The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that Israeli jets targeted the Al-Shayrat airbase in Homs with more than eight missiles. An explosion was heard believed to be caused by anti-aircraft defenses while intercepting these strikes.
Syria's news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying that "at 20:25, Israeli warplanes over Lebanon launched a group of missiles towards eastern Homs, and the air defense forces immediately confronted the enemy missiles and intercepted a number of them." Al-Modon said that there were three air strikes that targeted a cell with Iranian militias are present. There are also warehouses where Iranian militias transferred weapons and ammunition to it during the past days.
Nice intelligence, as always.
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On Sunday, after I noted that as of Friday the two New Jersey towns with the highest religious Jewish populations also had the highest number of coronavirus cases, I tweeted that I was very concerned about what would happen in Lakewood this week:
While the vast majority of religious Jews in Lakewood have been taking the social distancing guidelines seriously, there have been reports up through yesterday of some Jews ignoring the rules and continuing to hold gatherings - yesterday for a bat mitzvah on a lawn and a school bus filled with kids caught traveling (this was not true), and another school caught with 35 people inside.
Teaneck, on the other hand, has been - to all reports - taking the rules very seriously since March 12.
So, sadly, Lakewood has just zoomed past Lakewood and other New Jersey towns with a hundred new cases in just 24 hours.
Here is the chart mapping five communities with significant numbers of Orthodox Jews - Toms River is essentially a suburb of Lakewood and Clifton a suburb of Passaic, with the Jewish community traveling in the same social circles.
Teaneck's curve shows social distancing works.
Lakewood has been more lax and we are seeing the results now - and they will get much worse in the future. The Lakewood incidents are fueling a huge increase in antisemitism online, so much so that the governor of the state has denounced it along with anti-Asian bigotry.
Jews are dying today because too many on their community laughed off the risk since it became apparent that shuls and schools would have to close.
Within days, it will become common knowledge that the hotbed of coronavirus in NJ is in a town most people never heard of that is filled with religious Jews. The very name Lakewood, instead of being synonymous with Torah learning as it is now, will become associated with the few Jews who decided that they can ignore the government and their own religious leaders, and thereby endanger everyone else.
This minority that think they are above the rules is hurting all religious Jews in the United States. It is a massive chilul Hashem.
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My tweets made an astonishing 7.8 million impressions in the first three months of this year.
I still have expenses in running this site, and I want to pay my great columnists and amazing linkdump editor more that I have been (which is more than virtually every Internet site pays their writers - nearly all of them don't pay a dime.).
So, please donate to EoZ. You can use PayPal for a one time donation, or you can use the sidebar on the main blog site to subscribe and donate automatically every month. Alternatively, you can subscribe and become a patron through Patreon. Or you can send me an Amazon gift card. Thanks again for all your support, and wishing all of you health and happiness and a wonderful upcoming holiday season - together while apart.
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In a small lab on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Professor Shy Arkin and his team of three are “throwing chemicals” at some of the proteins that constitute the coronavirus, hoping that one or more of them will stick.
Or at least that’s the kind of non-scientific language Arkin helpfully uses to describe the frantic research that is taking place in his and thousands of other labs around the world, in the battle to counter the pandemic that has gradually brought much of human endeavor and interaction to a near-halt.
In whichever constrained environment this article finds you, therefore, you’ll be pleased to hear that he’s optimistic. The virus, Arkin acknowledges, is particularly devastating among the elderly and other high-risk groups. But social distancing is at least a partially effective interim measure, buying time for the scientific community to come up with a real solution. And that solution, he is confident, will be found.
Arkin is among the scientists who feel they have something of a head start in the race to stop the pandemic, having spent close to two decades studying the components of influenza and SARS 1, the current COVID-19’s “remarkably similar predecessor,” which killed 774 people in 2002-3. And he says that at least some of COVID-19’s two dozen or so components are proteins that are known to be “drug-able” — that scientists have been able to inhibit.
