We Are Sick!

 

"The Torah obligation to preserve our lives and the lives of others requires us to vaccinate for COVID-19 as soon as a vaccine becomes available"

 

 COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance 

Presented by the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America

 

https://www.ou.org/assets/Guidance-re-Vaccines.pdf

Scientists worry that if vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk. Pfizer and Moderna seem to be remarkably good at preventing serious illness. But it’s unclear how well they will curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Here’s Why Vaccinated People Still Need to Wear a Mask

The new vaccines will probably prevent you from getting sick with Covid. No one knows yet whether they will keep you from spreading the virus to others — but that information is coming.

That’s because the Pfizer and Moderna trials tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with Covid-19. That leaves open the possibility that some vaccinated people get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus — especially if they come in close contact with others or stop wearing masks.

If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk.

“A lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks anymore,” said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University. “It’s really going to be critical for them to know if they have to keep wearing masks, because they could still be contagious.”

In most respiratory infections, including the new coronavirus, the nose is the main port of entry. The virus rapidly multiplies there, jolting the immune system to produce a type of antibodies that are specific to mucosa, the moist tissue lining the nose, mouth, lungs and stomach. If the same person is exposed to the virus a second time, those antibodies, as well as immune cells that remember the virus, rapidly shut down the virus in the nose before it gets a chance to take hold elsewhere in the body.

The coronavirus vaccines, in contrast, are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill.

Some of those antibodies will circulate in the blood to the nasal mucosa and stand guard there, but it’s not clear how much of the antibody pool can be mobilized, or how quickly. If the answer is not much, then viruses could bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others.

“It’s a race: It depends whether the virus can replicate faster, or the immune system can control it faster,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s a really important question.”

This is why mucosal vaccines, like the nasal spray FluMist or the oral polio vaccine, are better than intramuscular injections at fending off respiratory viruses, experts said.

The coronavirus vaccines have proved to be powerful shields against severe illness, but that is no guarantee of their efficacy in the nose. The lungs — the site of severe symptoms — are much more accessible to the circulating antibodies than the nose or throat, making them easier to safeguard.

“Preventing severe disease is easiest, preventing mild disease is harder, and preventing all infections is the hardest,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. “If it’s 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease, it’s going to be something less than that in preventing all infections, for sure.”

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

With distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:

• • If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.
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  • When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.
  •  
  • If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.
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  • Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.
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  • Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell's enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

Still, he and other experts said they were optimistic that the vaccines would suppress the virus enough even in the nose and throat to prevent immunized people from spreading it to others.

Coronavirus Schools Briefing: It’s back to school — or is it?

“My feeling is that once you develop some form of immunity with the vaccine, your ability to get infected will also go down,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. “Even if you’re infected, the level of virus that you replicate in your nose should be reduced.”

The vaccine trials have not produced data on how many vaccinated people were infected with the virus but did not have symptoms. Some hints are emerging, however.

AstraZeneca, which announced some of its trial results in November, said that volunteers had been testing themselves regularly for the virus, and that those results suggested that the vaccine might prevent some infections.

Pfizer will test a subset of its trial participants for antibodies against a viral protein called N. Because the vaccines have nothing to do with this protein, N antibodies would reveal whether the volunteers had become infected with the virus after immunization, said Jerica Pitts, a spokeswoman for the company.

Moderna also plans to analyze blood from all its participants and test for N antibodies. “It will take several weeks before we can expect to see those results,” said Colleen Hussey, a spokeswoman for Moderna.

The trials have so far analyzed only blood, but testing for antibodies in mucosa would confirm that the antibodies can travel to the nose and mouth. Dr. Tal’s team is planning to analyze matched blood and saliva samples from volunteers in the Johnson & Johnson trial to see how the two antibody levels compare.

In the meantime, Dr. Bhattacharya said, he was encouraged by recent work showing that people who received an intramuscular flu vaccine had abundant antibodies in the nose. And a study of Covid-19 patients found that antibody levels in saliva and blood were closely matched — suggesting that a strong immune response in the blood would also protect mucosal tissues.

Only people who have virus teeming in their nose and throat would be expected to transmit the virus, and the lack of symptoms in the immunized people who became infected suggests that the vaccine may have kept the virus levels in check.

