If we could have those emotions by davening like this cello player ....how great would that be?
With Yom Kippur just around the corner, it seems as if the time has arrived to do an honest Chesbon Nefesh (self-searching) concerning the “A” word; Aliyah. In a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released earlier this year before the outbreak of the Corona virus pandemic in the United States, about two-thirds of American Jews said they feel less safe than at any other time in the past decade.
The ADL survey also found that more than half of American Jews (54%) have either experienced or witnessed an incident they believe was motivated by antisemitism.
Wherever you look; broadcasters, sports celebrities, local politicians associated with the Democratic Party, social media activists, Black Lives Matter’s leaders, street anarchists, are all expressing with immunity and zero remorse, a common and seemingly coordinated message of hatred towards Jews, that Jews are somehow responsible for the Corona pandemic, and that Jews are financially behind much of the anti-government violence sweeping the streets of America.
The time tested and natural response by most Jews, albeit unconsciously has been to modify their’ daily routine and avoid public displays of Judaism so as to minimize the risk of being targeted. This pretty much sums up the reaction of most American Jews, even if they continue to deny or refuse to admit it. The natural inclination to move on as if nothing has changed is a time tested response by Jews that seems to no longer be relevant or effective in dealing the wide-spread anti-Semitism that has mushroomed everywhere.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a wife, mother of seven and a devout Catholic — but how that may affect the presumptive nominee’s potential rulings on the Supreme Court remains to be seen.
Reportedly tapped by President Trump to replace the late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg, the 48-year-old jurist has only sat on the federal bench for three years, after being successfully nominated by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
She’s written more than 100 decisions and dissents, according to the Chicago Tribune. And while she maintains that her faith does not enter into her rulings on the law, Barrett twice joined with a minority of judges in dissenting opinions that favored reconsidering rulings that struck down state restrictions on abortion rights.
One case involved an Indiana law that would have required that the parents be notified when minors seek consent for the procedure from the courts, while the other — also passed in Indiana, her home state — banned abortions for reasons related to gender, race or disability, and also required that fetal remains be buried or cremated.
Although the Hoosier State only appealed the decision regarding fetal remains, Barrett and the other dissenters addressed the law’s other provisions, noting that “there is a difference between ‘I don’t want a child’ and ‘I want a child, but only a male,’ or ‘I want only children whose genes predict success in life.'”
“Using abortion to promote eugenic goals is morally and prudentially debatable,” the dissenters argued.
Both of those cases later wound up before the Supreme Court, which reinstated Indiana’s regulation of fetal remains and ordered a reconsideration of its parental-notification law.
Three members of the city’s Orthodox Jewish communities died from the coronavirus over the last four days — all within hours of arriving at the hospital too sick to be saved, The Post has learned.
All three men were fatally ill with the disease by the time they sought treatment at the Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, one of the neighborhoods at the center of the Big Apple’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.
“There’s rampant COVID denialism and misinformation abound in the community,” one person familiar with the situation said. “People are not getting tested and are refusing care even when sick. This is deeply distressing.”
Not all of the deaths were elderly men, the sources added, though more specific information was not immediately available.
Maimonides is not the only hospital seeing an uptick, the sources said.
Mount Sinai’s hospital system — which includes Mount Sinai Brooklyn in nearby Midwood — has also seen the number of new patients admitted with COVID-19 jump to 40 over the last week, up from an average 20 to 25, the sources said.
“As has been reported, there has recently been an increase in the number of patients with COVID-19,” a spokeswoman for Maimonides said in a statement.
“The hospital otherwise declined to comment on the specifics of the story.”
Representatives for Mount Sinai declined to comment.
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The Israeli government slapped restrictions on outgoing flights on Friday as part of a slew of measures to bolster a second virus lockdown imposed last week.
"The arrangement agreed upon enables leaving the country for whoever bought an airplane ticket prior to the beginning of the lockdown, i.e. today, the 25th, at 2:00 p.m.," Transport Minister Miri Regev said in a statement.
"People who buy a ticket beyond then won't be able to use it," she said, noting Israelis would be able to return to the country "without limitations".