The particular race in which his and all those thousands of other labs are frantically engaged is to test some 6,000 chemicals — drugs that are already approved as non-toxic to humans — against the virus’s constituent compounds: “You throw chemicals at it… If one of the chemicals inhibits a component, and that component is crucial to the virus, the chemical is immediately a potential antivirus drug.”
Sounds simple? Well, yes and no, as this interview attempts to make clear.
It was conducted on Sunday, first in Arkin’s office and then, briefly, in his small lab — one of the very few places on the university campus still working. We kept the obligatory two meters apart as we spoke — a task that became slightly more difficult when we entered the lab, and two members of his team showed me some of the testing process.
The Times of Israel: So, how goes the search for a coronavirus treatment?
Prof. Shy Arkin: We’re working in frantic mode. We’re a small team, and we are serving chemicals against a component of the virus that we identified many years ago.
Teams at the Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel and the Diamond Light Source laboratory in Oxfordshire outlined their current findings and research plans in a discussion hosted by Weizmann UK on Thursday. Weizmann Vice President for Public Affairs and Resource Development Roee Ozir said, "We have probably somewhere between 20 and 30 initiatives of talented and creative scientists who are trying to push their research very quickly and look for remedies as soon as possible."
Dr. Nir London, who is leading the team at Weizmann that is searching for a drug candidate, said they are seeking to develop an anti-viral drug which will target protease, one of the 30 proteins that are essential for the activity of the virus. The Weizmann Institute and its international partners are seeking to conduct multiple stages of its research concurrently and thereby shorten the research cycle.
Weizmann has pioneered a form of research that is "completely open and shared in real time with the entire scientific community." To find the compounds that are able to inhibit protease, "instead of following up on only a few tens of compounds, we aim to follow up on 500 to a 1,000 compounds in parallel and so drastically shorten the timescale," London said.
The team published the data that they had gathered online and issued a "call to arms to medical chemists around the world" inviting them to submit proposals for which compounds might be best placed to bind to the coronavirus. "Within a few days, we got hundreds of proposals from medicinal chemists all around the world....Our premise is that if there is a safe compound which shows efficacy against the virus, humanity needs to know about this fast."
The World Health Organization doubled down on its claim that the COVID-19 virus is not transmittable by air even as some experts suggest it is possible and as Western officials recommend that doctors and nurses take precautions.
“FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” WHO declared in a Saturday fact-check tweet. "The #coronavirus is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.”
But a study in the United States suggests otherwise. Carried out by more than a dozen health experts working with the National Institute for Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, the study released this month found "aerosol … transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours.”
One of the authors of the study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a UCLA professor and infectious disease researcher, told the Los Angeles Times that singing may have spread virus through the air at a church in Washington state, where a choir rehearsal in early March was deemed the cause of a fatal coronavirus outbreak.
Polly Dubbel, a county communicable disease manager, told the Los Angeles Times that airborne transmission at the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church was “all we can think of right now.”
She told the Washington Examiner: “It was a group of approximately 60 people just singing in close proximity to each other for over an hour — they weren’t eating, they weren’t shaking hands, they weren’t engaging in any other high-risk activities — and that’s all we know.”
One early March study in Singapore also suggested "that small virus-laden droplets may be displaced by airflows and deposited on equipment such as vents.” A non-peer-reviewed study out of China stated that the intensive care unit, the cardiac/coronary care unit, and general patient rooms in one Wuhan hospital and the patient hall inside another “had undetectable or low airborne SARS-CoV-2 concentration.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent disinfection guidelines state “based on what is currently known about the virus … spread from person-to-person happens most frequently among close contacts (within about 6 feet).” The guidance adds that “this type of transmission occurs via respiratory droplets, but disease transmission via infectious aerosols is currently uncertain.
I just found this 2018 report from the UN that describes the laws that discriminate against and hurt women under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
I do not remember a single news article about this report when it was released. The taboo against saying anything bad about Palestinian rule is very deep - there are more international journalists in Israel and the territories per capita than anywhere else on Earth and yet they hardly ever report anything that puts Palestinians in a bad light.
Here are the Palestinian laws that the UN found problematic for women:
Domestic violence: Palestine has no domestic violence legislation.
Marital rape: Marital rape is not criminalized.
