Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 30, 2020

03/30 Links Pt1: 16th Israeli dies of virus, Health Ministry predicts 150 critical patients; Man stabbed in Monsey Hanukkah attack succumbs to wounds

From Ian:

Man stabbed in Monsey Hanukkah attack succumbs to wounds

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.

16th Israeli dies of virus, Health Ministry predicts 150 critical patients

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.

PMW: Coronavirus and PA financial priorities

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 pushes the lie that Israel is not allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza

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
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 29, 2020

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.

It is not only Mladenov. The UN has noted this across the board:

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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Palestinian officials may be hushing up coronavirus infections, just like Syria, Turkey, Russia, China...

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.

Why did Hebron suddenly decide to quarantine the entire city?

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.

PA president Mahmoud Abbas actually praised China for its coronavirus response last week. It looks like he is taking its lessons very seriously.

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Newest blood libel: Despicable Palestinian PM accuses IDF of purposefully spreading #Covid19

We are back to the Dark Ages.

They used to accuse Jews of spreading the plague by poisoning the wells. Now they are saying that Jews are spreading the plague more directly.

From YNet:

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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Posters to tweet/FB to counter the Gaza libels

I've been making posters to counter the lies from the hate-Israel crowd, but they would be far more effective if they are used as replies to the hashtags and libels that claim that Israel limits medicine and humanitarian aid to gaza.

So, use these liberally.

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Palestinians have SIX TIMES the number of ventilators per sick person compared to Israel

A tweet from Sari Bashi of Gisha, formerly of Human Rights Watch, retweeted by Ken Roth, shows yet again the anti-Israel bias of the organization.

What needs to be compared isn't the total population of Israelis and Palestinians, but the number of people stricken with coronavirus. After all, healthy people clearly don't need ventilators.

So let's look at the numbers again, assuming her ventilator numbers are correct:

Number of Israelis diagnosed with Covid-19 (not yet recovered) as of this writing: 4115

Number of Palestinians diagnosed with Covid-19 (not yet recovered) as of now: 91

Number of ventilators per patient in Israel: 0.53

Number of ventilators per patient in the Palestinian territories: 3.24

Which means that Palestinians have over six times the number of respirators per patient that Israel has.

If you look at the numbers of those in serious condition, things are even more skewed towards the Palestinians. There are 74 Israeli patients in serious condition - and zero Palestinians. I don't know how many, if any, people in non-serious condition need a respirator.

This doesn't mean that more respirators won't be needed for both. They are needed for the future, not the present. The numbers are increasing at a dizzying rate. But the implication that Israel is withholding ventilators that are desperately needed is completely false.

The anti-Israel rhetoric from so-called human rights groups is truly sick.

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03/29 Links: Third Israeli dies Sunday - 15 coronavirus victims; Manhattan D.A. Prosecuted Just 21 Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes in Past Decade

From Ian:

Third Israeli dies Sunday - 15 coronavirus victims

Three Israelis died of cornoavirus on Sunday, bringing the total number of victims to 15.

The most recent victim is an 84-year-old woman who was being treated at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The two previous victims were in their 90s.

The 14th victim is a 90-year-old woman who had been hospitalized at Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak. The 13th is a 92-year-old man who was admitted last week in serious condition to Shaare Zedek. Both had pre-existing conditions.

As of Sunday morning, 3,865 Israelis have coronavirus, coronavirus, according to the Health Ministry - 66 people are in serious condition, among them a young man in his 20s who is hospitalized at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital.

The numbers represent an increase of 246 more people since press time on Saturday night.

Coronavirus explained: 22 questions with epidemiologist guiding Israeli response

Professor Yehuda Carmeli is head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and a professor at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. He is one of the medical professionals leading the Israeli Health Ministry’s response to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Times of Israel spoke to him at 7:30 Thursday morning, the only slot available in his busy day. We asked him a host of key questions to try to understand more about the coronavirus. Among them: How is it transmitted, is it or is not airborne, and why it is so contagious? How many people worldwide will ultimately be infected, with what consequent rate of fatalities? Why are the elderly at greater risk, and why are other age groups so much less so? Why are Israel and other countries responding in the ways that they are, and whose approaches are more and less effective? And what should the public expect in terms of the virus’ impact — not only on our health, but the disruption to our lives — and for how long?

1. Why were there “only” 3,000 coronavirus deaths in China, while in Italy, a much smaller country, we are seeing hundreds of people dying a day?
Actually not all of China was affected. In most of China there was a relatively small number of cases. There is a specific county, Hubei, that was affected and within it, the city of Wuhan. Wuhan has a population of 11 million. Also, in Italy, it was mostly the region of Lombardy, which has a population of [10 million]. So approximately the same size of population has been affected in both cases.