But some studies have suggested that even people with no symptoms can have high amounts of coronavirus in their nose, noted Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, who represents the American Academy of Pediatrics at meetings of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The first person confirmed to be reinfected with the coronavirus, a 33-year-old man in Hong Kong, also did not have symptoms, but harbored enough virus to infect others.

Vaccinated people who have a high viral load but don’t have symptoms “would actually be, in some ways, even worse spreaders because they may be under a false sense of security,” Dr. Maldonado said.

Dr. Tal said she was concerned by monkey studies showing that some vaccinated animals did not get ill, but still had virus in their nose.

But those monkeys were intentionally exposed to massive amounts of virus and still had less virus than unvaccinated animals, said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

“The more you reduce viral load, the less likely you are to be transmissible,” Dr. Moore said. But “all of these are things where data trumps theory, and we need the data.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/health/covid-vaccine-mask.html?surface=home-discovery-vi-prg&fellback=false&req_id=589481686&algo=identity&variant=no-exp&imp_id=406916803

The Murderous And Ignorant - Unrepentant Anti-Vaxxers - Should Be Recognized For What They Are - Genocidal Maniacs!

 

Da’as Torah and Anti-Vaxxers

In a recent article in the Forward, Rabbi Avi Shafran, the spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, the umbrella organization of American Charedi Jews, complained that the media was singling out the ultra-Orthodox as the prime culprits responsible for the measles outbreak in the United States. He implied that what underlay these media reports was not only anti-Charedi sentiment but actually unvarnished anti-Semitism. He pointed out that on the one hand there are many “anti-vaxxers” who are not Jewish, much less Charedim. On the other hand, what he called the “vast majority” of Orthodox Jews do have their children vaccinated.

On its face, Shafran is not incorrect. The problem is that he simply is not telling the whole truth. Indeed, it is the very leaders of his own organization who are telling their followers not to vaccinate their children if, for whatever reason, they don’t want to. Even more troubling, these same leaders are forbidding schools under their religious aegis to deny attendance to unvaccinated children.

Although ground zero for the outbreaks in America have been the Chasidic strongholds of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Borough Park neighborhoods, it is the non-Chasidic leaders of Agudath Israel who not only have justified opposition to vaccinations, but explicitly condemn schools that require vaccines as a prerequisite for attendance. They draw upon on mostly discredited studies and argue that the risk of complications from measles is minimal. They overlook the fact that the saving of life (pikuach nefesh) applies even in cases where the risk of death is minimal. Yet the risk is very real. I should know. Many years ago, my younger brother nearly died from complications of measles. It was only thanks to the proximity of a talented and energetic doctor that he survived the trip to the hospital.

The risk is very real. I should know. Many years ago, my younger brother nearly died from complications of measles.

And yet these rabbis assert their opinion is nothing less than what has come to be called da’as Torah, or Torah authority, elevating their erroneous and dangerous views to the level of near prophesy. No wonder ordinary Charedim are loathe to challenge the views of their respected leaders. To do so would be to risk expulsion from their tightly-knit communities.

Who are the men issuing these pronouncements? Two of them lead the Beis Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, N.J.: Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, its chancellor or Rosh HaYeshiva, and Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon, its moral tutor (to borrow a term employed at Oxbridge colleges) or mashgiach. They lead a yeshiva that is the most prestigious and the wealthiest school of its kind in the United Stares — in effect, the Harvard of yeshivas. No wonder their word is taken as law.

But these men are not alone among the rabbinical anti-vaxxers. Rabbis Shmuel Kamenetsky and Aaron Schechter are, like Rabbi Kotler, members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah — the Committee of Torah Sages — that dictates Agudah’s religious and secular policies. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading Israel-based decisor for thousands of Charedim worldwide, has also, in the words of Rabbis Kotler, Solomon and Kaminetsky, “explicitly ruled that schools cannot refuse such [unvaccinated] children.” These rulings are not merely flouting science; their da’as Torah is endangering hundreds, perhaps thousands of younger children and older people who are especially vulnerable to complications from measles.