Abortion for rape survivors: Abortion is prohibited in the West Bank by the Jordan Penal Code (Articles 321–325) and in Gaza by the Criminal Code of 1936 (Articles 175–177).
Sexual harassment in the workplace: Sexual harassment is not criminalized by the Labour Code.
Honour crimes: Mitigation of penalty Laws allowing mitigation of penalties for ‘honour’ crimes were repealed in 2011 and 2018 in the West Bank. However, the government in Gaza has not applied the reforms.
Adultery: Adultery is an offence in Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank, Article 282 of the Penal Code criminalizes adultery
Human trafficking: Palestine does not have comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation. Some provisions of the Penal Code of Jordan apply to trafficking in the West Bank.
Sex work and anti-prostitution laws: Prostitution is prohibited by Articles 309–318 of the Penal Code in the West Bank and Articles 161–166 of the Criminal Code of 1936 in Gaza.
Sexual orientation: Homosexual conduct between consenting adults is criminalized by the Criminal Code of 1936 in Gaza, with a penalty of up to ten years of imprisonment. The Penal Code 1960 in the West Bank has no similar prohibition.
Marriage and divorce: The personal status laws for Muslims require the husband to maintain the wife. A wife owes obedience to her husband. A husband can divorce by repudiation (talaq). A wife has the right to divorce on specified grounds. She can also apply for a khul’a divorce without grounds if she forgoes financial rights.
Male guardianship over women: Muslim women require consent of a wali (male guardian) to marry. There are some weak legal protections for women under guardianship. Women can seek permission from the court to marry if the guardian withholds consent without a legitimate reason.
Minimum age of marriage: The Muslim personal status laws set the minimum legal age of marriage as 15 years for girls and 16 years for boys in the West Bank, and 17 years for girls and 18 for boys in the Gaza Strip. The ages can be lower if a judge allows it (with a guardian’s approval in the case of the girl).
Guardianship of children: Fathers are the sole guardians of children.
Custody of children: After divorce the mother has custody up to a certain age, but automatically loses custody of her children if she remarries. Inheritance Sharia rules of inheritance apply to Muslims. Women have a right to inheritance, but in many cases receive less than men. Daughters receive half the share that sons receive.
Polygamy: Polygamy is permitted.
Legal restrictions on women’s work: Some legal restrictions exist on women’s employment in certain industries that do not apply to men, such as mining.
And yet we never hear a word from today's feminists - most of whom are against Israel and support a Palestinian state that would continue its official discrimination against women.
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The BDS Movement is clearly not happy about the coronavirus pandemic.
Not because it has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Of course not. Their concern is that the pandemic is distracting the world from what is really important: hating Israel, the great moral imperative of our time.
So they have set up a webinar, during the month of what would have been "Israel Apartheid Week" on campuses, to try to ensure that their mindless troops don't get distracted by minor issues like trying to keep themselves or loved ones safe.
Security! Racism! The Wall! Solidarity! Pandemic! Surely one of those keywords or the photo will attract people to listen to yet more rabid hate for Israel!
Here's the description:
For Israeli Apartheid Week 2020, Rebecca Vilkomersen and Khury Petersen-Smith will explore the concept of security and the racist ways it is deployed, and examine solidarity as a counterpoint. They will discuss the relevance of these concepts during this time of a global pandemic, and share strategies for nonviolent resistance against racism, in keeping with this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week theme, United Against Racism.
The ironies are too many to count. As the entire world tries to secure itself from a deadly virus, BDS wants to argue that security is racism - and the only reason they say that is because Israel emphasizes its security, so it must be wrong.
As a counterpoint, they suggest "solidarity," yet they are against Israel cooperating with Palestinians to fight the pandemic. (You can be sure they won't say a word about how the EU fragmented itself as each member country chose to defend itself rather than the continent.)
Finally, they claim they are against racism when the entire raison d'être of BDS and this seminar is to instill and strengthen a crazed, illogical hate against the Jewish state - an irrational hate that is psychologically identical to hate for people of color or gays.
