How Israel's Mossad tricked Hezbollah into buying explosive pagers | 60 Minutes - "From The Liver To The Knee" --- Who Needs An Army Or A Spy Agency When You Have 65,000 Full-Time Bench Kvetchers With 25,000 "Retirees" Who Do Nothing But Collect Government Checks?

1929: A Harbinger of October 7th ---- For Self-Hating Jews - "Elite" Jews At The Universities - And All Other Twisted Jews Who Never Bothered to Learn Our History!

A large and diverse majority of IDF reservists agree that Israel cannot continue to offer military service exemption to its ultra-Orthodox population, a recent survey revealed.

 

Over three-quarters of IDF reservists say Israel can no longer exempt ultra-Orthodox from service

 

The survey polled 800 reservists who fought in the Israel-Hamas War.

 

(100% of Agudath Israel Convention Attendees Agreed Israel Needs Prayers and Full-Time Bench Kvetchers, Not Soldiers, According To A UOJ Pollster at The Agudah Convention Buffet)

 

14 Different Hashgachas

BELIEVE IN WHAT?

IDF SOLDIERS pray during a break in a haredi unit’s training exercise. 

 

A large and diverse majority of IDF reservists agree that Israel cannot continue to offer military service exemption to its ultra-Orthodox population, a recent survey revealed. 

The survey, which polled 800 reservists who fought in the Israel-Hamas War, was commissioned by the “Shoulder to Shoulder” organization and conducted by the Dialogue Institute.

A total of 77% of respondents agreed that, following the events of October 7, the State of Israel can no longer afford to continue exempting the ultra-Orthodox from military service.

The survey reveals cross-political agreement. A total of 65% of religious respondents and 76% of right-wing respondents support drafting the ultra-Orthodox. 

Furthermore, 73% of reservists believe that any law that does not lead to significant recruitment of ultra-Orthodox youth is un-Zionist and harms those currently serving.

 

Another finding of the survey indicated that only 18% of respondents supported an agreed-upon law with ultra-Orthodox leadership that would exempt the majority of the ultra-Orthodox community. 

Conversely, 71% oppose such a law. Opposition is also significant among religious (60%) and right-wing (64%) respondents.

The survey's implications could be substantial for the political system. 

Three-fifths of respondents stated they would consider not voting for a party that supports an exemption law, including 35% of religious and 48% of right-wing respondents.

Jonathan Shilo, one of the founders of “Shoulder to Shoulder,” emphasized the central message of the study’s findings. 

---

“The world for all of us changed on October 7,” Shilo said. “We are fighting shoulder to shoulder for the state.” 

He added that the most painful statistic is that nearly half of the reservists said they might not report for reserve duty if the ultra-Orthodox are not drafted.

Bennett on the rise among reservists polled 

An additional notable finding in the survey was the marked support the reservists expressed for former prime minister Naftali Bennett. 

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One in five reservists intended to vote for his party, in contrast to the sharp decline of Otzma Yehudit, which dropped to just 7% support. 

Another statistic showed that 45% of reservists stated that an exemption law for the ultra-Orthodox would harm their motivation to report for reserve duty in the future. 

“The exemption law for the ultra-Orthodox harms state security and creates a genuine fracture in Israeli society,” Shilo added. 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-834100?

Those who fall for the city of Jerusalem are not called fallen. . . . There are no fallen . . . only those who cleave to Hashem.

 

"We are living in a generation in which responsibility for the security of the State of Israel and her citizens is a supreme value . . . We are writing the most meaningful moments in the history of our people and the whole world."

 

Defenders of the Jewish People: Remembering Israel’s Fallen Soldiers

Family and friends of Master Sergeant Tzvika Lavi honored the fallen soldier at his funeral

Twenty-four-year-old Amichai Yisrael Yehoshua Oster was in Salt Lake City, Utah, when he received his “Tzav 8” (emergency call-up notice) from the IDF. Having completed his required IDF service, he was to report for duty as a reservist. However, when he contacted his commander, he was told they had “over 100 percent affirmative answers.”  His commander told him: “You do not have to come back right now.” Nevertheless, Amichai flew back to Israel as quickly as he could, found a different unit that needed a soldier with his skills, and was sent to the Gaza border. 

“He joined the thousands of young men who rushed back to Israel to fight for their country and for all of us,” says his mother, Marcy.  

Sergeant First Class Amichai Oster was killed in Gaza last January while fighting to defend the Jewish State. Courtesy of the Oster family

 

This past January, Sergeant First Class Amichai from Karnei Shomron, of the 5th Brigade’s 7020th Battalion, was killed fighting in Gaza. “He did exactly what he wanted to do, and he died doing it. Now he will be frozen in our memories as a brave, caring, beautiful young man . . . a quiet hero,” says Marcy.  

