היסטוריה
בבעלזא שבוע שהאדמור מבעלזא לא נראה לעין. מאז האדמור מבעלזא למעלה מ-55
שנה התמנה לאדמור לא היה בהיסטוריה שהאדמור סגור שבוע בבית ולא נראה לעין
של אפילו מאחד מחסידיו כך מספרים זקני החסידים שזוכרים את האדמור למעלה מ55
שנה משמש כאדמור
המצב מדאיג מאוד, לכן למי שיש שכל קצת והבנה ללא
דמיונות סרק מבין שמשהו לא טוב מתחולל אצל הרבי ולכן עצתי הוא להתפלל על
הרבי ישכר דוב בן מרים אף אחד לא מגלה מה המצב של הרבי באמת וזה הכי מדאיג
כמו
כן השבת לא יהיו תפילות וטישים במחיצת הרבי שליט"א אשרי המאמין שהכל בסדר
והכל תקין אבל צריך להיות חסיד שוטה בשביל לחשוב שהרבי לא חולה והלוואי
והוא לא חולה
ממקורות פנימיים נודע כי סידרו לו בית חולים מאולתר בבית ונקווה שייצא מזה בקרוב ממש
Uman rabbi claims he developed a 'cure' for coronavirus
Speaking with Rafi Reshef, an
Israeli journalist, the rabbi said his natural medicine has supposedly
helped cure 50 people who were infected with the coronavirus.
Jews are pictured making the pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine.
Rabbi Israel Elhadad, who runs the synagogue at the grave of Rebe Nahchman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine, claimed in an interview with Channel 12 that he found a natural medicine for the coronavirus.
Speaking
with Rafi Reshef, an Israeli journalist, Elhadad claimed that his
medicine "with the help of heaven" helped cure "some 50 people in
London."
Elhadad
further explained the drug, saying that he invented it four months ago.
He even provided information about its ingredients which include
magnesium sulfate, coneflower, vitamin C and other components. However, he was not keen on divulging the exact quantities needed to properly concoct the medicine.
Despite
Elhadad's efforts to get recognition for the his newly invented drug,
including a letter he claimed to have sent to British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson, it does not seem that anyone is aware of his invention.
"I sent a letter to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he did not reply," added Elhadad.
Elhadad's
claims as pharmaceutical companies around the world are working day and
night to produce a vaccine that could help stop the spread of the
coronavirus.
He also
spoke about the upcoming annual pilgrimage to Uman, during which
thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews are expected to visit on Rosh
Hashana to commemorate the Breslov Rebe.
"I
am not sure that this year I will prostrate myself before the grave of
Rebe Nachman. It might just be enough for me to stand at the court
below and recite the Tikkun," said Elhadad.
As
the coronavirus spreads, this year's commemoration ceremonies have the
potential to be extremely problematic, given the fact that many seek
to stand near the grave of the deceased rabbi, thus increasing the risk
for getting sick with the virus.
Brooklyn synagogue and Orthodox ambulance corps warn of new COVID cases amid rising fear of a second wave
An ambulance corps and a Brooklyn synagogue have warned of new
cases of COVID-19 in local Orthodox communities.
(JTA) – With cases of COVID-19 rising over the last several weeks in Orthodox communities
in the New York City area, a synagogue in Brooklyn and a Jewish
ambulance group issued warnings for people to continue taking
precautions against the virus.
Hatzoloh of Rockland County, which serves a number of large Orthodox
communities in Monsey, New York, and the surrounding areas just north of
New York City, said it had received a number of calls from people
reporting COVID-like symptoms and requiring hospitalization.
“The Coordinators and Board of Hatzoloh of Rockland County urges all
members of the community to please wear masks while in places that you
cannot effectively social distance,” they wrote in a letter Monday.
Meanwhile, Congregation Khal Shaarei Zion Bobov, a Brooklyn synagogue
of the Bobover Hasidic movement, warned the community that several
people in the neighborhood had contracted the coronavirus, with some
ending up in the intensive care unit. The notice, written in Hebrew,
warned those who do not have antibodies or those who are older or have
underlying health conditions to maintain social distancing or wear masks
where distancing is not possible, practices that have not been common
lately in the community.
The notice also mentioned cases of reinfection after several months.
Local doctors in Orthodox communities in Brooklyn have seen cases of
suspected reinfection, causing them to warn that those who were sick in
the first wave of cases should not assume that they are safe. Those
cases have been milder in their symptoms so far, the doctors have said,
in keeping with what would be expected from a typical immune response.
The warnings come after an announcement last week by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio of 16 new cases in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park,
home to the city’s largest Hasidic community, with several of the cases
connected to a large wedding. In other communities in the New York City
area and down the East Coast, doctors and local rabbinical associations
warn of worrying upticks in COVID cases that threaten the safe
reopening of schools and in-person services on the High Holidays.