If someone wants to waste an hour of their lives, I'd love to know how many people actually show up for this - and how many people in the "Palestine Time" timezone.
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The New York Times has an article about how countries are restricting freedom in the times of the pandemic - and what it says about Israel is quite inaccurate.
"Israel’s prime minister has shut down courts and begun an intrusive surveillance of citizens."
In reality, Israeli courts have not been shut down. The Justice Minister together with the Courts Administration authority have postponed all non-essential hearings. The courts are still open.
The surveillance is of mobile phone metadata finding where potentially infected people have traveled. It is not much different than correlating the data from ubiquitous security cameras.
And neither measure was done at Netanyahu's order. The limits on what court cases will be heard were carried out by the Justice Minister and Courts Administration. The surveillance was ordered by the Government (i.e., by vote of all the Ministers), in consultation with Attorney General, and approved by the Supreme Court (which has not been closed either.)
What this shows is that the Leftist tropes of an autocratic Bibi have become accepted by the media.
Moreover, the article is biased by what it doesn't say. The only Arab nation it mentions is Jordan:
In Jordan, after an emergency “defense law” gave wide latitude to his office, Prime Minister Omar Razzaz said his government would “deal firmly” with anyone who spreads “rumors, fabrications and false news that sows panic.”
But autocracies like Syria and the Palestinian Authority don't need new laws to limit speech. Palestinians have arrested journalists under an "electronic crimes law" that forbids saying anything the government doesn't like. Syria has detained doctors who dare say that they have seen cases of coronavirus that the regime does not admit. Police in Lebanon have dismantled protest tents. Egypt expelled a journalist that said things not to the regime's liking. Morocco passed a new law limiting what could be said on social media, similar to Jordan's law.
But the New York Times decided that Israel was the autocracy where citizens' human rights are threatened. These Arab regimes who really are using the emergency to grab more power are barely worth mentioning.
(h/t YM and A)
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In frightening and uncertain times - like those we are facing now with the coronavirus - some people all too often and dangerously look for and unjustly blame scapegoats. Holding Asian-Americans responsible for the coronavirus merely because it originated in China is deeply offensive and a genuine threat to them. Such scapegoating is terrifyingly familiar to my community, the Jewish people. And we are also being targeted now.
When the bubonic plague swept through 14th century Europe, Jews were held responsible. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were viciously slaughtered, and entire Jewish communities were wiped out. Needless to say, all that Jewish blood did nothing to stop the plague. Now, messages and images implying that Jews are exploiting positions of power in politics, finance and health care to spread the virus have emerged.
It is vital that the Jewish people and all Americans take an unyielding stand against any and all efforts to vilify any individual, community, people or nation for the crisis unfolding around us. This is a moment for coming together in a globally shared experience as we recognize what we have in common. We are all in this together. We will not allow COVID-19 to rob us of our civility, our pride in our nation's diversity, and our ability to build a more perfect union across the many communities that call America home.
Last Saturday, Yidel Perlstein, chairman of Community Board 12 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, started to feel sick. By Tuesday, he tested positive for coronavirus.
“I’m like a little supermarket. Everything hurts, and every day I get out of bed in the morning, I go to the bathroom, and I think I’m doing better,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Then I start getting dizzy and weak. I go back to bed, just wait for it to be calm at night and go to sleep. And this has been going on like that every single day.”
“They told me I’m better off staying home as long as I can instead of going to the hospital, which is overcrowded,” he said. “It is better to stay away for as long as possible. So far, I don’t feel any better than last week. It is probably worse.”
“My message is straightforward,” Perlstein said. “If you would have gotten [the coronavirus] and you would know how painful it is, you would have rather stayed home for six weeks than going out and getting it, even with the light case.
“People have no idea. People cannot relate to how painful it is and how you could just lay in bed like you’re almost dead for days and days – and there’s nothing to do.”
New York State has some 60,000 cases and nearly 1,000 people who have died from coronavirus, the largest number in the US by far. Most of the patients, some 33,000, live in the New York City metropolitan area. The new situation affects the sizable Jewish population there, forcing synagogues, schools and yeshivas to close.