Since the advent of the war in Gaza, bereaved families are tragically becoming a growing sector of Israeli society, a sector intimately connected to one another through pain and loss. And yet at the same time, many of these families, like the sons they sacrificed, are imbued with a strong sense of spiritual mission. Even while grieving, these mothers, fathers, siblings and wives take comfort in knowing their loved ones sacrificed their lives for a sacred cause: serving G-d and the Jewish people by defending the Jewish State.  

“Amichai loved this land—all of it. He was determined to serve his country,” says Marcy.  

She recalls that when her son returned home to join the war, “I told him I felt responsible for the fact that he was fighting in this war. He didn’t make the decision to come on aliyah. I made it for him. [The Osters had made aliyah from Cleveland when Amichai was a toddler.] He said, ‘What makes you think that had you not made aliyah I would not have come here to fight for this country?’  

“He was strong in his religious beliefs and firm in his connection to the State of Israel,” says Marcy.  

The Osters have four other children, including a daughter who recently got married. “It hasn’t been an easy time,” says Marcy, a journalist working for Ynetnews. “We have been strengthened by the most amazing support from the community of Karnei Shomron, by Amichai’s friends, by the IDF, by complete strangers from all over Israel who have given to us and helped us in every way. . . . The tremendous amount of care shown us has been overwhelming.” 

After high school, Amichai decided to attend Yeshiva Shavei Hevron, where he spent two and a half years in a program of advanced Torah learning. Afterward, he enlisted in the IDF, where he served for three years.  

 

Sergeant First Class Amichai Oster davening with tefillin just hours before he was killed. Courtesy of the Oster family

 

Upon completing his army service, Amichai wanted to pursue his interest in travel. “He enjoyed exploring the length and breadth of Israel,” says Marcy. His dream was to travel to the Far East, which he did. While Amichai was in Vietnam, the Osters received an email from an Israeli friend of a businessman who had met Amichai during his travels. “We were proud to hear Amichai had the same ideals and practices in the Far East as he had in Israel,” says Marcy. “We were told he was a ‘walking kiddush Hashem.’ He put on tefillin each morning, davened, ate kosher and kept Shabbat. When the group he traveled with told him they would like to continue hiking on Shabbat, he would tell them to go ahead and he would catch up with them. Inevitably, the group would decide to find a Chabad and spend the Shabbat together. Amichai’s quiet, dedicated example set the tone for others to follow.” 

 

A Spiritual Mission 

Yeshivat Bnei David, in the settlement of Eli, has lost a disproportionate number of students since the Swords of Iron War began. A religious pre-army mechinah, renowned for its high number of graduates who enlist in combat units in the IDF, Bnei David lost twenty-three of its alumni. As of this writing, since October 7, Israel lost more than 787 soldiers, officers and reservists. 

Regarded as “a West Point for Religious Zionists,” Bnei David, with about 1,200 students currently enrolled in its programs, is said to “build your soul,” giving soldiers not only physical training but more importantly, a sense of spiritual mission.  

 

Rabbi Eli Sadan, rosh yeshivah of the Bnei David mechinah (army preparatory academy), looking at the photos of his students who have sacrificed their lives defending Am Yisrael.

“Being a Jew means you are willing to give up your life,” says Rabbi Eli Sadan, the venerated rosh yeshivah of Bnei David, in a video entitled “In Your Blood You Shall Live: Emunah and Remembrance,” co-produced by Bnei David and the OU (https://www.ou.org/yom-hazikaron-2024/). In 2016, Rabbi Sadan, who founded the yeshivah in 1988, was awarded one of Israel’s highest honors, the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the State. Like his rebbeim at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Rabbi Zvi Thau, Rabbi Sadan firmly believes that the founding of the State of Israel marks the beginning of Redemption. Consequently, defending the state is a mitzvah, a historic and religious mission.  

This echoes the ideas expressed by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, who wrote (“The Ideology of Hesder,” Tradition 19:3 [fall 1981]):  

We advocate [young men joining hesder] because we are convinced that, given our circumstances—would that they were better—military service is a mitsvah, and a most important one at that. Without impugning the patriotism or ethical posture of those who think otherwise, we feel that for the overwhelming majority of b’nei torah, defense is a moral imperative. 

“We are living in a generation in which responsibility for the security of the State of Israel and her citizens is a supreme value,” said Rabbi Sadan in an interview posted on the Bnei David website. “We are writing the most meaningful moments in the history of our people and the whole world.”  

 

Tzvika Lavi 

One of the alumni of Bnei David who lost his life in the Gaza war this year was Master Sergeant Tzvika Lavi. 