From 2:00 p.m. local time, Israel will tighten its second virus lockdown, after the first week failed to bring down the world's highest coronavirus infection rate.
The new rules, which will close workplaces, shutter markets and further limit prayers and demonstrations, had yet to be finalized in parliament just hours before they were due to come into force.
The lockdown already closed schools and imposed restrictions on work and leisure.
Israel has recorded more than 215,000 coronavirus infections and 1,378 deaths, out of a population of nine million, with more than 7,500 new cases on Thursday.
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| Yochanan in Italy |
Yochanan grew up in a haredi home in Jerusalem, but was kicked out of the yeshivah system at a young age. As a result of the violence and abuse he was subjected to by family members, he decided to leave home and live on the streets.
When, not surprisingly, the street failed to provide him with the care and support he was looking for, he took an unusual step: He obtained a passport, put together a little money and with just the clothes on his back left the country forever.
But he abandoned more than his country. In an attempt to "get back" at those who'd hurt him, he decided to leave Judaism and convert to Christianity.
With that in mind, he headed for Italy. After touring the country and taking in the sights, Yochanan wound up at a monastery in the south, on the island of Sicily. The monk in charge welcomed him with open arms, and Yochanan took the following year to immerse himself in Christian teachings. At the end of the year, he decided to return to Israel to be baptized at the Jordan River.
In an act that was part defiance and part wanting to reconnect to his family, Yochanan sent a message to his mother announcing his planned arrival and its purpose. The mother was beside herself with anguish and called Yad L'Achim for help.
The organization understood that Yochanan couldn't be won over in a straightforward conversation on theology, and thought of another way to reach him, with his guard down.
In coordination with his mother, Yad L'Achim sent one of its people to the airport to pick Yochanan up and drive him home to Jerusalem. The driver, who grew up in a Christian family in Europe, trained to become a priest and became a senior missionary in charge of targeting Jews, started an "innocent" conversation with Yochanan.
Where was the young man coming from? Italy. And the purpose of his visit? To be baptized in the Jordan River.
In the casual conversation that ensued, Yad L'Achim's expert succeeded in opening Yochanan's eyes to a series of contradictions in Christian teaching that shook the foundations of what he'd learned over the past year.
By the time they'd reached their destination, the two had developed a relationship and were exchanging phone numbers. Yochanan asked if he could call later that night to continue their talk.
The conversation, which lasted until 5 a.m., probed theological questions and those relating to the meaning of life. By the time it was over, Yochanan had changed his mind about baptism, but still refused to hear anything about reconnecting to Judaism.
A Yad L'Achim staffer who'd heard about Yochanan's painful personal story rallied to the cause, arranging for him to see top psychologists and social workers. After a long process, during which he slowly began to feel acceptance and support, he decided to return to his family and his people.
Yad L'Achim helped him find a respectable job and, as of this past Rosh Chodesh Elul, he began coming nightly to a yeshiva study hall in the Old City of Jerusalem, where he engages in regular Torah study.
A leading Yad L'Achim official observed: "While the story of Yochanan isn't typical, not even for us, it is just one of hundreds of cases of precious Jews we save every year from the clutches of missionary cults operating in Israel. Every instance in which we bring a Jew back to his Father in Heaven moves us and instills in us renewed determination to continue this difficult work against a missionary operation that is extremely well-funded by Christian churches. Every success like this is a literal expression of 'Shuva banim shovavim.' "
These days, Yad L'Achim continues its efforts to save more and more Jewish souls. "These precious souls who have returned to their core, are the best defenders a person can acquire for himself on the Day of Judgment," the official continues.
A new COVID-19 mutation appears to be even more contagious, according to a study — and experts say it could be a response by the virus to defeat masks and other social-distancing efforts.
Scientists in a paper published Wednesday identified a new strain of the virus, which accounted for 99.9 percent of cases during the second wave in the Houston, Texas, area, the Washington Post reported.
The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, said people with the strain, known as the D614G mutation, had higher loads of virus — suggesting it is more contagious.