Some “99.9%” of the synagogues are closed, as well as schools and most of the stores, Perlstein told the Post.
WATCH AND SHARE: I’m calling on my fellow Jews to adhere strictly to government & rabbinic guidelines that forbid ALL gatherings!
Don’t wait for the virus to claim the life of your own family to take it seriously!
Netanyahu says there are “particular groups” in the country not adhering to emergency directives — “deliberately breaching and even showing contempt” for the rules– and that he therefore ordered security forces to step up enforcement in areas with a high number of violations.
He stresses that most Israelis, including those in the ultra-Orthodox community, are acting responsibly. The “extremist groups” who are flouting the rules, he says, endanger themselves and everybody else, and are trampling on the principle of “love thy neighbor.”
“There won’t be gatherings of over two people who are not from the same nuclear family,” he announces.
Additionally, he says no kind of prayer will be allowed even in open areas — “pray only on your own” — and that religious events should be restricted as much as possible.
Even weddings must be restricted only to immediately family, he says. Funerals remain limited to 20 people, and circumcisions to 10 — all while maintaining two-meter social distancing.
Netanyahu also calls on Israelis not to visit family during the Passover holiday.
This year’s Passover Seder will be “the lockdown seder” — with only the nuclear family attending. “Don’t visit relatives on the eve of the festival either,” he stresses.
“These same restrictions apply as relevant to all faiths,” he notes.
The pandemic gives us a chance to highlight one of the most ridiculous demands by BDS (and by many Palestinians and Arabs themselves) against "normalization" with Israel.
In order to fight the coronavirus, everyone has to work together. But working together with Israel violates one of the core BDS principles, of being against "normalization" with Israel.
By BDS' definition, normalization is "the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.”
Therefore, a meeting last week between Palestinian doctors from Jericho and Israeli experts on how to fight the coronavirus would be a violation of the BDS demands. And so is all the other cooperation between Israelis and Arabs on fighting the pandemic.
In ongoing joint efforts to slow the spread of #COVIDー19, Palestinian medical teams in the Jericho region attended a professional training session today to learn methods for examining patients, managing isolation facilities in hospitals & preventing infection of medical staff. pic.twitter.com/eCOqipUaNh
How absurd that a movement supposedly meant to help Palestinians would prefer that they not cooperate against a worldwide threat! But there you have it - BDS doesn't care about Palestinians.
And Israel does.
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The current pandemic has reduced the number of terror attacks and riots in Israel and the territories to nearly zero. In fact, today is "Land Day," a major event that is usually marked with mass anti-Israel rallies, and this year the Palestinians can do virtually nothing.
Hamas, which is built on a culture of glorifying death and "martyrs," has very little to talk about without physical attacks. So its top story on the Al Qassam Brigades website is about the "martyrdom" of someone who just died of injuries from a car accident four years ago.
Al-Qassam Brigades said in its military statement that the Mujahideen Muhammad Issa Baraka from Khan Yunis, died today, Saturday 4 Shaaban 1441 AH corresponding to 3/28/2020 AD, as a result of his injury in a traffic accident 4 years ago.
"To go to his Lord after a blessed life full of giving, jihad, sacrifice and bond in the way of Allah, we count him among the righteous martyrs who are pure and do not commend ourselves to Allah."
We ask Allah to accept him in the martyrs, and to accommodate him in his spacious gardens, and to provide his family with beautiful patience and good consolation, and we belong to God and to Him we shall return.
Pity poor Hamas who needs to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find new "martyrs" to praise.
I guess the terror group didn't want to waste their martyr photos:
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A man seriously wounded in a Hanukkah attack on a Jewish gathering in Monsey, New York, has died, three months after the stabbing rampage.
Josef Neumann, 72, succumbed to wounds sustained during the December 29 machete assault, a local Jewish group said Sunday.
“We are sad to inform you that Yosef Neumann, who was stabbed during the Hanukkah attack in Monsey late Dec 2019, passed away this evening,” the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council said in a statement posted to Twitter.
Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, who is the community liaison for the Ramapo Police Department that serves Monsey and executive director of Oizrim Jewish Council, shared the news of Neumann’s passing on his Twitter account as well.