A resident of the Binyamin region town of Eli, Tzvika was thirty-one years old when he was badly injured in one of the ongoing battles in Gaza on November 20, 2023; he succumbed to his injuries on Chanukah. He left behind parents, four siblings, his wife Talia and three children under the age of five.  

“Physically, he left, but spiritually he remains with us,” says Talia.   

Those who fall for the city of Jerusalem are not called fallen.

. . . There are no fallen . . . only those who cleave to Hashem. 

Tzvika was a social worker working in a hostel in Rosh HaAyin for individuals with mental health problems and addictions. Working there for two and a half years, he touched the hearts of so many patients and colleagues that after he was killed, the facility was renamed in his honor and is now called “Beit Lavi Hostel.” 

“Family was important to him,” says Talia, “and before Shabbat candle-lighting in our home, Tzvika made sure to have quiet time to spend with our children. His goal was to be a better person every day, and we try to follow in his footsteps.” 

“You should not worry about me,” Tzvika told his mother, Miriam, in her last conversation with him. “It’s not about me; it’s about our country. We will get through this.” 

After he was injured, he was transferred to the Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod, where he was sedated and ventilated for three weeks until Chanukah, when he passed away. “After he was injured, we prayed and felt the comfort of prayers for his recovery from people all over the world,” says Talia. “However, on Chanukah [the doctors told us], we needed to say goodbye. As our family stood around Tzvika, we sang the songs from seudah shelishit that he loved. I had the zechut to say Shema in his last moments.” Talia feels a deep sense of gratitude to Hashem that she had time to say goodbye, giving her a sense of closure. 

  

Talia, the wife of Tzvika Lavi, says her late husband used to make sure to have quiet time before Shabbat candle-lighting to spend with his children. Seen here, Talia holding one of her and Tzvika’s three children.

 

“At first, when he was injured and lying in the hospital, I envisioned his recovery and told myself he would be okay. Once he died, I realized that the ‘okay’ would be a different sort of okay. Yet I knew it would be good,” she says.  

Talia says their community is building a synagogue in Tzvika’s memory.  

The eldest of four siblings, Tzvika was born after his parents went through many years of fertility treatments. The Puah Institute, which is based in Israel and helps couples with fertility problems, is naming a new psychology program in Tzvika’s honor for those going through treatments.  

“There are no fallen soldiers” 

Like Amichai and Tzvika, many young Religious Zionists who serve in the IDF are infused with a love of Torah, the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. In fact, a significant number of them go on to become career officers who devote many years of their lives to exemplary military service. “Approximately fifty percent of our alumni have served as IDF officers in fighting units and elite commando units,” says Lior Shtul, CEO, Bnei David. Many distinguished fallen soldiers are among Bnei David alumni, including Emmanuel Moreno, a member of Sayeret Matkal, an elite IDF unit, who was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War and has been compared to Bar Kochba. 

How does the yeshivah view the enormous sacrifice—more than twenty precious alumni since October 7? This is the price we have to pay, they maintain. “The Land of Israel is acquired through tribulations,” explains Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, one of the founders and co-directors of Bnei David, in a video on the yeshivah website. “This tribulation [the latest war] is of love, not punishment. This is a process of growth. We grow from adversity.” 

In the Religious Zionist worldview, soldiers who die al kiddush Hashem are not just viewed as military heroes—they are spiritual heroes.  

Friends and fellow soldiers mourn the loss of Master Sergeant Tzvika Lavi, one of Israel’s fallen defenders.

 

When we talk about soldiers who give their lives, we use the word “nofel,” one who has fallen. But, says Rabbi Levenstein, this is incorrect. Those who put their lives on the line for the Jewish people are elevated to the highest levels. “Those who fall for the city of Jerusalem are not called fallen. Those who fight for Jerusalem are cleaving to Hashem. There are no fallen . . . only those who cleave to Hashem.”  

Captain Ori Shani 

Hundreds of bereaved families in Israel feel strongly about the need to attain victory in the current war and eliminate Hamas. They feel their loved ones went to battle with a goal, and they want that goal fulfilled.  

One of the major voices representing these families is the HaGevurah Forum, which represents bereaved families of soldiers, led by Rabbi Yehoshua Shani of Kiryat Arba, chairman of the Forum and himself a bereaved parent, father of Captain Ori Shani. 

A platoon commander in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade, Captain Shani, twenty-two years old, was killed in a battle near Kibbutz Kissufim on October 7. “His men embodied the best and he loved them,” remembers Rabbi Shani. “He worked them very hard so they would develop their bodies, their minds and their skills. They were ready for war and fought valiantly.” 

We are living in a generation in which responsibility for the security of the State of Israel and her citizens is a supreme value . . . We are writing the most meaningful moments in the history of our people and the whole world. 