Several Orthodox communities were hit particularly hard by the virus
earlier in the pandemic, with members of some even believing that their communities may have achieved some measure of herd immunity as a result. Even so, large numbers of people who have not contracted the virus and recovered still remain vulnerable.
The
vital importance of Agudath Israel of America cannot be understated.
Our future, just as our past and present, is ensured by the Agudah’s
tireless efforts on the frontlines and behind the scenes.
As
the Agudah is vital to you, in 1 week YOU ARE VITAL to the Agudah!
Bez”H on Tuesday, September 1, the entire Agudah family will launch a
national fundraising campaign, entitled YOU ARE VITAL.
For
over 100 years, the Agudah's vital nature was felt, directly or
indirectly, across all aspects of your Jewish life. The vital importance
was especially acute during the pandemic, as all aspects of
life－health, education, advocacy, work, community, religion, family－were
suddenly upended.
More
than the past and present, the Agudah is vital to our future. The
Agudah’s increased vitality will ensure that each individual Jew in
America and the collective family of Am Yisroel will have a vibrant
tomorrow.
New COVID-19 cases in Orthodox communities elicit concern as school year and High Holidays near
.
(JTA) – Over the past week, the reports have come fast and furious.
One overnight sports camp for boys in Pennsylvania had an outbreak of COVID-19,
sending eight boys back to their home communities on Long Island and
several more to Baltimore, where others had contracted the virus after
attending weddings or coming into contact with those who did.
And New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced Wednesday that 16 new cases were found in the Brooklyn
Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park, with some traced back to a large
wedding there.
As the summer comes to a close and
families prepare for a new school year and the High Holidays, government
officials and leaders in the Orthodox community are monitoring new
cases in Orthodox communities across the New York City area and down the
East Coast. They say the cases, though small in number at the moment,
could spiral out of control, derailing plans to reopen schools with
in-person instruction and hold in-person services for the holidays.
Left unchecked, the increasing cases
also have the potential to turn next month’s gatherings in schools and
synagogues into superspreader events, reversing the progress made over
the past few months.
“It has the potential to be a perfect
storm,” said Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt, the chief of infectious diseases
and hospital epidemiologist at Mount Sinai South Nassau on Long Island
and an assistant rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere, a large Orthodox
synagogue in Long Island’s Nassau County. “The question everyone has to
ask themselves is: Is not wearing a mask that critical that they’re
willing to risk everything?”
It Feels Like He Put On A Few Pounds In The Hospital
Glatt said the New York City and
Nassau County health departments have been in touch with him about a
slight uptick in cases in several communities in the New York City area,
including some related to wedding celebrations. He cautioned that a
further rise could jeopardize schools, which are set to reopen in person
for the first time since March, and in-person High Holiday services, which Orthodox Jews cannot replace with virtual services.
“The Department of Health has the
right, the jurisdiction, to say we’re closing down schools, we’re
closing down minyanim if there’s a big enough uptick,” Glatt said.
Doctors in Orthodox communities have
pointed to a number of sources for the new cases. Vacationers are coming
into contact with people from other communities and therefore risking
exposure.
Overnight camps, which were not allowed to open this year in
New York state but were allowed in other states, including Pennsylvania,
have seen some outbreaks as well, with the infected campers or staff
members sometimes being sent back to their home communities to
quarantine.
And while the pandemic seemed to put
an end to the large weddings typical of Orthodox communities – guest
lists of 400 people or more are not uncommon – the smaller outdoor
weddings that have replaced them are still bringing together guests from
different places, sometimes in large numbers, while mask wearing and
social distancing are inconsistent. In some communities large weddings,
whether indoors or outdoors, have resumed.
That has been the case especially in
some Hasidic neighborhoods of Brooklyn, where life largely returned to
normal as early as May and June as many in these communities, including
some doctors, believed they had achieved a level of herd immunity —
meaning a large enough percentage of the community had acquired
immunity after recovering from the virus to significantly slow the
transmission of disease.
As early as June and July, local
health clinics serving Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities performing
antibody tests for the coronavirus were seeing a much higher percentage
of positive antibody tests there than in the city overall.
New data from the city
released Tuesday seemed to support the claim that some Hasidic
neighborhoods had higher levels of immunity than other parts of the
city. According to those figures, 46.8% of people in one Zip code in
Borough Park, the Brooklyn neighborhood with the largest Hasidic
population, tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. The only other
neighborhood with a higher rate of positive antibody test results was
Corona, Queens, one of the hardest-hit parts of the city. Across
Brooklyn as a whole, 27.9% of people tested positive for coronavirus
antibodies, the second-highest rate among the five boroughs.
