41 pregnant women, new mothers hospitalized with coronavirus

 Israel's Health Ministry on Monday morning reported that 2,331 people were diagnosed with coronavirus on Sunday, out of 65,036 test results received, for a 3.7% positivity rate.

Currently, the country has 37,698 active coronavirus cases, with 1,112 hospitalized. Of those, 708 are in serious condition, and 223 are on ventilators.

A total of 5,899 Israelis have died of coronavirus in Israel, including 38 in the past day.

The hospitalized coronavirus patients include 41 pregnant and newly postpartum women, including six who are in serious condition.

So far, Israel has vaccinated 4,960,396 with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 3,789,118 have received the second dose as well.

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Drake raps ‘I should probably go to yeshiva’ on new single

 

One of rapper Drake’s latest tunes gives a nod to his Jewish roots — even as he hints that he might be finding Jesus.

In “Wants and Needs,” one of three tracks in his “Scary Hours 2” EP released at midnight on Thursday, Drake meditates on his many sins. In one line, he raps: “Yeah, I probably should go to yeshiva, we went to Ibiza.”

Ibiza is an island just off the coast of mainland Spain known as a center of electronic dance music party tourism. So the insinuation in Drake’s line is that he could have used more of the structure and discipline of Orthodox Jewish schooling in his life, but instead he chose to immerse himself in a party culture.

The next lines reference fellow star rapper Kanye West, who often goes by the nickname Yeezy: “Yeah, I probably should go link with Yeezy, I need me some Jesus/ But soon as I started confessin’ my sins, he wouldn’t believe us.”

Then later in the chorus, Drake adds: “Should repent, I need me some Jesus in my life/ Amen.”
West has become an intensely religious Christian public figure in recent years, hosting religious services and basing his latest album on religious themes.

Born Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto to a black father and Jewish mother, Drake attended Jewish day school as a kid and had a bar mitzvah, which he parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” He has since become guarded in talking publicly about his Jewish identity, despite hinting at it in some ways over the years (see his bar mitzvah-themed birthday party or his nightclub named after his Jewish grandparents).

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Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, the Karlburger Rov, Passes Away at 85

 

The Karlsburger Rov, Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, passed away this morning of an apparent heart attack at the age of 85 in his beis medrash in Borough Park.

Considered by many in the Chasidic world and beyond to be the most prominent leading rabbinic figure on Halacha in the U.S. Rabbi Roth was the author of the nine volume Emek Hateshuva, Rabbi Roth will be buried in Israel.

With his incisive mind and his vast knowledge, Rabbi Roth was a renowned poseik, whose guidance on intricate matters was sought by Jews of all stripes, from all locations. 

According to Mishpacha, Rabbi Roth came to Borough Park in 1972 at the request of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, to serve on the local Satmar beis din. He had previously been living in Israel and in 1980 Rabbi Roth began traveling to Meron three times a year for several decades, spending weeks praying at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, which he considered to be a place of incomparable heavenly merit.

Rabbi Roth was known to spend most nights learning in his 53rd Street synagogue, taking just short naps in his chair. As previously reported News, Rabbi Roth suffered a massive heart attack nearly five years ago, returning to his synagogue and his beis din after his recovery.

Following a 2 PM funeral at 1558 53rd Street, Rabbi Roth will be flown to Israel for burial in Meron.

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Mrs Devorah Broiner Principal Of Israeli High School, Age 45, Dies Of COVID

Mrs. Devorah Broiner, a’h, passed away of the coronavirus at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer on Motzei Shabbos at the age of 45.

The nifteres, a resident of Bnei Brak and a mother of eight, was the principal of a Chassidish high school for girls in Ganei Hadar in Petach Tikvah.

She began to feel unwell about a month and a half ago and tested positive for COVID-19. She was hospitalized after she began experiencing breathing difficulties but her condition continued to deteriorate and she was sedated and ventilated and attached to an ECMO machine.

Her family members told Kikar H’Shabbos that she had no preexisting medical issues and she wasn’t in any high-risk group for the coronavirus. 