In the previous century, Agudah’s rabbis invoked da’as Torah to urge Europe’s Orthodox Jews not to emigrate to America or Israel in order to escape the Nazi onslaught. Until May 1948, they invoked the same principle to oppose the creation of the State of Israel. In the 1970s and ’80s, they invoked da’as Torah again to counsel against public demonstrations on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Now they invoke it to oppose vaccinations. And once again, as before, they find themselves on the wrong side of history.

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/columnist/297876/daas-torah-and-anti-vaxxers/

 

R' Shmuel Kamenetzky - "All Vaccines Are A Hoax Even The Polio Vaccine" - Will Take The Vaccine, But You'll Never Know!

Everything We Know So Far About The COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout In NY & NJ

For months now, New York and New Jersey have been held hostage by the coronavirus, subject to tighter or looser restrictions based on the infection rate, but never fully free of its grip. During that time, many have held out hope for the one thing that could potentially break the cycle: a vaccine.

Now, finally, it’s here. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use of the first coronavirus vaccine to make it to the finish line Friday evening after an expert advisory panel voted in favor of the move Thursday. The federal government’s Operation Warp Speed is now coordinating the shipment of an initial batch of 2.9 million doses of the vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, across the country. The vaccine has been authorized for people age 16 and older.

A second vaccine, developed by Moderna, will be up for review by the FDA advisory panel this coming Thursday, December 17th, and the first doses will likely be distributed shortly after that, should its emergency use be granted.

But even with New York’s and New Jersey’s vaccination effort on track to get underway this month, it’s still too soon to rip off your mask and breathe a sigh of relief. Only high priority populations will be vaccinated to start, and some are still skeptical about getting vaccinated at all. A recent Siena College poll found that about two-thirds of New Yorkers are currently willing to get vaccinated, while a Rutgers-Eagleton poll found 60% of New Jersey residents welcomed a vaccine; nationally only about half of Americans are on board, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Around 75% of the population would need to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity. If that’s accomplished by summer 2021, it’s possible that by the end of next year, “we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this week.

For now, though, the imminent arrival of a coronavirus vaccine in New York raises a lot of basic questions about efficacy, safety and logistics.

Here’s What We Know So Far

How will the vaccines be administered?

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine require two doses per person. Pfizer-BioNTech is recommending its doses be spaced 21 days apart, while Moderna is recommending 28 days.

How effective are the vaccines?

Pfizer and BioNTech say after the second dose, their vaccine proved 95% effective in preventing recipients from contracting COVID-19 in clinical trials. Moderna said its vaccine is nearly 95% effective. More research will be required to determine how long immunity provided by the vaccines lasts and whether recipients will at some point need a booster.

Can people who have been vaccinated still spread the virus?

It’s still unclear. Clinical trials for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines studied whether participants were protected against contracting the virus themselves but not whether they passed it on to others. For now, the CDC recommends that people who get vaccinated continue to wear a mask.

One immunologist, Deepta Bhattacharya from the University of Arizona, told the NY Times: “Preventing severe disease is easiest, preventing mild disease is harder, and preventing all infections is the hardest.”

How do the vaccines work?

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use genetic material known as messenger RNA to instruct the body’s cells to produce a special protein that is unique to the coronavirus. After the proteins are created, the genetic material from the vaccine is destroyed. Recognizing the proteins shouldn’t be there, the body then produces white blood cells that remember how to fight the virus should it come back in the future.

Other vaccines in development may work differently, but none of them require injecting people with the live virus.

Do the vaccines have any negative side effects?

Some people experience initial side effects, which is common with vaccines, but that doesn’t mean they’re unsafe.

In Phase 1 trials of the Moderna vaccine, more than half of those who received it reported side effects such as fatigue, chills, headache, muscle pain, or soreness at the injection site. During Phase 3 trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, about 3.8% of participants experienced fatigue and 2% experienced headaches.

“Just because you’re sore doesn’t mean that [the vaccine] didn’t work or wasn’t effective,” Dr. Melanie Swift, an occupational medicine physician helping to lead COVID-19 vaccination at the Mayo Clinic, told USA Today. “It just means that your body responded the way it’s supposed to.”

What about the people who had allergic reactions to the vaccine in the U.K.?