2. How many people will become infected worldwide if this pandemic is not checked?
There are various mathematical models that try to estimate the number of cases expected in different places. There is a saying about mathematical models that all of them are wrong but some are useful. We truly don’t know which of them is correct.

All models I have seen predict that by the end of this outbreak, which could be in several months or could be in a year or two, about 60-70 percent of the population will be infected at some point. Not all people who are infected become sick. Some don’t even notice that they have it, or have very minor symptoms.

But in the end you can take the world’s population and calculate 60 or 70 percent, and those are the numbers that will be affected by this pandemic.

Stephen L. Miller:Why was early coronavirus coverage so lazy? The media’s insatiable thirst for political correctness

The night that President Trump issued his order, Vox tweeted, ‘Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.’ That tweet was then deleted with a correction earlier this week. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post wrote on January 31, ‘Get a grippe [sic], America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus, for now.’ The next day, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled, ‘Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake.’ In what appeared to be a full court press against the president’s order, the paper published another piece on January 31, ‘How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.’ On February 3, they hit us with another op-ed headlined, ‘Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus’, arguing it would lead to more stigmatization of marginalized populations.

On January 29, in concert with the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News tweeted, ‘Don’t worry about the coronavirus. Worry about the flu.’ Just a few days before President Trump’s Oval Office address to the nation, CNN’s Anderson Cooper said on air that ‘if you’re freaked out about the Coronavirus you should be more concerned about the flu.’ And then shortly after Trump’s address, CNN’s Brian Stelter commented that ‘Sean Hannity and Fox were going to celebrate the travel ban while evading the scourge of community spread within the US.’ CNN then published online in late February that racist attacks against Asians (only of which a handful in the United States have been authenticated and documented) spread faster than the coronavirus.

This was all, of course, reflexive coverage to a president they see as an emotional and oppressive opponent. Trump has made a hobby of hitting the media over the head with whatever bat they hand to him, and it’s one of the reasons it’s hard to listen to any of their sky-is-falling coverage now. Donald Trump is going to spin his way through this crisis, just like any communications-minded president would do, and the media’s attempts to play catch-up will leave them with a public that no longer trusts them.

This is what happens when the government decides to be the only distributor of bread

In both Jordan and Syria, the government decided it was somehow better to create its own distribution channel for bread rather than let bakeries remain open.

The result? Long lines and crowds of people jostling to get limited supplies - increasing the chances for more infection.

In Jordan:

Days after a total curfew went into effect, people clamored to receive bread distributions from government trucks, the emergency hotline went offline after it apparently became overloaded with phone calls, and some reported they had nothing at home to eat.

In Syria,

The bread crisis has appeared more recently in Aleppo. Once the night curfew ends at six in the morning every day, residents in Aleppo begins to gather in hundreds in front of private and public ovens, distribution centers in the neighborhoods, and in the parking spaces for trucks transporting bread.
Gathering in the queues early seems necessary to get one bundle of bread, which is what is allowed for each person, and [soon enough] the limited quantity will be already exhausted, and the people will be forced to buy bread from the black market and special "tourist" ovens in Aleppo, and at a huge markup.

Socialist methods do not seem to be working that well.

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The Daily Mail has a textbook case of media bias. In an article this morning by Ian Gallagher, chief reporter of the newspaper, it says:

Prince Harry faces a backlash over controversial plans to invite injured Israeli soldiers to compete at his Invictus Games.

Israel is under investigation for alleged war crimes in the Palestinian Territories and has never previously been involved in the tournament, but The Mail on Sunday understands that its inclusion in the 2022 Games was agreed in principle earlier this month. Last night, an Arab commentator said the move would be seen as ‘provocative’.

Launched in 2014, the Invictus Games for wounded or sick military personnel and veterans, are close to the Duke’s heart. This year’s competition was postponed earlier this month due to the coronavirus outbreak. It will now be held in 2022 in Germany.

Abdel Bari Atwan, a prominent Arab journalist in the UK, said: ‘It will be seen as a way of provoking Arabs by a British Royal.’ Two Arab countries, Jordan and Iraq, took part in the 2018 Games in Sydney. Both are due to compete in the next tournament.

This supposed "backlash" is from a single terror-supporting journalist.

Abdel Bari Atwan found a silver lining in the 9/11 attacks five years after , saying "The events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power."

He enthusiastically supported the murder of Jewish religious students in the Mercaz Harav massacre, saying it was "justified" and that celebrations in Gaza following the attack symbolized "the courage of the Palestinian nation." That is pure antisemitism.

He said "Jihad must be directed, first and foremost, against the Israeli enemy...All our guns must be turned toward that enemy, regardless of our differences, because this is the only thing that unites us". Atwan also declared that "Arabs who do not think that Israel is an enemy are neither Arabs nor Muslims."