“We were hoping when he started to open his eyes,” Rabbi Yisroel Kahan told The Journal News on Sunday night. “We were hoping and praying he would then pull through. This is so very sad he was killed celebrating Hanukkah with friends just because he was a Jew.”
Neumann was the most seriously injured in the attack and doctors had said there was little chance he would ever make a full recovery. He had been in a coma since the attack, according to NBC News.
His death came despite hopes that his condition may improve after he reportedly opened his eyes at the end of February.
Israel's coronavirus death toll climbed to 16 on Monday after a 58-year-old man with underlying medical conditions died at the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, south of Tel Aviv.
The news came as Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov warned that there are likely to be over 150 coronavirus patients in a serious condition in Israel by the weekend.
"I don't see a model in which we end this situation with a small number of intubated patients or deaths," Bar Siman Tov told KAN Reshet Bet.
A total of 4,347 Israelis have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus to date, including 80 people in serious condition - among them a young man in his 20s who was hospitalized at Assuta Ashdod University Hospital - and 63 patients requiring ventilation.
Despite testing close to 6,000 people on Sunday, Bar Siman Tov said the tests were only giving authorities a "very partial picture" of the real situation.
The amount the PA is paying terrorists this month could buy them 387,143 Coronavirus test kits or 465 ventilators instead
For which leaders is the payment of financial rewards to terrorists more important than supporting the needy or paying teachers?
The answer is, of course, the Palestinian Authority leaders– during the Coronavirus crisis!
Anticipating a fall in income, PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh announced that the payment of the March salaries will be staggered, and every day a different group of PA employees will be paid. The order of payment is a clear indication of the PA’s priorities.
Preceded only by the medical and supporting personnel, and the PA Security Forces members, third in line to receive their share of the limited PA budget are the terrorist prisoners and the families of the dead terrorists, the so-called “Martyrs.”
“Since the wheels of production, import, and consumption have stopped, there will be a large drop of more than 50% in the PA’s revenues… The international aid will decrease because the entire world is in crisis, and therefore we will work according to an emergency austerity budget by reducing the expenses as much as possible. However, we will pay the salaries for this month [March] in full and over the course of several days in order to prevent gatherings in front of the banks, and this [will be] in the following manner:
On Sunday the salaries of the medical and supporting personnel will be paid.
On Monday to the [PA] Security Forces members.
On Tuesday to the prisoners and [the families of] the Martyrs.
On Wednesday to welfare cases and the poor.
On Thursday to the teachers.
On Friday to the rest of the [PA] public employees.
The last payment, on Saturday, will be to senior officials, to high level state employees, and to the ministers.”
[WAFA, Official PA news agency, March 29, 2020]
As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, this is not the first time the PA has clearly demonstrated its warped priorities. In 2019, when the PA decided to plunge itself into a self-made financial crisis and was forced to cut salaries to its law abiding employees, it nevertheless committed itself to paying, in full, the salaries of the terrorist prisoners and allowances of the families of the dead terrorists.
Similarly, the fact that the PA prioritizes the payment of the terror rewards over the payment of benefits to the needy Palestinians, is not a surprise. As PMW demonstrated, the PA devotes six times more of its budget to the terrorist prisoners and the families of the dead terrorists than it does to its needy.
Rabbi Pinni Dunner recounts a story from Rabbi YY Jacobson, a famous inspirational speaker who grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn:
“A few weeks ago, I led a workshop for single mothers, and at the end of the session, I took questions from the women and encouraged them to ask any question that was on their mind. One of the ladies put her hand up, and this is what she asked me… it’s a crazy story.”
“A few months ago,” she said, “it was Pesach. The thing is, my ex-husband and I went through a very difficult breakup. After years in court over our kids, we finally settled on a shared custody arrangement, which means that we alternate Jewish holidays. This past Pesach it was my turn – my children were coming to me for Seder and I was so excited. I changed over my home for Pesach and prepared everything beautifully; it was going to be just me and the kids.”