Two health care providers who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the U.K. this week experienced anaphylactoid reactions (both carried EpiPens and recovered after using epinephrine). The U.K.’s National Health Service is now recommending that people with a history of severe allergic reactions avoid the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

In the U.S., the FDA has guided healthcare providers to not administer the Pfizer vaccine at all to those with a history of severe allergic reaction to components that are in the Pfizer vaccine. This differs from a CDC official's presentation to the immunization practices panel suggesting providers should not vaccinate anyone with a history of severe allergic reactions to any vaccines. But the CDC's final guidance is expected Sunday, according to STATNews.

Infectious disease experts say it’s important to find out more about the effects of the vaccine, rather than ruling out its use for the millions of people who have allergies.

Fauci said this week that the reactions are most likely rare, but if they’re prevalent among a certain subset of the population, those at risk may be able to opt for one of the other vaccines in development.

How many doses will New York and New Jersey get?

Between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, New York City expects to receive more than 450,000 doses by the end of December. The number of doses shipped to each state will be based on its adult population, according to federal officials. Overall, the federal government has so far ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, 200 million from Moderna and hundreds of millions more doses from companies that are still in the process of testing their vaccines.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says there may be 460,000 doses by mid-January. The initial batch from Pfizer is 76,000 doses, and the first vaccines will be administered at University Hospital in Newark on Tuesday.

Who will get vaccinated first?

In New York state, the first cohort to get vaccinated will include nursing home residents, nursing home staff and health care workers in high-risk settings, Governor Andrew Cuomo said this week.

New York State’s plan indicates other essential workers—first responders, grocery store workers, transit employees—as well as those at a high-risk of severe disease from coronavirus due to other health conditions could be prioritized next. Nursing home patients and staff will be vaccinated under the CDC’s vaccination program with CVS and Walgreens.

The city Health Department says it will determine the next phases of priority groups once the CDC’s immunization practices committee decides what to recommend, but a timeline for later priority groups depends on vaccine supplies.

Like New York, New Jersey is vaccinating health care workers and long term care patients and staff first.

When will the vaccine become available to the general public?

Widespread vaccine distribution is expected by spring 2021, according to Fauci and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

How will vaccines be distributed once they arrive? ?

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures—negative 70 degrees Celsius—that not all facilities can accommodate.

New York has identified 90 regional distribution centers to receive the vaccines. In New York City, more than 50 hospitals have freezers that can store the vaccine and the Health Department can store hundreds of thousands of doses as well, for a total citywide capacity of 2 million doses.

Forty hospitals in New Jersey have ultra-cold storage.

Hospitals, as well as shipping companies like FedEx, are also placing large orders for dry ice in order to ensure the vaccine’s successful transport.

Where will people get vaccinated?

When the vaccine is rolled out more broadly, it will likely be available in all the places that typically offer vaccinations. Doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and other health care providers are now able to enroll in the NYC COVID-19 Vaccination Program, according to a memo sent out by the NYC Health Department this week. Only select entities, such as hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies, will be able to get the vaccine in the first phase of distribution, however.

The city is prepared to set up emergency vaccination sites at locations besides vaccination programs at hospitals or nursing homes. During the H1N1 crisis, the health department set up "points of dispensing" sites—PODS—to vaccinate New Yorkers, which is expected during the coronavirus vaccination effort.

How much will the vaccine cost?

The vaccine is supposed to be free for everyone, regardless of what kind of insurance they have or if they are uninsured.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has laid out a plan to make sure this happens, including a program that will reimburse health care providers for administering the vaccine to people who are uninsured. The CMS also aims to create special billing codes for the vaccine that will be easily recognized by insurers. Still, health care billing is an imprecise science, so it will be important for vaccine recipients to keep an eye out for any unanticipated charges.

https://gothamist.com/news/everything-we-know-so-far-about-coronavirus-vaccine-rollout-ny-nj?mc_cid=6f88f6d0dd&mc_eid=a160981f2b

 

Anti-Vaccine Rabbi Sits on Prominent Ultra-Orthodox Panel as Measles Spread

By Reuven Blaurblau@thecity.nyc May 23, 2019, 4:05am EDT

Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky.