So much for the value of Abdel Bari Atwan's opinion about Israel. The only question is why the Daily Mail is promoting him as a sober representative of British Islam instead of the rabid, hateful antisemitic Israel hater he is.

But this is only the beginning of the Daily Mail's and Gallagher's bias. To buttress the non-existent point of an "Arab backlash," the subhead of the article headline and subhead says "Israel is under investigation for alleged war crimes in the Palestinian Territories."

Atwan did not say a word about this. This is wholly the Daily Mail's addition to the story.

But if being under investigation is a reason for disqualification, then the US and Afghanistan - who are also participants in the games - should be disqualified as well, as they are also under investigation by the same ICC for war crimes.

Why is the Daily Mail so concerned over Israel's alleged war crimes and not those of the other participants - including the UK itself, which has also been accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan? Other participants do not exactly have a stellar human rights record.

But only Israel's is considered disqualifying to the Daily Mail.

Beyond this, the Daily Mail tried a third avenue to smear Israel to justify a story that isn't a story. In paragraphs 2 and 3:

Financial backing for an Israeli team has already been sought from global charity Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG), which was co-founded by London-based Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman.

Mr Fridman was named in former MI6 officer Christopher Steele’s dossier alleging Kremlin links to US President Donald Trump and the billionaire last year appeared in a Spanish court accused of corruption and helping to orchestrate the bankruptcy of a technology firm. He denied the charges.

GPG is a charity that strengthens Judaism among Russian Jews, supports UK Jewish institutions and fosters ties between Israeli and diaspora Jews. I can find no meaningful criticism of the organization anywhere, it appears to do stellar work. To try to smear Israel the Daily Mail is drawing a very tenuous link between unfounded allegations against one of GPG's founders and the Israeli team which probably seeks sponsors from a wide variety of Jewish and Zionist organizations. There is nothing the east bit immoral about looking for sponsors from GPG, and insinuating that it is wrong is simply a slander.

In short, there is no controversy whatsoever about Israel participating in the Invictus Games, but for some reason the Daily Mail has decided to manufacture one. In doing so, it has only proven that it is willing to create an anti-Israel smear based on literally nothing.

This is not journalism.

(h/t Mark Humphrys)

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Boro Park. Flatbush. Crown Heights. Forest Hills. Fresh Meadows.

Every single New York neighborhood with a large religious Jewish population has the highest percentage of patients testing positive for the coronavirus, according to this map published by the NYC Department of Health.

Looking at New York State as a whole, the heavily Jewish Rockland County has a higher percentage of COVID-19 cases per capita than New York City (as far as I can tell, second only to Westchester County.)

And in New Jersey, the two towns with the highest number of COVID-19 cases are not the major cities of Newark (155) or Jersey City (130) or Camden (2) or Trenton (7).

They are the much smaller towns with large Jewish populations: Teaneck (population 37,000, Jews 15,000, 213 cases) and Lakewood (population 102,000, Jews 60,000, 198 cases.)

Even though Orthodox rabbis across the board closed down all schools and synagogues before the government authorities said to, the sheer amount of interaction that religious Jews have with their communities - often going to prayer services 2 or 3 times a day, and this year especially celebrating Purim (March 10) together with friends and family, made Orthodox Jewish communities Ground Zero for the coronavirus. This was not helped by the refusal of a small minority to shut down their synagogues and cancel wedding parties - stupid, selfish decisions that are ensuring that the numbers continue to grow as we approach the two week mark since rabbis first called for the shutdowns. There were reports that some Jews still insisted on praying with others as recently as Friday.

Only this week will we begin find out the effectiveness of the shutdowns that started on March 12 in Teaneck/Bergen County and then spread across the region in the following week.

Every day we learn about more and more people we know, or in our circles, who have gotten ill or passed away. Often they are community leaders - rabbis and others - whose jobs involve close interaction with their followers.

It is a very scary time, and the worst is still to come.

We are facing a Passover without extended family. But it is necessary to keep all of our extended families as safe as possible.

And those who continue to pretend to be "frummer" by still praying with a minyan/quorum are playing Russian roulette with their families, and everyone else's lives.

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03/28 Links: Douglas Murray: In this strange new world, where do we find purpose?; What do you do during a rocket attack amid coronavirus quarantine?

From Ian:

Coronavirus cases in Israel rise to 3,619 with 54 people in serious condition

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Israel rose to 3,619 people, the Health Ministry announced Saturday evening.

The tally included 54 patients in serious condition, of whom 43 are attached to ventilators.

Another 81 are in moderate condition and the rest have mild symptoms.

The ministry said a majority of patients, 1,828, were isolating in their homes under monitoring and 484 were currently hospitalized. The remainder were in various care facilities, including the specially converted hotels.