“I was so happy about them being with me, that I told everyone: my family, my friends, my neighbors. Then, one hour before yomtov, I got a phone call from my ex – for some reason, the kids were not going to be coming. I almost fainted from shock and heartache. I was also so ashamed. I guess I could have called my parents, or I could have called my neighbors – and gone to them for the Seder. But how could I actually do that? I had told everyone my kids were coming! Truth is, I did not have the energy to even be with anyone. I felt completely and totally numb – dry and lifeless.”
“So I did the Seder by myself. On my own. It was the worst and most bitter Seder I have ever had. I just sat there crying the whole way through. Weeping. It wasn’t Pesach. It was Tisha B’Av. I did not have to eat Maror. I—my entire life!—was Maror. Yes, I went through the Haggadah and ate the Matzah; but the entire Seder took me 25 minutes.”
“Rabbi Jacobson, did I do the right thing? Did I fulfil my Seder obligation? Was it even called a Seder? Because it did not feel like a proper Pesach.”
Rabbi Jacobson told me – and believe me, as a public speaker, I know exactly what he means – sometimes your most inspirational moments in a speech are not prepared. They are a gift from God. You can prepare for hours. And then inspiration drops into your lap. Right then and there, Rabbi YY Jacobson had such a moment.
“Lady,” he said, “in 1988 the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s wife died, and he was left on his own, as they sadly had no children. She passed away in February, and two months later was Pesach. Every year the Rebbe and his Rebbetzen had Seder together, but this year he was on his own, totally by himself. Who would the Rebbe conduct the Passover Seder with?”
“I recall that a young boy, Ari Halberstam – who was later tragically gunned down on Brooklyn Bridge, in 1994 – approached the Rebbe after Maariv on the first night of Pesach and, on behalf of his mother, invited the Rebbe to his home for Seder. Ari’s family lived at 706 Eastern Parkway, just one block away from ‘770’. The Rebbe smiled at Ari, and shook his head. He thanked him profusely, but told Ari he would be having the Seder in his private office in ‘770’.”
“I was a yeshiva student at the time,” continued Rabbi Jacobson, “so I am a first-hand witness to this story. In fact, the Rebbe’s longstanding assistant Rabbi Leibel Groner offered to stay with the Rebbe, but the Rebbe sent him home to have Seder with his wife and children.”
“And so, the great Lubavitcher Rebbe – the man who inspired countless people around the world for their Seders, who personally undertook to provide a meaningful Pesach Seder for Israeli Army personnel who were on duty on the first night of Pesach via his shluchim in Eretz Yisrael – had the Seder on his own. Not one other person was present. As the Talmud says: if you are on your own, you ask yourself the ‘Ma Nishtana’ questions, and then you answer them to yourself.”
“A few of us yeshiva boys did not go home that night; we waited outside in the street – and after a couple of hours, the Rebbe opened the door to welcome Eliyahu Hanavi and recite Shefoch Chamatcha. He walked outside holding a candle and his Haggadah, said the prayer, gave us a wave, and then went back inside to finish the Seder — by himself.”
“My dear lady,” said Rabbi Jacobson, “if it was good enough for the Lubavitcher Rebbe to have the Seder on his own, trust me, your Seder was perfect!”
“He could have had his Seder with 100 people, 1000 people, or 10,000 people. He personally arranged for all the army Seders in Israel to be sponsored. He was responsible for hundreds of thousands of people celebrating Pesach on Seder night, from Kathmandu to Alaska, from San Francisco to New Zealand. But at the end of the day, he went and did the Seder on his own. He didn’t need anyone else to be close to God. He didn’t need adulation. He didn’t need validation. He sat alone and relived the Exodus from Egypt.”
“I was only 15 at the time,” concluded Rabbi Jacobson, “but despite my youth, I felt sad that the Rebbe had nobody to be with for the Seder. Why did he not invite even one person to be with him? But today, after hearing your story, I may have discovered the answer—and it is just a personal feeling. As a true Jewish leader, the Rebbe wished to empower all those souls who would ever need to do their Seder alone. He wanted them to know that their solitary Passover Seder was powerful, meaningful, and real. Jewish history and the Divine presence would dwell at their Seder just as it does at a Seder that has many people there.”