But even some level of herd immunity does not mean that there can be no cases.
I think I Heard Him Say "OK, I'll Wear A Mask"
“Herd immunity is a relative
concept,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist who worked with the
World Health Organization for over 10 years on AIDS programs in Africa.
While a large percentage of people
having immunity to a virus can help reduce transmission in a group, he
said, it does not bring the risk to zero for anyone who has not
contracted COVID-19.
“You’re still at risk of being around
anyone who’s still infectious, that has not changed for you,” Slutkin
said. “So if you’re at a gathering and there’s someone who is
infectious, nothing has changed for you.”
De Blasio, speaking of the new cases confirmed in Borough Park, called it “an early warning sign.” “Some of these 16 cases are linked to
a recent wedding, a large wedding, in fact, in the community,” he said.
“We are working quickly to galvanize community leaders.”
In response to a question about whether the new cases threaten the
idea that there could be herd immunity in parts of New York City, de
Blasio dismissed the theory.
“I don’t think we have any evidence of herd immunity anywhere in New York City,” he said.
On a blog used to disseminate
information about local coronavirus numbers, doctors in Crown Heights,
who as early as May were pointing to the results of a survey they
disseminated showing that approximately 70% of the local Orthodox community had been infected with COVID, said they’ve seen cases “gradually increasing.”
They also noted the new case of
someone who had not traveled, been in contact with any travelers or
attended a large celebration, leading the doctors to surmise that the
person became ill through “community spread” — meaning the virus is
still spreading in Crown Heights despite the large numbers of people
there who had recovered from the virus.
To what degree immunity to the virus
can be relied upon remains unclear. While the CDC advised this week that
there have been no confirmed cases of reinfection among those who
initially contracted the disease in the previous three months, much remains unknown about immunity resulting from previous infection.
But among the new cases in Crown Heights, the local doctors said, were two cases of “presumed reinfection.”
“Both had antibodies but upon recent
retesting had ‘lost’ their antibodies, and now, after being exposed to
Covid, these people became sick again and tested positive,” the doctors,
part of the Gedaliah Society, a group of medical professionals in the
Chabad community of Crown Heights, wrote in a blog post
Tuesday. “These two new cases are so clear in their course as to take
reinfection from a probable phenomenon to a reality (albeit difficult to
prove as we don’t have initial viral samples to compare).”
In a letter
to the Nassau County Orthodox community, Glatt said there are cases of
possible reinfection being assessed, but they appear to be rare.
“It still remains very reassuring,
that with upwards of 20 million COVID-19 cases worldwide, there are very
few proven reinfection cases,” Glatt wrote. “This is critically
important for herd immunity, and partially explains why certain
communities have very few new COVID-19 cases despite not adhering to
masking guidelines.”
Rabbinical councils in several
communities have put out community notices asking people to act with
caution as the communities prepare for the reopening of local schools.
The Vaad HaRabonim of Cleveland, an Orthodox rabbinical group, sent a notice last week asking anyone returning from camps where campers or staff tested positive for coronavirus to quarantine for 14 days.
The Rabbinical Council of Bergen
County, which was the first such group to shut down its large Modern
Orthodox communities in Northern New Jersey back in March, sent a letter to the community Tuesday warning of the dangers of unchecked celebrations.
“While such an event, first and
foremost, constitutes a threat to the health of those in attendance, the
risk to the institutional health of our community created by such an
event should not be minimized,” the group wrote. “Indeed, even one such
event could easily result in the full closure of an entire yeshiva, or
multiple yeshivot across our community.”
And the Vaad Harabanim of Baltimore sent a letter to the community last week asking people to act with greater caution at weddings.
“While in the shuls this vigilance is
still evident, one area where laxity has sometimes set in is at
weddings,” the Vaad wrote. “This is not only a threat to our continued
health, but it Chas v’Shalom could set us back in our quest to be able
to open the schools.”
Dr. Avi Rosenberg, an assistant
professor of pathology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in
Baltimore who has become a go-to resource for Orthodox camps, synagogues
and schools in Baltimore and across the country, said weddings were his
biggest concern. (Rosenberg is involved in a study on the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID patients that has recruited a large number of Orthodox plasma donors.)
“We have people who are clearly running unmitigated simchas,” said Rosenberg, using the Hebrew word for celebration.
He said he learned of approximately
25 new cases of COVID in the Orthodox community in Baltimore last week,
most of which were connected to weddings in Brooklyn or Lakewood, New
Jersey, home to large Orthodox communities. Weekly cases had remained in
the single digits from May until last week, he said.