Twelve people have died in Israel from the virus, and on Saturday the Foreign Ministry announced an 82-year-old Israeli tourist died in an Italian hospital after he contracted the virus.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Friday that the country could enter into a complete shutdown if there isn’t an improvement in the number of confirmed virus cases in the next two days.

Netanyahu held a series of discussions with top ministers regarding additional steps the country can take to manage the ongoing crisis, “including preparations for a closure,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

He said that authorities would bring the additional movement restrictions before the cabinet in 48 hours.

Trump Says He May Quarantine New York, New Jersey and Connecticut

President Donald Trump said Saturday he was considering imposing a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Trump said he was mulling the quarantine, while at the same walking back urging to quickly reopen the economy. Trump said he was unsure about whether the United States will reopen for business by April 12th following shutdowns in major cities across the country. Asked whether he thought the United States would open by Easter Sunday, Trump said at the White House on Saturday, “We’ll see what happens.”

NY rabbi who survived COVID-19 donates blood plasma to treatment research

A New York rabbi who recovered from a mild case of COVID-19 donated blood plasma to researchers on Friday in the hope that his antibodies could be used to treat patients with more severe coronavirus symptoms.

Rabbi Daniel Nevins, dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, was laid up for a few days earlier this month with a fever and some aches, and then recovered.

Nevins was tested for the coronavirus on March 12 and a week later got back a positive result. A week after that, he was tested again. Friday morning, he got the result: All clear.

Within hours, Nevins was hooked up to a machine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York to donate blood plasma. In the race to develop effective treatments for the disease, researchers are investigating whether antibodies from the blood of people who have successfully fought off the disease may provide treatment for people who with more serious symptoms.

Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration allowed doctors to treat critically ill coronavirus patients with plasma on an experimental basis. Plasma has been shown effective in treating other infectious diseases, like polio, measles and influenza.

“I felt fortunate that my mild case of this illness might turn into a blessing for people who are seriously ill,” Nevins told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The Torah teaches us not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor. My Midrash [interpretation] is that no, instead lie down in a donor bed and give plasma.”

NEW from The New York Times Obits desk: Those We've Lost. Lives of the victims of the coronavirus. https://t.co/oxgEhOVU9h pic.twitter.com/k6YDm1VoUB
— John Schwartz (@jswatz) March 27, 2020

Douglas Murray: In this strange new world, where do we find purpose?

During recent years, much of our society found a purpose, and a kind of meaning, in politics. Even at the time that period seemed curious. It was a period in which people who had no connection to the media felt that they needed to absorb minute-by-minute updates on everything. It was an age in which watches would beep, phones would buzz and tablets would ping with updates on things that few of us could affect and mostly wouldn’t affect us. But it gave a purpose of a kind. Worlds away though they seem now, the Stop Brexit and Stop Trump crowds (and their opposites) had a distractingly busy few years. And if they didn’t find meaning in the deepest sense (as in ‘what I would look at with pride on my deathbed’) they certainly found some of the best simulacrums around.

There is a risk that this virus also becomes ‘something to do’. A thing which — how-ever well or badly we ride it out — absorbs almost all of our time, thoughts and energies. The temptation is there in the regular news conferences and announcements. Each day brings new figures to absorb, new comparisons to make between countries. Hell, we’ve even had that hangover discussion about what to call the virus and whether referring to its origins is racist or not. Absorption in some or all of these things has already come to constitute a full-time job for many people. And I will say nothing about the number of undercover virologists who turn out to have been living among us all these years.

Still the question lingers: ‘What ought we to be doing?’ Both during and after this crisis, I would expect the political left to once again prove their ability to provide narratives and explanations. Doubtless at some point they will declare a great mission. And perhaps it will have its attractions: a call to have more doctors or care workers, for instance. Or an insistence that since we were all equal in the eyes of the virus, so we should be made more equal in other ways too. Parts of the political right will bang their own ideological drums. They will talk about the markets and much more, as if everything did not just change radically. In the era to come, who knows which of these people we will want to listen to? If any.

As a writer, I might claim to have been in training for this moment all my life. Solitude and silence have been agreeable, indeed vital, companions to me. And to that extent recent days have not been that different from any others. Apart from performing the new chores we all must carry out, I spend my days as I always do at home. Inside, I migrate between my writing desk and piano. I enjoy the garden more. And yet in the gaps that have opened up the bigger question hovers. I suppose my own answer is a doctrine of a kind. Which is that we are most likely to find meaning in the places where meaning has been found before. That what has seen our forebears through, and nourished them, will see us through and nourish us in turn. I don’t listen to the news much. If the church is open I will sit in it. I remake my acquaintance with great music. In the evenings I read Anna Karenina.