(h/t David S)
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Bernie Sanders, who has surrounded himself with anti-Israel aides, naturally doesn't know anything about Israel beyond what his aides tell him.
Which is why he parroted the talking points of rabid Israel-haters in a tweet on Sunday:
Palestinians in Gaza already faced hardship under a blockade. Now they're dealing with the coronavirus.
My Senate colleagues and I call on Trump to send U.S. medical relief. And the Israeli government must also lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid. https://t.co/WeLRY72KLq
Tellingly, he links to a week-old article from the extremist anti-Israel Gisha organization.
But even the UN has admitted that Israel is not impeding any aid to the territories and praised Israel for fully cooperating with the Palestinian Authority, international NGOs and even Hamas.
Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, has praised the coordination between the Israeli and Palestine authorities in reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement released on Friday, the coordination and cooperation established between Israel and Palestine, with regard to tackling COVID-19, was described as “excellent”.
The Israeli and Palestinian authorities are continuing to coordinate their responses closely and constructively, the statement said, which is a major factor in the level of disease containment achieved so far.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Israel has allowed the entry of critical supplies and equipment into Gaza: examples of critical supplies include swabs for collection of samples and other laboratory supplies required for COVID-19 testing, and Personal Protective Equipment to protect health workers.
The statement also noted Israel’s cooperation in allowing health workers and other personnel involved in the COVID-19 response to move in and out of the West Bank and Gaza.
When even the UN says that Israel is doing everything one can expect to help Palestinians, you know that the haters are lying through their teeth.
And Bernie Sanders prefers the lies of the haters to the facts that even the UN admits.
Thank Allah he will not be the Democratic candidate.
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Two news stories in Palestinian media seem s little too coincidental.
On Friday morning, Palestinian police arrested a journalist who broadcast live from Hebron. I do not know what he said, but the police officials said that he "talked about the coronavirus in a manner that spread terror and fear among citizens in Hebron."
The Palestinian electronic crime unit has been following social and traditional media to find "violations and false news that spread fear and confusion among citizens."
It sounds like this journalist warned about an outbreak of the virus in Hebron, and the police arrested him, warning the population that only official news may be published or posted.
This law sounds strikingly like the one that Syria has to block all news that the government doesn't approve of and to arrest anyone - even doctors - who speak publicly about Covid-19 cases that are not officially acknowledged.
Is that the case here? Are there people with the virus in Hebron?
Tweets indicated that Hebron went under quarantine last Thursday. Photos of deserted streets were posted o Friday. But the official media said that the quarantine started Sunday night.
The governor of Hebron, Jabreen Al-Bakri, issued a decision Sunday night to completely close the city of Hebron until further notice.
A statement issued byAl-Bakri said, "It is based on the developments of the current health situation and in order to fight this pandemic and limit the spread of the coronavirus, it was decided to take precautionary and preventive measures in the city of Hebron from Monday, March 30, until further notice.
All the entrances to the city of Hebron are completely closed and entry and exit is prohibited.
Isn't that a coincidence that the same city that had news that was considered too likely to panic citizens, which was hushed up, is two days later being completely quarantined?
Is there a major outbreak in Hebron that is being covered up?
If the PA is hiding coronavirus cases, it is endangering everyone in the region. It would be an unforgivable crime. The censorship itself is bad enough, but this could be China-level censorship - we don't know.
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Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Sunday accused IDF soldiers of deliberately spreading the novel coronavirus among the West Bank's Palestinian population.
In the latest iteration of an ongoing and long-standing blood libel, Shtayyeh claimed, "We were exposed to testimonies that some of the (Israeli) soldiers are trying to spread the virus on car handles."
The firebrand politician cited racism as the main motive behind the soldiers' actions.
"This is racism and hatred of people who long for the death of the other. We will record this in the list of crimes [against Israel], " Shtayyeh said.
This is a despicable antisemitic statement. Which means that the usual people on the Left who hate Israel but pretend to be against antisemitism will remain silent - or will say that he is telling the truth.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