“People really need to understand
that this upsurge in simcha-related community spread is what’s putting
the success of school reopenings at risk,” Rosenberg said. “If it
continues at the rate it’s currently going in, I don’t know how we’re
going to open schools safely.”
It’s Simple. Contain the Virus. The Economy Will Come Back.
We need to get real about reality.
People lined up at a food bank in Manhattan on July 30.
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
So
said the poet T.S. Eliot. It’s an apt explanation for the White House’s
failure to respond adequately to the pandemic that has swept across
America and the rest of the world.
Even
as reality continues to intrude, President Trump has either largely
dismissed or ignored his science and medical advisers. And the result is
that the economy, the one thing he seems to care most about, and which
he hoped would escort him to a second term, has been devastated.
As both history and data from today demonstrate,health
and the economy are not antagonistic; they are dance partners, with
public health taking the lead. The safer people feel, the more they will
engage in economic activity.
A recent study of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic
by a member of the Federal Reserve board and economists at the Fed and
M.I.T. compared cities that imposed stringent public health measures —
including school and church closings, public gathering bans, quarantines
and restricted business hours — with cities that opened faster and
imposed fewer restrictions. The more stringent cities not only had fewer
deaths but experienced “a relative increase in economic activity from
1919 onward.”
Containing the virus has allowed many European economies to recover far better than the U.S. Look at Germany, which has an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent. The rate in the U.S. is 10.2 percent. In March and April, according to OpenTable,
the reservation booking company, business in restaurants in Germany and
the U.S. were in the identical place, down over 90 percent year over
year. Since then they have diverged widely: data for Aug. 16 (the latest
data at this writing) shows German restaurants enjoyed 9 percent more business than last year, before the pandemic, while U.S. restaurants were down around 50 percent.
And in a report
last week, the National League of Cities said that precipitous declines
in tax revenues were forcing cities to “severely cut services at a time
when communities need them most, to lay off and furlough employees who
make up a large share of America’s middle class, and to pull back on
capital projects, further affecting local employment, business contracts
and overall investment in the economy.”
In June the World Bank estimated that global G.D.P. this year would decline by at least 5.2 percent and possibly much more. The Congressional Budget Office expects G.D.P in the U.S. to fare worse, down 5.9 percent for the year, even after factoring in projected third quarter growth of more than 20 percent. But that projection assumes the containment of the virus, a huge assumption.
Indeed, a Morgan Stanley model
predicts that under current policies the U.S. is currently on track to
have 150,000 new cases a day later this year. And that number is not
even a worst case. If we do suffer case counts anything like those,
dramatic growth in the economy simply won’t happen.
Bad as the virus has been this summer, it actually spreads better in low temperatures,
and when temperatures fall, more people will be inside in poorly
ventilated areas where transmission is also more likely. If the U.S.
goes into the fall with new daily cases in the tens of thousands, as
they are now, then the numbers could explode and the Morgan Stanley
prediction could come true. Considering our containment efforts to date,
there is little reason for optimism.
If
that occurs, the economy will not come back. Jerome Powell, the
chairman of the Federal Reserve, said as much recently. “The path
forward for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in
large part on our success in keeping the virus in check,” he said at a July 29 news conference.
He added: “A full recovery is unlikely until people are confident that
it is safe to re-engage in a broad range of activities.”
But
containment, and the confidence that goes with it, is not remotely
where we are at the moment. Among developed nations, the U.S. ranks
first in categories one would prefer to be last in: number of cases and
number of deaths. It lags well behind in economic recovery as well. As
of this writing, the European Union and Britain combined have a
population of about 510 million, and 1,924,569 Covid-19 cases. They have had around 8,000 cases for the latest daily count. The United States, population 328 million, just passed 5.4 million cases, with 42,303 the latest daily case count.
Bringing
the economy back requires precisely the same three measures that
controlling the virus does: First, better compliance with social
distancing, wearing masks, personal hygiene and avoiding crowds; second,
finally — finally — getting the supply chain and personnel
infrastructure in place to support the necessary testing and contact
tracing; and, third, the bitter medicine of regional shutdowns.
The
same Morgan Stanley model that predicts that the U.S. is on track to
reach 150,000 cases a day also has a “bullish” scenario in which the
U.S. case counts decline to European levels. But for that to happen, the
modelers assumed “more strict restrictions and broader interventions”
such as lockdowns “similar” to those imposed by China and major European
Union countries.
Without active,
aggressive White House leadership we cannot achieve that and — reality
again — there isn’t the slightest hint that will happen. But in 1918
leadership came from cities and states. If governors and mayors act
aggressively, especially if they act jointly, we can still make
significant progress.
In April, I predicted
that summer would not bring relief from the virus, and that we would
experience not a second wave but continuous swells, depending on how
well we complied with public health measures. Unfortunately too many
states eased up too early or did little or nothing to control the virus.