He and his team were heralded for their incredible bravery, and they are credited with saving the lives of many and neutralizing more than thirty-five terrorists in the aftermath of the Simchat Torah attack. They fought relentlessly until they were surrounded; they were running out of ammunition and were nearly without water.  

“After three hours of fighting, the men were exhausted. To boost their spirits, even with terrorists still around, Ori took a selfie with his soldiers,” says his father. After they killed numerous terrorists, he led his soldiers into the Kissufim base to replenish their ammunition, when he was fatally struck by shrapnel. Posthumously, he was promoted from the rank of lieutenant to captain. 

As an officer in an elite unit, Ori had a goal not only to bring his men to the highest level of training, but also to help deepen their understanding of Zionism, their faith and their love of Eretz Yisrael. He used to spend Friday afternoons with his wife Miriam and young son traveling all across Israel before Shabbat to the homes of the men in his unit to establish a deep personal connection with them.  

After his death, Miriam brought his parents a folder in which Ori would write down his goals, dreams and views on the national situation. “His writings help us cope and give us strength,” says Rabbi Shani.  

Ori had been a lover of books and was especially interested in military history. In his memory, Rabbi Shani and his wife, Shulamit, are establishing a children’s library at Nof Harim elementary school in Modi’in, which their grandchildren attend.  

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook once wrote: “Great wars quicken the footsteps of Mashiach and advance the redemption of Israel. Because uprooting tyrants and the triumph of good over evil prepare the world for the great light of Israel.” 

This belief continues to give many bereaved families the strength to carry on.  

“We paid a big price,” says Rabbi Shani. “We lost our youngest son. But because of our son and the other soldiers fighting evil, we will have a better world.” 

 https://jewishaction.com/jewish-world/israel/defenders-of-the-jewish-people-remembering-israels-fallen-soldiers/?

Former NYC yeshiva student claims he was sexually abused ‘almost daily’ at prominent school: Lawsuit --- Moshiach Nowhere To Be Found!

 A former student at a prominent Brooklyn yeshiva says he was sexually abused by a fellow pupil “nearly daily” for half a year when he was 11 years old, according to a new lawsuit — that claims the school “enabled” the sickening assaults.

Oholei Torah, a prestigious Chabad yeshiva on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, abandoned its responsibility and should have done more to protect the alleged victim, now in his 30s, who says he remains “severely traumatized” by the childhood sexual abuse, the anonymous suit states.

It’s the latest claim of sex abuse at Oholei Torah, which has previously been accused of failing to protect its students from sexual abuse going back decades.

Between 2004 and 2005, the victim in the latest case claims an older student took him to a storage room next to the gym during lunch where he would abuse him, claims the suit, which was filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Monday.

Oholei Torah, which boasts itself as “the premier Yeshiva for the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Movement,” has been accused in prior lawsuits and news articles of failing to protect its students from sexual abuse

 

 

That abuse “included fondling [the boy’s] penis,” according to court papers.

Oholei Torah “enabled the sexual abuse” of the student, who was aged 11 and 12-years-old during the six month horror, “through its gross negligence, negligence, carelessness and recklessness,” according to the lawsuit. 

The accused abusing student — who is said to be from a prominent family in the Jewish Lubavitch community and still living in Brooklyn, according to a person with knowledge of the suit — is also referred to anonymously in the court filing. 

It’s not clear if the alleged abuse was reported at the time and the accuser’s attorney said the statute of limitations to file criminal charges is now long gone.

The plaintiff said he suffers from “repeated, disturbing and unwanted memories of the sexual abuse, strong negative feelings such as fear, horror, anger, guilt and/or shame … [and] significant distress and impairment in social, occupational and other life areas,” among others, according to court papers.

“The raft of litigation against Oholei Torah shows that the school was utterly negligent in protecting its students against sexual abuse and assaults,” said defense attorney Andrew M. Stengel.

“Over several months my client disappeared daily into a storage closet where the sexual abuse occurred. The school’s lack of supervision over Oholei Torah students is astounding.”

In 2016, an explosive Newsweek story on child abuse allegations in the Hasidic community shared accounts from several students of Oholei Torah who claimed that they were abused — physically and sexually — by teachers and fellow students alike.

Court records reveal that Oholei Torah is currently battling two other civil lawsuits in Brooklyn court claiming childhood sexual abuse.

What do you think? Post a comment.

One suit claims that a teacher repeatedly forced a 17-year-old boy to have sex with him in school dormitories and inside a ritual bath called a Mikva starting in 1987.

The other, filed back in March, says that a lifeguard employed by the school forced a 9-year-old student to “grope his penis” in 1999.

Oholei Torah, which boasts itself as “the premier Yeshiva for the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Movement,” has an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, according to its website.