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NY lawmaker wants sex ed for kindergartners

 

Get ready for the latest woke wave in education: comprehensive sex ed for kids as young as 5 — thanks to a new bill in the state Senate.

Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Samra G. Brouk, a freshman Democrat from Rochester, would tie New York’s health curriculum to standards written by a left-wing interest group that advocates “Sex Ed for Social Change” — and would make those lessons mandatory statewide.

Under that group’s current standards, public and charter schools would have to teach 5-year-olds about “gender identity” and instruct 8-year-olds on hormone blockers to prevent puberty in transgender-identifying preteens.

Kids as young as 11 would get lectures on “vaginal, oral, and anal sex”; study “queer, two-spirit, asexual, pansexual” and other gender identities; and receive explicit instruction on the use of external and internal condoms, dental dams and other contraceptives.

Brouk told The Post, “I am greatly concerned about the unacceptably high incidence of relationship violence, sexual harassment and assault, and online bullying in our society today. We must equip the next generation with the skills and education they will need to thrive.”

But her proposal would legally link New York’s schools to the shifting recommendations of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).

“We would be outsourcing our curriculum to this outside organization,” said Assemblyman Michael Reilly (R-SI), a member of the education committee. “That’s a concern.”

Some parents are also worried.

“The state constitution guarantees a basic education, but nowhere does it say ‘we have to prepare our kids to change their sex if they want to,’” said Sam Pirozzolo of the New York City Parents Union. “We have schools where 95% of kids can’t read or do math at grade level, and now they want to bring in these complicated social justice issues? That’s BS.”

Even parents who approve of sex ed in school are queasy about the envelope-pushing topics the law would require.

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Chareidie woman who crossed into Syria indicted

 

The State Attorney's Office today (Sunday) filed an indictment against the young Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria and was returned to Israel through Russian mediation.

According to foreign publications, the Israeli was returned in exchange for the purchase of vaccines by Israel for the Assad regime. All details of the deal remain under embargo.

Defense attorney Anat Yaari and Iyad Azzam of the Public Defender's Office said, "Unlike past cases in which there was a violation of state security, yet no indictment was filed against people who crossed the border, in this case it is clear to all that the young woman did not harm and had no intention of harming state security."

"It is therefore incomprehensible that an indictment should be filed against a young woman without a criminal record and a complex personal background. We will need to consider the evidence further before we decide whether or not to petition for the case to be dismissed.

The IDF’s investigation of the young woman's passage to Syria revealed that the young woman touched an electronic fence that alerted the forces stationed on the Syrian border that someon was in contact with the fence, but the soldiers did not manage to reach the area fast enough to prevent her crossing the border.

The young woman arrived in the Majdal Shams area to cross the border. It was obvious that she knew the place well and had toured it in the past. She crossed a goat trail on Mount Hermon and reached an old fence on the mountain in a place not covered by IDF radar.

Towards midnight she climbed the fence and entered Syria.

The interrogation, which was presented to the commander of the Northern Command, Major General Amir Baram, determined that then soldiers on duty at the time were not at fault for not preventing her crossing the border. Sigificant steps have been taken to reinforce the security measures in that area.

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Record 63.5% of Haredim join Israel's workforce in 2020

 

Nearly two-thirds (63.5%) of Haredim in Israel were employed in 2020. 50% of ultra-Orthodox men, 63.5% of ultra-Orthodox women now earn their livings.

Israel saw a 1% increase in both male and female Haredi employment in 2020, following a 3% increase between 2016 and 2020, according to Labor and Welfare Ministry data obtained by Israel Hayom.

According to the data, Haredi employees made up just 60.2% of the workforce. While this decreased to 59.7% in 2017, the rate later increased again to a record 63.5% in 2020.

Haredi employment rates usually differentiate between men and women as the latter are more likely to work. Only a moderate increase has been seen in employment levels among Haredi men.

The female Haredi employment rate has been constantly rising, reaching a high of 76% in 2017.

Among men, the employment rate reached a record 50% in 2016.