On the day that prediction was published, April 30, the seven-day
average of new cases was 28,943. On Aug. 16, the seven-day average was 51,523.
I
also warned of not simply swells but a viral hurricane-like storm surge
if the country does not act aggressively and the public fails to
comply. I stand by that prediction. Tens of thousands more will die on
top of the more than 170,000 already lost in the U.S., and millions will
suffer economic devastation.
And, in reality, all of it will be unnecessary. God help us.
John M. Barry
is a professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and
Tropical Medicine and the author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of
the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”
LAKEWOOD
— Hundreds of mourners are gathering in the main classroom at Beth
Medrash Govoha, hosting a funeral for a prominent Chicago rabbi with
strong local ties to the township's rabbinical college.
Rabbi
Chaim Keller, 90, whose survivors include children who live in
Lakewood, died Monday after a months-long battle with COVID-19,
complicated by other prior conditions, the Chicago Tribune reported. His funeral, which began about noon Tuesday, has attracted at least several hundred mourners.
"His
passing marks the end of an era," said Moshe Stern, who studied under
Keller in Chicago and now resides in Lakewood. "He has thousands of
students living here in Lakewood and for us it is an opportunity to come
out and show our respect."
Keller was the
senior rabbi at Telshe Yeshiva Chicago, a prestigious rabbinical college
that enrolls 200 students and was founded in 1960.
A
Press reporter inside the large classroom observed none of the mourners
wearing masks or any other face covering; likewise, mourners crowded in
the rear of the classroom and stood just inches apart. Those who were
seated typically were observed not practicing social distancing either.
All
attendees at indoor gatherings must wear face coverings and stay six
feet apart. The Press reporter was asked to leave the event shortly
after it began. Mourners continued to arrive just before 1 p.m.
A
funeral for him was held Monday in Chicago. At least three of Keller's
children lived in Lakewood: Rabbi Elya Meir Keller, of Yeshiva Yesodei
Hatorah; Sori Schechter, principal at Bais Yaakov; and Chani Treff, according to Jewish news site Hamodia.
Large
indoor gatherings, including funerals, dinners and parties, have
frequently been nexus of so-called "super spreader" events linking
COVID-19 cases.
5TC has been informed by a few Shuls and physicians that there is an
uptick of positive cases within the community. As always, the purpose of
sharing this information is not to create any undue hysteria, rather to
inform people about what is going on in the community. Many people have
‘let their guard down’ so please be mindful to wear masks where it is
required and continue to social distance wherever necessary.
We encourage everyone to contact your own physicians and Rabbonim for
specific questions. Below are 3 emails that local Shuls sent out to
their congregants. We took out all personal information to protect the
privacy of specific Shuls and individuals involved. Those who needed to
be informed for precautionary measures, have already been informed.
Additionally, please check out our interview with Dr. Lightman &
Rabbi Dr. Glatt involving specific COVID related questions for the
upcoming school year, Yomim Tovim and more HERE.
Email #1
I want to inform our mispallelim that a mispallel in our shul tested
positive for COVID. He was only in shul on Tuesday and Wednesday this
week. (He was not in shul on Shabbos.) He was in close proximity of only
two people who were already notified.
Should anyone be of more concern, please feel comfortable to call me or text me at ###-###-####.
At this point, I would like to ask our mispallelim in the non-masks
section only to remove their masks when they are at their seats.
Rabbi ###### #######.
—- Email #2
Message from the Rov:
I wanted to inform the Tzibur that one of our Mispalilim, ######
##### (son of Mr. #### and ### #####), who was in Shul this past
Shabbos, recently tested positive for Covid. As per CDC guidelines the
family has performed contact tracing and informed all people who had
close contact with #### to quarantine. Close contact is defined by the
CDC as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a
sustained 15 minutes period (without a mask). Boruch Hashe-m, #### is
fine, experiencing only mild cold-like symptoms.
I am in contact with several doctors including a leading national
infectious disease specialist to make sure we are taking the proper
precautions for the Kehilla, and remind all members to please be sure to
wear a mask when entering and exiting the Shul and when you leave your
seat during Davening. Masks may only be lowered when you are stationary
at your seat.
If anyone has any questions please email me and I will make every
effort to respond within 24 hours as I am still away with my family. If
members have individual medical concerns, I encourage them to speak with
their own physician.
The details in this email were sent out with permission from the ##### family.
Looking forward to seeing everyone on Rosh Chodesh Elul. Have a wonderful Shabbos!
—- Email #3
Dear Members,
Unfortunately, there has been a notable uptick in Covid-19 cases
recently in our community and we would like to re-emphasize the
importance of the safety procedures our Shul has implemented so that we
can safely come together and daven as a Kehilla.