Though the strain isn’t more deadly, researchers said it appeared to have adapted better to spread among humans.
David Morens, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the findings suggest that the virus may become more contagious and that this “may have implications for our ability to control it.”
He said it’s possible that the virus had evolved to resist efforts such as hand-washing and social distancing.
“Wearing masks, washing our hands, all those things are barriers to transmissibility, or contagion, but as the virus becomes more contagious, it statistically is better at getting around those barriers,” Morens told the newspaper.
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THANKS SO MUCH, IT MEANS A LOT ESPECIALLY IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES
El Al is trying to prevent the airline’s transfer of control to Eli Rozenberg, who acquired 42.89% of El Al with a $150 million offering at the company’s public offering last week, Globes reported.
El Al is claiming that Eli Rozenberg is a “straw man” acting on behalf of his father, New York-based businessman Kenny Rozenberg, who is not an Israeli citizen. “We will ask you to consider the request for a permit to control El Al,” a lawyer representing El Al’s board of directors wrote in a letter to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, and Cyber and National Digital Matters Minister David Amsalem.
Rozenberg has not yet gained official control of El Al as the approval of three government ministers is first required to be transferred to Israel’s Government Companies Authority, as outlined in the Finance Ministry’s bailout plan.
Tami Mozes-Borovitz, the current controlling shareholder of El Al through her family company Knafaim Holdings Ltd., is behind the attempt to prevent the transfer of the beleaguered airline to Rozenberg.
El Al’s new owner Eli Rozenberg “remains shrouded in mystery,” according to Globes. He has not granted any interviews to the media and has reportedly not even met some of the advisors he hired for his newly formed company Kanfei Nesharim Aviation.
“According to the law and El Al’s regulations, control of El Al must always be in the hands of a citizen and resident of Israel,” the letter from El Al to the government ministers states.
“According to the information obtained by El Al, Kanfei Nesharim is a company controlled by American businessman Kenny Rozenberg, who is not a citizen or resident of Israel. In order to circumvent the legislative restrictions, the shares of Kanfei Nesharim are registered in the name of his son, Mr. Eli Rozenberg, a young man of 26 who lacks independent means and business experience, to create the false appearance as if the controlling shareholder is a resident of Israel – so to speak.”
El Al (or more specifically Tami Mozes-Borovitz) clearly would have preferred if the Finance Ministry had allowed for a private placement, which would have enabled the more “friendly” bids of businessmen Meir Gurvitz and David Sapir.
In the letter, El Al requested an urgent meeting with government ministers.
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With less than one day before the hermetic closure of Israel, the number of Corona cases still continues to spike. On Thursday 6,883 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed, and the total number of people to have contracted the virus since March rose significantly to 209,635.
With between 50-60,000 people a day being tested for the disease, the percentage of positive cases still hovers at approximately 10 percent of the total. The current number of active cases in Israel is 59,842, but perhaps more shocking is the breakdown of that number into population centers.
According to the IDF Intelligence’s bureau of information, the capital of Jerusalem has 6,336 sick patients with the virus, while other cities with a large Chareidi population, have a similarly high number of people per capita sick with the disease. In Bnei Brak, there are currently 3,332 people with the disease in a city that has less than a quarter of the population of the capital. Over the last week alone, 1,787 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus in Bnei Brak. Jerusalem’s statistic is equally worrisome, as of the 6,336 some 3,469 of them contracted the virus within the least week.
Beitar Illit has 796 people who currently have the virus, with 571 of them contracting the disease in the last seven days. Modi’in Illit has 1,335 confirmed cases and 818 of them are from the last week. Ashdod, which also has a large Charedi population, has 2,369 confirmed cases, and 1,427 of them came in the last week. As the numbers in the Charedi population and the Muslim population continue to rise, local leaders are struggling to cope.
While the number of active cases is rising across the entire country, and not just in Chareidi or Muslim population centers, the numbers in other locales are far lower for the most part.
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.”
THANKS SO MUCH, IT MEANS A LOT ESPECIALLY IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.”