Shas MK Moshe Arbel has worked for years to incorporate Haredim into the Israeli workforce. He said, "Employers and employees understand that the entrance of Haredim into the workplace is a welcome phenomenon that goes hand in hand with their Haredi identity."

Arbel noted, "The Haredim who work want to be incorporated in the job market without giving up on their unique identity as Haredim in the state of Israel."

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For the Sake of Jewry, the Yeshivishe Should Give up their Private Dialect

BY

COLE S. ARONSON

The summer after our junior year at our pluralistic Jewish high school near Washington, D.C., my stepbrother and I spent two weeks at Yale with 35 or so modern Orthodox peers. The program we attended taught the works of C.S. Lewis and Joseph Soloveitchik, and I was eager, for the first time in my life, to meet serious Orthodox people my age. Which I did. But we had a language problem.

These kids from Teaneck, Long Island, and Boston, learned in subjects Jewish and general, spoke (a mild form of) what sociolinguists call Yeshivish, an Aramaic/Yiddish/Hebrew-infused dialect of English used by many Orthodox Americans. When speaking with me, my new friends were OK—but not great—at using only standard English. And to their credit, they graciously answered questions like, “Dovid, what does al achas kama v’kama mean?” or “What is the Triangle K, and why wouldn’t someone—what’d that guy say—hold by it?” or “Can just anyone bavorn?” But all the same, my decade of Hebrew study, my lifelong attendance at an old-school Conservative synagogue, and my charitable disposition toward Orthodoxy couldn’t thwart the belief that my peers’ very vibrant religion was also downright bizarre. It was a religion I got only in translation.

I was the lonely man of faithlessness, frustrated by an in-speak that kept me out, even though nobody was actually trying to keep me out. After one alienating day I demanded an explanation from one of the program’s faculty, Meir Soloveichik, the noted Orthodox rabbi who leads Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. “Why would you go in for this religion?” I asked. He replied: “Because it’s true.”

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Pope Visits Ancient Ur, Birthplace of Avraham

An aerial photo shows the archeological site of the 6,000-year-old archaeological site of Ur during the preparations for Pope Francis’ visit, near Nasiriyah, Iraq, March 6, 2021

 

Standing in the traditional birthplace of the biblical Abraham, the father of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, Pope Francis on Saturday urged Iraq’s Muslim and Christian religious leaders to put aside animosities and work together for peace and unity.

He told those gathered at the interfaith meeting: “This is true religiosity: to worship God and to love our neighbor.”

Francis traveled to the ruins of Ur in southern Iraq to reinforce his message of interreligious tolerance and fraternity during the first-ever papal visit to Iraq, a country riven by religious and ethnic divisions.

With a magnificent ziggurat nearby, Francis told the faith leaders that it was fitting that they come together in Ur, “back to our origins, to the sources of God’s work, to the birth of our religions” to pray together for peace as children of Abraham.

At the 6,000-year-old archaeological complex near Nasiriyah, the pope said: “From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters. Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: They are betrayals of religion.”

Earlier Francis held a historic encounter in nearby Najaf with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of most of the world’s Shiite Muslims.

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No news conference. No Oval Office address. No primetime speech to a joint session of Congress...Does Biden Have Dementia?

 President Joe Biden is the first executive in four decades to reach this point in his term without holding a formal question and answer session. It reflects a White House media strategy meant both to reserve major media set-pieces for the celebration of a legislative victory and to limit unforced errors from a historically gaffe-prone politician.

Biden has opted to take questions about as often as most of his recent predecessors, but he tends to field just one or two informal inquiries at a time, usually in a hurried setting at the end of an event.

In a sharp contrast with the previous administration, the White House is exerting extreme message discipline, empowering staff to speak but doing so with caution. Recalling both Biden’s largely leak-free campaign and the buttoned-up Obama administration, the new White House team has carefully managed the president’s appearances, trying to lower the temperature from Donald Trump’s Washington and to save a big media moment to mark what could soon be a signature accomplishment: passage of the COVID-19 bill.

The message control may serve the president’s purposes but it denies the media opportunities to directly press Biden on major policy issues and to engage in the kind of back-and-forth that can draw out information and thoughts that go beyond the administration’s curated talking points.