– Masks covering your mouth and nose must be worn at all times while in Shul
– Shacharis on Shabbos is open to associate and full members only.
– Each family may have no more than 2 guests at the Shabbos Shacharis minyan
– In unique situations such as a Simcha where members would like to
bring additional guests to Shul, we ask that you – contact the Rav or a
member of the board for special arrangements
– Anyone returning from a mandatory quarantine location, or who has a
household member returning from such a location is asked not to come to
Shul until the 14-day quarantine period is complete
– Anyone who has attended a large gathering or Simcha with positive
cases, is likewise asked not to come to Shul until the 14-day quarantine
is complete
– Any family with children returning from camp with a confirmed case of
Covid-19 is asked not to come to Shul until the 14-day quarantine period
is complete.
We join all members in hoping that we can come to Daven together
safely for the Yomim Noraim. As such, we ask that all members adhere to
these requirements to prevent a spike in the coming weeks.
Anthropologist Heidi Larson explores how medical rumors originate,
spread and fuel resistance to vaccines worldwide. While vaccines cannot
escape the "political and social turbulence" that surrounds them, she
says, the first step to stopping the spread of disease is to talk to
people, listen and build trust.
Rabbi Calls for Baseball Boycott Until MLB Disengages from Hate-Filled Politics of BLM
Members
of Washington Nationals kneel and hold a piece of black fabric before
an opening day baseball game against the New York Yankees at Nationals
Park, Thursday, July 23, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brando
For most of my life, I have
agreed with Roger Hornsby, who said that when there is no baseball, he
“stares out the window and waits for spring.” That has now changed, and
MLB will no longer be watched or supported in my home, and I encourage
every person of reason to boycott baseball until it steps away from the
hate of Black Lives Matter and returns to being America’s national
pastime.
There are no questions about the
general hate and specific anti-Semitism, anti-nuclear family rhetoric,
and anti-American values of BLM, which are elucidated in BLM’s own manifesto. To quote Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser,
president of The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, BLM “is avowedly
neo-Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-individualist, anti-democratic and
anti-American. It wishes to erase and rewrite America’s history, destroy
and rebuild her institutions, and overthrow her political system. In
short, it seeks to remake the entire country in its own image.” It is
devoted to anti-Semitism, and its very charter calls for the destruction
of Israel, calling it an “apartheid nation…committing genocide.”
And yet, Major League Baseball placed the BLM logo on the pitchers’ mounds on Opening Day.
Instead of MLB bringing people
together through honest sports competition, baseball has now become like
the 1936 Olympics in Berlin: an opportunity for the politics of hate to
become more important than the athletic competition. Dr. King taught
that we should all judge people “not by the color of their skin, but by
the content of their character,” and Jackie Robinson said, “I’m not
concerned with you liking or disliking me…all I ask is that you respect
me as a human being.” BLM as an organization, as well as its local and
national leaders, is committed to its agenda rather than the content of a
person’s character. They have no respect for anyone who thinks
differently than they do.
It is an organization founded on racist hate.
And yet, Major League Baseball sanctioned players having BLM patches on their uniforms.
The hate of BLM leaders is especially
fraught with anti-Semitism: calling for the destruction of Israel,
repeating ancient anti-Semitic tropes, and purposefully planning their
riots in Jewish neighborhoods. Melina Abdullah, the head of BLM Los
Angeles and a devotee of hate-monger Louis Farrakhan (a man who has
called Jews “termites” and desires the death of Jews, homosexuals, and
any whites not willing to agree with him) proudly admits that she chose
these Jewish neighborhoods for their marches and riots so that the
people there would feel pain.
It is difficult to understand how MLB can
support this hate-filled anti-Semitic organization, especially given
that so many Jews are involved in baseball, ranging from executives like
Paul Godfrey (Toronto Blue Jays), the Lerner family (Washington
Nationals), Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago White Sox), Lewis Wolff (Oakland
Athletics) and Jon Daniels (Texas Rangers) to players such as Alex
Bregman, Joc Pederson, and Max Fried to name a few.
And yet, Major League Baseball
promoted an anti-Semitic organization to fans, especially children, via
TV and online broadcasting.
One of the strengths of the “cancel
culture” is that it has demonstrated how effective a boycott can be.
If
enough of us refuse to watch Major League Baseball (on TV or especially
online, where data is easily tracked) until MLB officially refuses to
promote or even allow political endorsements of the hate-filled BLM
organization on the ball field, the advertisers will pay less for their
ads, the teams will lose income, and the owners will be guided into
getting baseball out of politics and back into athletics exclusively.