The school and the law firm representing it in the other sexual abuse claims did not reply to requests for comment Monday.

Filed under

• brooklyn supreme court
• child abuse
• exclusive
• hasidic judaism
• lawsuits
• sexual abuse
• yeshivas
• 12/16/24

https://nypost.com/2024/12/16/us-news/former-yeshiva-student-claims-he-was-sexually-abused-almost-daily-at-prominent-nyc-school-suit/

The Genius Of The Chief Rabbis? Raise Their Salaries! Israelis On Notice To Start Carrying Umbrellas....Rain Coats, Galoshes...

Hourly weather for Israel Without Prayers!

Friday, 20 December 2024

https://www.weather25.com/asia/israel?page=day#date=2024-12-20

Israel 14 day weather forecast

https://www.weather25.com/asia/israel?page=14

Chief rabbis urge Israelis to pray for rain 

 

"We are in the midst of the month of Kislev and have not yet received the rains of blessing," the rabbis wrote. 

 

Vineyards outside the Jewish community of Alon Shvut in the Gush Etzion region of Judea

The Chief Rabbinate of Israel on Monday called on the public to pray for rain, in the first joint ruling issued since Kalman Ber and David Yosef were voted in as the country’s Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, respectively.

“We are in the midst of the month of Kislev and have not yet received the rains of blessing,” the rabbis wrote. “The people in the fields and crops of the land are desperate for water and, unfortunately, there is none.”

“We call on the public in every location to pray and beg Him who blesses the years to have mercy on His people and His land and answer us and rain down upon us dew and rain for blessing,” added Ber and Yosef.

According to their ruling, Sephardim will recite the prayer “God of life, open Thy heavenly treasures” on Shabbat, during the opening of the Torah ark, as well as on Mondays and Thursdays if this is possible for congregants.

Meanwhile, Ashkenazi Jews are called upon to add the words, “Answer us, Creator of the universe,” to the 16th blessing of the Amidah “Standing Prayer.”

Ber and Yosef also called upon all Jewish communities to continue the recitation of chapters of Psalms and the Acheinu (“Our Brothers”) prayer, which calls for the release of captives.

Ber, regarded as a moderate rabbi with many supporters from Orthodox-Zionist communities as well as haredi ones, was elected as chief rabbi on Oct. 31, in a run-off vote against a hardliner, Rabbi Micha Halevi.

Yosef, whose late father, Ovadia, co-founded the Shas Party and became its spiritual leader after serving as chief Sephardic rabbi for 11 years, was elected on Sept. 29 to succeed his older brother Yitzhak as the Sephardic chief rabbi. (All In The Family)

The (phony) elections, which were initially expected to take place in spring, was repeatedly delayed because of a dispute involving the Chief Rabbinate, the Religious Services Ministry and the High Court of Justice.

 

https://www.jns.org/chief-rabbis-urge-israelis-to-pray-for-rain/?

 

History For The Ignorant: Religious Anti-Zionism & Religious Zionism

Agudath Israel Convention - Should You Make Aliyah?

Agudath Israel Convention - A Disturbed Rabbi & A Robot Rabbi Spew Imbecilic Drivel In The Name of Torah! Special Focus On Eretz Yisroel & Aliyah...

 

 

For the common or slang use of imbecile, see Idiot.

The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.^[1][2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.^[3] It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above "idiot" (IQ below 25) and below "moron" (IQ of 51–70).^[4] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49, as they are usually capable of some degree of communication, guarding themselves against danger and performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision.^[5][6]

^{CLICK:https://youtu.be/dR-nudQAPDI?si=t631cCKELIjfLes8}

^{https://www.agudahconvention.org/program}

Thursday evening’s post-keynote session, “Asking for a Friend,” brought together two renowned rabbonim for a thought-provoking and engaging discussion. Rabbi Yisroel Reisman, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, and Rabbi Uri Deutsch, rov of Bais Medrash Tiferes Yosef of Forest Park in Lakewood, delved into some of the most pressing and delicate questions that often arise in the frum community. The session was skillfully moderated by Yisroel Besser, who ensured that the conversation remained both insightful and relevant to the concerns of the audience. Rabbi Reisman and Rabbi Deutsch offered their unique perspectives on a variety of topics, navigating sensitive issues with wisdom and clarity.

The Filthy Hypocrisy From The Overstuffed Tables and Buffets At The Agudah Convention - As They Urge "THEIR JEWS" to evade their responsibilities, break the law, evade the draft, but DO NOT serve Klal Yisroel In Eretz Yisroel!