“The president has lost some opportunity, I think, to speak to the country from the bully pulpit. The volume has been turned so low in the Biden White House that they need to worry about whether anyone is listening,” said Frank Sesno, former head of George Washington University’s school of media. “But he’s not great in these news conferences. He rambles. His strongest communication is not extemporaneous.”

Other modern presidents took more questions during their opening days in office.

By this point in their terms, Trump and George H.W. Bush had each held five press conferences, Bill Clinton four, George W. Bush three, Barack Obama two and Ronald Reagan one, according to a study by Martha Kumar, presidential scholar and professor emeritus at Towson University.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday defended the president’s accessibility to the media and suggested that a news conference was likely by the end of March.

“I would say that his focus is on getting recovery and relief to the American people and he looks forward to continuing to engage with all of you and to other members of the media who aren’t here today,” Psaki said. “And we’ll look forward to letting you know, as soon as that press conference is set.”

The president’s first address to a joint session of Congress — not technically a State of the Union address but a speech that typically has just as much pomp — is also tentatively planned for the end of March, aides have said. However, the format of the address is uncertain due to the pandemic.

His use of the phrase “Neanderthal thinking” this week to describe the decision by the governors of Texas and Mississippi to lift mask mandates dominated a new cycle and drew ire from Republicans. That created the type of distraction his aides have tried to avoid and, in a pandemic silver lining, were largely able to dodge during the campaign because the virus kept Biden home for months and limited the potential for public mistakes.

Firmly pledging his belief in freedom of the press, Biden has rebuked his predecessor’s incendiary rhetoric toward the media, including Trump’s references to reporters as “the enemy of the people.” Biden restored the daily press briefing, which had gone extinct under Trump, opening a window into the workings of the White House. His staff has also fanned out over cable news to promote the COVID-19 relief bill.

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Pfizer CEO’s Israel visit cancelled because he is unvaccinated

 

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has cancelled his expected visit to Israel, after it turned out he was not vaccinated against coronavirus, N12 reported Friday.

The report noted that Bourla, as well as members of the delegation that was meant to accompany him during his visit, have not received the second dose of the vaccine. As a result, it was decided to delay the visit by several days, which also posed a logistic challenge because of the upcoming Israeli elections. 

Bourla said in December that he has not yet received the vaccine yet because he does not want to “cut in line,” and would wait until his age group is next in line for getting vaccinated. As such, he has received the first dose, but not the second one yet. 

Pfizer did not respond to The Jerusalem Post‘s request for comment.”We continue to be interested in visiting Israel and meeting with decision-makers,” a Pfizer spokesperson told N12.

“The visit to Israel will probably be scheduled toward the end of spring.” 

Bourla made headlines last week when in an interview given to NBC News he referred to Israel as the “world’s lab” when it comes to coronavirus vaccine rollout, noting that “they are only using our vaccine.” 

When asked whether one could infect others after receiving two doses of the vaccine, he said: “It is something that needs to be confirmed, and the real-world data that we are getting from Israel and other studies will help us understand this better.”  

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Biden Looking to Destroy Peace Deals Between Arabs and Israel

  By  Caroline B. Glick

The Trump administration was on the verge of securing a peace agreement between Israel and Indonesia in its final weeks in office, according to a former senior Trump administration official involved in the efforts. The official divulged that the negotiations between Israel and the world's most populous Muslim state were run by then-President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner and Adam Boehler, then-head of the US's International Development Finance Corporation.

Israel was represented by then-Ambassador Ron Dermer and Indonesia by Minister Mohamed Lutfi. To secure peace, Boehler told Bloomberg News last December, the US would be willing to provide Indonesia with an additional "one or two billion dollars" in aid. Indonesia was interesting in Israeli technology and even wanted the Technionto open a campus in Jakarta. It wanted visa-free travel to the Jewish state and Arab and US investment in its sovereign wealth fund. Israel wanted Indonesia to end its economic boycott of the Jewish state. Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Bali were on the table.