But it will take a large and noticeable effort, and the conviction to
temporarily give up our beloved sport, to get owners to decide that
baseball belongs on the field—separate and away from any politics,
especially from supporting an organization of hate like BLM.
I enjoin each of us to push our
beloved baseball back into the arena of home runs and outs, and pray
that we will soon return to a national pastime that is devoid of
politics—and where people are not judged by the color of their skin, the
politics of their party, or their religion, but rather are respected
for the content of their character and their ability on the field.
Until then, I will stay away from MLB
and hope I am joined by many others as we “stare out the window”
waiting for baseball without hate-filled politics to return.
How Rabbi Steinsaltz’s whiskey shenanigans changed Judaism for me
The late scholar will be remembered for his Talmud translation and
commentary, but also for his call to avoid idealizing anyone, including
him
It was one of my most memorable interviews. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz,
the world renowned Talmudist who died on Friday, sat opposite me,
puffing away on his pipe, regaling me with the tale of a drinking
escapade with two friends
“Between us, we finished about three bottles of whisky,” he said, telling me what an “experience” it was.
One of the friends was Conor Cruise O’Brien, the late Irish politician and writer who once famously tried
to use the might of the United Nations to keep his glass charged,
writing a resolution that insisted the UN headquarters guarantee “the
free flow of wholesome beer at a temperature appropriate to the present
thaw in international relations.”
But Steinsaltz intimated that he drank O’Brien and his other friend
under the table. “In fact, I have a better head for drinking than they
have,” he told me.
If it seems galling to share this recollection soon after his death,
that’s precisely why it should be shared. Steinsaltz was a great
scholar. With his mammoth Talmud translation and commentary, he made the
seminal work of rabbinic wisdom accessible to all. In other books he
provided valuable insight into a range of other topics, from Passover to prayer.
And it was all done with a view to empower Jewish people to feel
connected to our tradition. “What I am doing,” he told me, “is changing
the melody of one simple sentence, which is: ‘I am a Jew.’
“The sentence has two possible melodies. One is the tune of: ‘I have
an inherited disease.’ The meaning is: ‘I’m not guilty, I didn’t do
anything. I acquired it. I try as much as I can to hide it. And if I
have a way of getting rid of it, though I probably cannot, I will try.
“The other is to sing ‘I am a Jew’ in the same way you’d sing: ‘I am a
royal prince – it’s not my doing, I inherited it.’ The point lies in
what your attitude is towards this inheritance.”
Nu, Nathan? You interview this great thinker, twice, for
conversations that lasted hundreds of pipe-puffs, and decide upon his
passing to share a drinking story?
Absolutely. Because his unusual choice of conversation topic during
our interview was no mere amusement. It was a profound lesson we can
hold onto, long after his passing.
Steinsaltz was not just being charming. He was laughing in the face
of a culture where some religious leaders take on superior airs,
dressing in royal garb and claiming VIP connections to the Almighty.
In his scholarship, Steinsaltz was manning the barricades against the
trend of hagiography – depicting our great Jews as one-dimensional
saints.
One of many lessons he taught us was that when we record the lives of
our heroes, we need to remember them as three-dimensional beings. That
doesn’t mean dishing dirt; it means remembering them as relatable and
deeply human characters.
He controversially insisted that even Biblical characters should not be idealized. He sharply dismissed the view that any person “is a saint so you shouldn’t say something.”
As a scholar of such enormous standing, it was easy to put Steinsaltz
on a pedestal. But both times I met him, he steered the conversation to
ensure this could not happen.
At our second meeting, in 2011, he insisted on interviewing this
interviewer before talking about himself, and went on to be frank about
his own personality, saying
the task he had just finished, the first ever translation of the Talmud
into Modern Hebrew, “was in many ways to keep myself in rein.”
He was tempted to write “astonishing” and “novel” works, but that
would have put him at the center. “Working on this kind of thing you are
far more thinking about the readers, whoever they are, than you are
thinking about what I can do to glorify myself,” he said.
At our first interview, in 2005, the 26-year-old journalist in front
of him was awestruck. I wrote in my article at the time that, given the
authority he had as a reference resource on the page, meeting him “feels
as unreal as, say, going for tea with the Oxford English Dictionary.”
He wanted none of that. If we were spending time together, I was to
take him as he was, complete with a drinking story, and an admission
amid his long, winding sentences that he was “very un-user friendly.” We
talked about his interests at the time, as an amateur detective
novelist, sculptor and zoologist.
He criticized the adulation of rabbis, saying that “whether you
worship Michael Jackson or Rabbi So-and-So it is sometimes the same need
to be dependent.”
I was reporting on religious affairs and these cookie-cutter accounts
of great sages were all around me at the time, so it was refreshing to
meet one who gave such a rounded view of himself, and urged doing so
with other figures we encounter as we delve into Jewish study.