"You could hear it in the way Rav Elya Brudny’s voice cracked as he said the word “achim”, the love, emotion and heart with which he spoke of the brotherhood that is Agudas Yisroel: he spoke about the bond between all Yidden, crying at the plight of families devastated by war in Eretz Yisroel, fallen soldiers, injured soldiers, newly bereaved parents, wife and children….Hashem yishmor!

 Rav Yosef Frankel, who discussed the fact that every Yid carries the situation in artzeinu hakedoshah on their hearts at all times, you could feel the sense of achrayus and connection.

 

The Kol Koreis and emails calling for tefillos, signed by the members of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, have been coming all year, but seeing their anguish and distress up close is a reminder of how personal it is: this year, the convention was one long tefillas rabbim as well."

 

 

The Chairman's Take - One Agenda

Shlomo Werdiger 

From:news@agudah.org

Dear Friends, As happens so often, it’s the voice of Reb Moshe Sherer z’l that we hear as we reflect on the derhoibbene Shabbos we just experienced. It was just before an Agudah convention and Rabbi Sherer was reviewing the program, looking over the sessions, speakers and topics.   “Too much Agudath Israel,” he declared, “and not enough Klal Yisroel!” How proud he would have been this Shabbos!   It was just about Klal Yisroel, with its many colors and hues, its changing realities and changing needs.   The air of the Stamford hotel was made holy by hundreds of kallah teachers who came to share insight and experience, hundreds of mental health professionals who are on the front lines of stabilizing and empowering Yiddishe homes, and hundreds of shadchanim, who eat, sleep and breathe concern for others.   These dedicated servants of the Klal gain not just from the shared chizuk, but from the opportunity to engage with great talmidei chachamim and Rabbanim, able to stop them in the hallway for informal sessions too.   As Rav Elya Brudny addressed the therapists, he took questions. One therapist asked about a situation, introducing herself as someone who had called the Rosh Yeshivah eight month ago , quickly recapping the details of that conversation.    “Yes,” Reb Elya nodded, “I remember,” and he instantly filled in the particulars of the story- from eight months previously, one out of hundreds of calls he takes each week. As one participant told me “Seeing that- the compassion and seriousness with which gedolei Yisroel view the challenges of klal Yisroel- was itself worth being there for!”    From the opening derashah by Rav Malkiel Kotler, who spoke about the relationship with the Ribbono shel Olam forged specifically in the darkest times, to the words of Rav Yosef Frankel, who discussed the fact that every Yid carries the situation in artzeinu hakedoshah on their hearts at all times, you could feel the sense of achrayus and connection.   You could hear it in the way Rav Elya Brudny’s voice cracked as he said the word “achim”, the love, emotion and heart with which he spoke of the brotherhood that is Agudas Yisroel: he spoke about the bond between all Yidden, crying at the plight of families devastated by war in Eretz Yisroel, fallen soldiers, injured soldiers, newly bereaved parents, wife and children….Hashem yishmor!   The pain was audible as he spoke about the thousands of ameilei Torah, creating immeasurable zechuyos for the world, and how, even if we appreciate them, there are many on holy soil who do not – and from the podium, he davened for the divisiveness to end.   The Kol Koreis and emails calling for tefillos, signed by the members of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, have been coming all year, but seeing their anguish and distress up close is a reminder of how personal it is: this year, the convention was one long tefillas rabbim as well.   This year’s convention carried a hopeful undertone, the message of every session and speech that we are ma’aminim bnei ma’aminim, a nation of believers who will never let go. That is our pride, that is our glory, and it is this that encourages us to hope that the next convention will take place in Yerushalayim, as a literal agudah achas, serving Hashem with hearts full of joy.   Respectfully,   Shloime

Agudath Israel of America | 42 Broadway 14th floor | New York, NY 10004 US

It would take years before enough children died before people said, 'I guess measles is a bad thing,'" she said. "One kid won't be enough. The story they'll tell is, 'There was something wrong with that kid. It can't happen to my kid.'"

 

How Measles, Whooping Cough, and Worse Could Roar Back on RFK Jr.'s Watch

 

— Some experts fear he could "make America sick again"

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The availability of safe, effective COVID vaccines less than a year into the pandemic marked a high point in the 300-year history of vaccination, seemingly heralding an age of protection against infectious diseases.

Now, after backlash against public health interventions culminated in President-elect Donald Trump's nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.opens in a new tab or window, the country's best-known anti-vaccine activist, as its top health official, infectious disease and public health experts and vaccine advocates say a confluence of factors could cause renewed, deadly epidemics of measles, whooping cough, and meningitis, or even polio.

"The litany of things that will start to topple is profound," said James Hodge, a public health law expert at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in Phoenix. "We're going to experience a seminal change in vaccine law and policy."