The advantages of peace between Israel and Indonesia for both sides are self-evident. But such a peace would also pay a huge dividend to the US in its burgeoning cold war with China. An expanded strategic and economic partnership with the archipelago and ASEAN member would be a setback for China's efforts to dominate the South China Sea, particularly with Indonesia playing a role in an Islamic-Israeli alliance led by the US.

"We got the ball on Indonesia and Israel to the first-yard line," the official explained. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has dropped the ball on the ground and walked off the field.

On the surface, the Biden administration is interested in promoting peace. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have praised the Abraham Accords, as well they should.

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Great Commercial To Get People to Vote For Democrats

 

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Watch ABC News in 2008 Predict That NYC Will Be Underwater by 2015

 

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Pelosi Insane !

 

Our leaders are alcoholic boomers who don’t know where they are or what they’re doing pic.twitter.com/3KuPsaRr3a

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 5, 2021

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How Well Did This Age?

 

Never forget
pic.twitter.com/n2XJZYhITk

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 5, 2021

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Zerah Simshon Pashas Ki-Sisa

 

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13 year-old from Teaneck Gives Daf Yoimie Shiur

Meet Charlie Breda, possibly the youngest Daf Yomi Magid Shiur on Earth

When Charlie was 12 years old he started giving a daf yomi shiur to his friends using the the AllDaf app as a resource. One year later, with a bar mitzvah and pandemic under his belt, Charlie is still going strong.

Watch this remarkable story to learn how a regular kid from Teaneck relentlessly pursued the seemingly impossible. Imagine what we can achieve with Hashem’s help when we open our minds and hearts to the loftiest Torah goals. 

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Why do Biden’s handlers have him back in the basement?

 It’s sure looking like President Biden’s handlers are protecting him from the press. 

Wednesday, he joined a virtual House Democratic Caucus event with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, delivered some 10 minutes of some prepared remarks and then invited questions — at which point his microphone and camera feed got cut off.

Yes, he seemed a bit confused about the agenda, saying, “So I want to thank you all. I really mean it . . . I want to thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” and then: “And I’m happy to take questions if that’s what you — I’m supposed to do, Nance. Whatever you want me to do.”

That’s when his outgoing stream switched to a “Thank you for joining” screen.

Whoever rushed to cut the president off was doing him no favors, but rather inviting questions about when, if ever, he’ll do a public give-and-take that allows for truly challenging questions.

Biden has already gone longer than any president in a century without holding a solo press conference. The 15 prior chief executives held a solo press conference within 33 days of taking office, according to a CNN analysis of data from the American Presidency Project.

President Donald Trump held his first solo press conference 27 days after taking office; President Barack Obama, 20 days into the job. Thursday marked Biden’s 43rd day in office.

This follows a campaign where he was almost never in any potentially spontaneous situation, and showed up in public at all only when he’d had ample opportunity to rest. But he doesn’t have the excuse of the pandemic anymore — certainly not when politicians by the thousands are doing virtual press conferences.

The American people need to know their president is fully engaged with his job, and fit to do normal give-and-take on his own. Otherwise, you’re going to start hearing a lot more about the 25th Amendment.

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'Unvaccinated rabbis won't be assigned to conduct weddings'

As Israel prepares to loosen its coronavirus restrictions and open up restaurants and event halls which will allow for larger gatherings and weddings, the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization announced that only vaccinated rabbis will be allowed to conduct ceremonies.

Tzohar is involved with helping coordinate thousands of marriage ceremonies each year, with many officiated by volunteer rabbis arranged by the organization.

“The last thing we would want is that weddings which should be defined by holiness and a sense of family should serve to help spread the virus,” said Rabbi David Stav, who chairs Tzohar.

The organization, which also facilitates premarital counselling, also asked that unvaccinated bridal counsellors should not hold in-person meetings.

“We know that in the coming days and weeks we'll be blessed to see a large increase in the number of weddings. By taking the proper precautions and abiding by the Health Ministry regulations, we can make sure that these events will be ones of only happiness and health,” Rabbi Stav said.

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