I went to hear about Steinsaltz the Talmudist, but in his worldview,
if you only bother to listen when a person is answering the questions
you think are important, you miss some of the best and most interesting
bits.
“People are intrinsically complex, complicated, so to make a
hagiography is to take a real person and to overcast him with plastic
cladding,” he said in a video interview.
There is next-to-no importance in the fact that Steinsaltz went
drinking with Conor Cruise O’Brien and they finished three bottles of
whisky. What’s important is that he was the type of person who would
tell such a story, and speak of much else that made him relatable, when
being quizzed on his magnum opus by an admiring young journalist.
Just as his Talmud translation and commentary is part of his lasting
legacy to the Jewish People, so is his clarion call against hagiography.
And the way he made sure there was no pedestal in sight when I
interviewed him, makes me think about this now.
It makes me think that, as the great and the good are giving him
well-deserved plaudits for his earnest achievements, he would like to
also be remembered as he taught us to remember others. I’m convinced
that he would crack a smile if he could see that, as Israel’s Prime
Minister and President are eulogizing him, it’s also being noted that he
could hold his drink better than Conor Cruise O’Brien could.
Our image of people can quickly fade to the sum part of their
Wikipedia entries, or the hallowed pages of rabbinically-sanctioned
biographies. I hope our memories of Steinsaltz capture something of the
three-dimensional man.
Outbreak of COVID Cases in 5 Towns, Due to a Camp Exposure From PA (Camp Shoresh)
The following is an urgent letter from Dr. Glatt:
The Commissioner of Health of Nassau County just called me and asked
for our assistance regarding 8 cases of newly diagnosed COVID-19 in our
community in campers returning from Camp Shoresh in Pennsylvania.
In
addition, many other campers there had symptoms and were not tested for
COVID-19. The PA DOH is already involved as well.
Based on significant concerns that the Governor and the NY State DOH
have regarding this exposure, they have asked, and I fully agree, that
all campers returning from that camp self quarantine immediately. All
family members exposed to those campers likewise should be quarantined
pending further evaluation.
As I mentioned, the Governor himself is aware and has expressed great
concern about this exposure and the potential this might have regarding
delaying school openings.
It is critical that we do everything possible to abort this potential
outbreak before it spreads further and potentially impacts school
opening.
These campers and all exposed family members should not be attending
shul or any community events, and should be quarantined in their houses.
Medical advice and COVID-19 testing should be sought as appropriate.
Please spread this information to your congregations.
Thank you, may Hashem help us stem this potential serious outbreak.
"Daas Torah" Told The Camps To Move Out of New York State ---- Daas Torah Also Told Yeshiva Torah Temimah To Keep Yudi Kolko as Rebbe and Principal Until The Lawyers Stepped In:
A measure that makes it easier for the
survivors and victims of childhood sexual abuse was extended by Gov.
Andrew Cuomo on Monday, signing a measure that expands the window for
filing cases to Aug. 14 of next year.
The Child Victims Act, first approved in 2019, was due to have its
window for filing lawsuits expire this month. Now claims will be able to
be made for another 12 months.
"The Child Victims Act brought a long-needed pathway to justice for
people who were abused, and helps right wrongs that went unacknowledged
and unpunished for far too long and we cannot let this pandemic limit
the ability for survivors to have their day in court," Cuomo said. "As
New York continues to reopen and recover from a public health crisis,
extending the look back window is the right thing to do and
will help ensure that abusers and those who enabled them are held
accountable."
The look-back window's expiration took on added urgency this year as
the coronavirus pandemic closed courthouses around New York and slowed
the legal process for civil cases.
"Survivors of childhood sex abuse can breathe a sigh of relief now
that the lookback window of the Child Victims Act has been extended for
one more year," said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal.
"After fighting for the law's passage for 13 long years, many feared
the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of the courts meant that the clock
had run out on their opportunity to seek justice. I thank the Governor
for signing this bill into law, thus ensuring that all those seeking
redress for the heinous abuse perpetrated against them will have until
August 14, 2021 to do so."
The extension approved by Cuomo builds on the measure that allows
survivors to file suits before they reach the age of 55 and increases
the amount for perpetrators being held criminally accountable.
"I'm extremely grateful to Governor Cuomo for signing our legislation
extending the Child Victims Act for an additional year and the
leadership of Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for making the rights
of survivors a priority, along with the Assembly sponsor, Linda B.
Rosenthal," said Sen. Brad Hoylman. "Most of all, credit goes to the
fearless survivors of child sexual abuse, who courageously shared their
personal stories in order that more New Yorkers would have the chance to
hold their abusers and the institutions that harbored them
accountable."
