order not to disturb us. He was very excited to make aliya because he was very pro-Israel,” she added.
Shlomo Rindenow was killed in 2016 when a grenade held by another soldier exploded and killed both of them while they were serving in the 410 combat engineering brigade.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ
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| Funeral of Rav Soloveitchik |
Three times on Sunday, Orthodox men carried the body of a beloved Torah scholar wrapped in a black and white prayer shawl through the streets of Jerusalem to a freshly dug grave.
First there was Rabbi Dovid Soloveitchik, the 99-year-old heir to a vaunted tradition of Talmud study. A few hours later it was Rabbi Yitzchok Sheiner, the 98-year-old leader of a prominent yeshiva. And in the evening they took Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, a psychiatrist and scion of multiple Hasidic dynasties, to his final resting place near Beit Shemesh.
By nightfall, the Orthodox world could count three fewer rabbinic scholars than when the day began. All died of COVID-19, the disease that has killed well over 2.3 million people around the world, including more than 400,000 in the United States and nearly 5,000 in Israel. In Israel, 1 in 132 haredi Orthodox Jews over 65 had died of COVID-19 by the end of 2020.
The weekend’s losses were relentless in their pace, but they reflected a cruel fact of life in the Orthodox world over the past year. A long list of Orthodox rabbinic leaders have died, leaving communities reeling from their losses and at times wondering who will emerge to fill their shoes. The deaths from COVID — and from other causes during a pandemic that curtailed the mourning rituals that usually follow the deaths of major rabbis — spanned the range of the Orthodox community, from Modern Orthodox to Lithuanian, or non-Hasidic haredi, to Hasidic.
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A study published on Tuesday shows that nearly two-thirds of the Chareidi population in London have coronavirus antibodies, one of the highest recorded rates in a community in the world.
The study, performed by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), showed that 64% of Chareidi Jews have virus antibodies, which includes 28% of children under the age of five and over half of school-age children.
The number is staggering compared to the 11% infection rate in the general population in London and just 7% across the UK.
“Estimates are amongst the highest sero-prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 described anywhere in the world to date,” the researchers stated.
According to the study, the main source of infection among Chareidi Jews in London was at Purim gatherings during the first wave and morbidity sharply decreased after a lockdown was imposed in the city.
The researchers noted that it cannot be assumed that the community has herd immunity despite its high infection rate and health regulations must still be strictly maintained.
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