"He'll make America sick again," said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

State legislators who question vaccine safety are poised to introduce bills to weaken school-entry vaccine requirements or do away with them altogether, said Northe Saunders, who tracks vaccine-related legislation for the SAFE Communities Coalition, a group supporting pro-vaccine legislation and lawmakers.

Even states that keep existing requirements will be vulnerable to decisions made by a Republican-controlled Congress as well as by Kennedy and former Republican Rep. Dave Weldon, MD, of Florida, should they be confirmed to lead HHS and the CDC, respectively.

Both men -- Kennedy as an activist, Weldon as a medical doctor and congressman from 1995 to 2009 -- have endorsed debunked theories blaming vaccines for autism and other chronic diseases. (Weldon has been featured in anti-vaccine films in the years since he left Congress.) Both have accused the CDC of covering up evidence this was so, despite dozens of reputable scientific studies to the contrary.

Kennedy's staff did not respond to requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, did not respond to requests for comment or interviews with Kennedy or Weldon.

Kennedy recently told NPRopens in a new tab or window that "we're not going to take vaccines away from anybody."

It's unclear how far the administration would go to discourage vaccination, but if levels drop enough, vaccine-preventable illnesses and deaths might soar.

"It is a fantasy to think we can lower vaccination rates and herd immunity in the U.S. and not suffer recurrence of these diseases," said Gregory Poland, MD, co-director of the Atria Academy of Science & Medicine. "One in 3,000 kids who gets measles is going to die. There's no treatment for it. They are going to die."

During a November 2019 measles epidemic that killed 80 children in Samoa, Kennedy wrote to the country's prime minister falsely claiming that the measles vaccine was probably causing the deaths. Scott Gottlieb, MD, who was Trump's first FDA commissioner, said on CNBCopens in a new tab or window on Nov. 29 that Kennedy "will cost lives in this country" if he undercuts vaccination.

Kennedy's nomination validates and enshrines public mistrust of government health programs, said Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"The notion that he'd even be considered for that position makes people think he knows what he's talking about," Offit said. "He appeals to lessened trust, the idea that 'There are things you don't see, data they don't present, that I'm going to find out so you can really make an informed decision.'"

Targets of Anti-Vaccine Groups

Hodge has compiled a list of 20 actionsopens in a new tab or window the administration could take to weaken national vaccination programs, from spreading misinformation to delaying FDA vaccine approvals to dropping Department of Justice support for vaccine laws challenged by groups like the Children's Health Defense, which Kennedy founded and led before campaigning for president.

Kennedy could also cripple the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which Congress created in 1986 to take care of children believed harmed by vaccines -- while partially protecting vaccine makers from lawsuits.

Before the law passed, the threat of lawsuits had shrunk the number of companies making vaccines in the U.S. -- from 26 in 1967 to 17 in 1980 -- and the remaining pertussis vaccine producers were threatening to stop making it. The vaccine injury program "played an integral role in keeping manufacturers in the business," Poland said.

Kennedy could abolish the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose recommendation for using a vaccine determines whether the government pays for it through the 30-year-old Vaccines for Children program, which makes free immunizations available to more than half the children in the U.S. Alternatively, Kennedy could stack the committee with allies who oppose new vaccines, and could, in theory at least, withdraw recommendations for vaccines like the 53-year-old measles-mumps-rubella shot, a favorite target of the anti-vaccine movement.

Meanwhile, infectious disease threats are on the rise or on the horizon. Instead of preparing, as a typical incoming administration might, Kennedy has threatened to shake up the federal health agencies. Once in office, he'll "give infectious disease a breakopens in a new tab or window" to focus on chronic ailments, he said at a Children's Health Defense conference last month in Georgia.

The H5N1 virus, or bird flu, that has spread through cattle herds and infected at least 55 people could erupt in a new pandemic, and other threats like mosquito-borne dengue feveropens in a new tab or window are rising in the U.S.

Traditional childhood diseases are also making their presence felt, in part because of neglected vaccination. The U.S. has seen 16 measles outbreaks this year -- 89% of cases are in unvaccinated people -- and a whooping cough epidemic is the worst since 2012.

"So that's how we're starting out," said Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, a pediatrician and virologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "Then you throw into the mix one of the most outspoken and visible anti-vaccine activists at the head of HHS, and that gives me a lot of concern."

The share prices of drug companies with big vaccine portfolios have plunged since Kennedy's nomination. Even before Trump's victory, vaccine exhaustion and skepticism had driven down demand for newer vaccines like GSK's respiratory syncytial virus and shingles shots.

Kennedy has ample options to slow or stop new vaccine releases or to slow sales of existing vaccines -- for example, by requiring additional post-market studies or by highlighting questionable studies that suggest safety risks.

Kennedy, who has embraced conspiracy theoriesopens in a new tab or window such as that HIV does not cause AIDS and that pesticides cause gender dysphoria, told NPR there are "huge deficits" in vaccine safety research. "We're going to make sure those scientific studies are done and that people can make informed choices," he said.

Kennedy's nomination "bodes ill for the development of new vaccines and the use of currently available vaccines," said Stanley Plotkin, MD, a vaccine industry consultant and inventor of the rubella vaccine in the 1960s. "Vaccine development requires millions of dollars. Unless there is prospect of profit, commercial companies are not going to do it."

Vaccine advocates, with less money on hand than the better-funded anti-vaccine advocates, see an uphill battle to defend vaccination in courts, legislatures, and the public square. People are rarely inclined to celebrate the absence of a conquered illness, making vaccines a hard sell even when they are working well.

While many wealthy people, including potion and supplement peddlers, have funded the anti-vaccine movement, "there hasn't been an appetite from science-friendly people to give that kind of money to our side," said Karen Ernst, director of Voices for Vaccines.

'He's Serious as Hell'

Kennedy "was a punch line for a lot of people, but he's serious as hell," Ernst said. "He has a lot of power, money, and a vast network of anti-vaccine parents who'll show up at a moment's notice." That's not been the case with groups like hers, Ernst said.

On Oct. 22, when an Idaho health board voted to stop providing COVID vaccines in six counties, there were no vaccine advocates at the meeting. "We didn't even know it was on the agenda," Ernst said. "Mobilization on our side is always lagging. But I'm not giving up."

The kaleidoscopic change has been jarring for Walter Orenstein, MD, who persuaded states to tighten school mandates to fight measles outbreaks as head of the CDC's immunization division from 1988 to 2004.

"People don't understand the concept of community protection, and if they do they don't seem to care," said Orenstein, who saw some of the last cases of smallpox as a CDC epidemiologist in India in the 1970s, and frequently cared for children with meningitis caused by H. influenzae type B bacteria, a disease that has mostly disappeared because of a vaccine introduced in 1987.

"I was so naive," he said. "I thought that COVID would solidify acceptance of vaccines, but it was the opposite."

Lawmakers opposed to vaccines could introduce legislation to remove school-entry requirements in nearly every state, Saunders said. One bill to do this has been introduced in Texas, where what's known as the vaccine choice movement has been growing since 2015 and took off during the pandemic, fusing with parents' rights and anti-government groups opposed to measures like mandatory shots and masking.

"The genie is out of the bottle, and you can't put it back in," said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategy officer at the Immunization Partnership in Texas. "It's become this multiheaded thing that we're having to reckon with."

In the last full school year, more than 100,000 Texas public school students were exempted from one or more vaccinations, she said, and many of the 600,000 homeschooled Texas kids are also thought to be unvaccinated.

In Louisiana, the state surgeon general distributed a form letter to hospitals exempting medical professionals from flu vaccination, claiming the vaccine is unlikely to work and has "real and well established" risks. Research on flu vaccination refutesopens in a new tab or window both claims.

The biggest threat to existing vaccination policies could be plans by the Trump administration to remove civil service protections for federal workers. That jeopardizes workers at federal health agencies whose day-to-day jobs are to prepare for and fight diseases and epidemics. "If you overturn the administrative state, the impact on public health will be long-term and serious," said Dorit Reiss, PhD, a professor at the University of California San Francisco's Hastings College of Law.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has the ear of the incoming president, imagines cost-cutting plans that are also seen as a threat.

"If you damage the core functions of the FDA, it's like killing the goose that laid the golden egg, both for our health and for the economy," said Jesse Goodman, MD, MPH, the director of the Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship at Georgetown University and a former chief science officer at the FDA. "It would be the exact opposite of what Kennedy is saying he wants, which is safe medical products. If we don't have independent skilled scientists and clinicians at the agency, there's an increased risk Americans will have unsafe foods and medicine."

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illness could be alarming, but would they be enough to boost vaccination again? Ernst of Voices for Vaccines isn't sure.

"We're already having outbreaks. It would take years before enough children died before people said, 'I guess measles is a bad thing,'" she said. "One kid won't be enough. The story they'll tell is, 'There was something wrong with that kid. It can't happen to my kid.'"

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/vaccines/113302?

UNDERSTANDING THE DANGER BY SAM HARRIS:

"You don’t trust what the most respected doctors have to say—because you think they’ve all been captured by big pharma, perhaps—so you’ve found a guy in Tijuana who says he can cure your cancer. You don’t trust what the Mayo Clinic says about vaccines—and now you’re afraid to get your kids vaccinated—because you’ve listened to 14 hours of RFK Jr. on podcasts. And now you’ve started trusting him as… what?… a new authority."......

https://samharris.org/episode/SED308F227B