 

At the height of a measles outbreak in Brooklyn and around the country, a major ultra-Orthodox Jewish umbrella group headquartered in New York issued a statement urging parents to vaccinate their children.

The Agudath Israel of America, “in the strongest possible terms,” encouraged parents on April 10 to get their children inoculated against the viral disease. But the influential organization has a rabbi, Shmuel Kamenetsky, on its supreme rabbinical policy-making council who has called vaccines a “hoax.”

Kamenetsky, the founder and head of a prestigious yeshiva in Philadelphia, is a member of the Moetzes of Agudath Israel. Rabbis on the esteemed Moetzes, or council, set all kinds of policies for the organization, its members and hundreds of affiliated synagogues. The ten council members are typically appointed for life.

On April 9, Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a public health emergency in four zip codes in Brooklyn where many ultra-Orthodox Jews reside. Every adult and child who lives or works in those areas must be vaccinated, according to an order from the city’s health commissioner.

There were 523 reported cases of measles as of Monday, according to the city Health Department. Nine private Jewish schools were closed for failing to follow regulations but all have since been reopened.

A spokesperson for the Agudath — which receives city and state funds for a myriad of social service programs — defended Kamenetsky.

“Rabbinic authorities are entitled to their social issue opinions no less than anyone,” said Agudath’s Avi Shafran. “The issue of admitting unvaccinated children to schools when there are no immunocompromised students in them is one that has two eminently arguable sides.”

Some are frustrated by that divided stance.

“The problem here is the baseline assumption that there are two sides to this long settled medical issue, or that this is a matter of debatable social policy. It is not,” said Menashe Shapiro, a political consultant with strong ties to the Jewish community.

“The obligation to safeguard the health and well-being of children and to protect oneself is basic and sacrosanct — and you don’t need a separate directive from any council of sages to know that,” the Upper West Side resident added.

Claims of a ‘Hoax’

In a 2014 interview with the Baltimore Jewish Times, Kamenetsky called vaccines a “hoax” and his wife, Temi, has been a figure on the anti-vax circuit, according to reports. A year later, the rabbi signed a letter authorizing a major yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J. to admit unvaccinated children.

“What about the people who clean and sweep in the school?” he told the Baltimore Jewish Times. “They are mostly Mexican and are unvaccinated. If there was a problem, the children would already have gotten sick.”

There is no validity to allegations that South and Central American immigrants are vaccinated at a lower rate than the rest of the U.S. population.

Some Hasidic anti-vaxxers have cited Kamenetsky’s comments highlighted in an online pamphlet circulating in the community. They point out he’s a member of the esteemed Moetzes and considered one of the leading rabbis of this generation. 

Meanwhile, a Change.org petition last year noted Kamenetzky’s role on the Moetzes and urged the Agudath Israel to “take a clear stand on this issue.” The petition, which had 354 digital signatures as of mid May, was first reported by The Forward.

Agudath Israel advocates for services for private schools and helps defend religious rights. It also operates job training centers and lobbies against physician-assisted suicide.

In 2014, de Blasio spoke at Agudath Israel’s 92nd annual dinner, praising the organization and its social service operations. All told, the organization has received about $8 million in city funds to distribute for social service programs since then.

Kamenetsky declined to comment. Agudath Israel officials, meanwhile, say they are leading the way to combat the measles outbreak.

A Push for Vaccinations

Last week, the group, in conjunction with other organizations, led a “vaccination drive” where more than 200 people were inoculated. The Agudath Israel also issued a statement slamming an anti-vaxxer gathering in Monsey, Rockland County.

“Countless rabbinical figures and leaders, including leading rabbis in the Agudath Israel movement and doctors serving these communities, have repeatedly encouraged vaccination in the strongest possible terms,” the statement said.

Alexander Rapaport, who operates kosher soup kitchens in Brooklyn, encourages community members to get vaccinated, and even narrated a film with that message for the mayor’s office.

“We should tolerate that some people in very influential positions have minority opinions,” he said. “I’m pro vaccines but I can tolerate a smart person who comes down otherwise. The beauty of freedom of speech is it comes with a cost.”

Rapaport argued that Kamenetsky has zero influence over Hasidim living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or in other parts of the city.

Ultra-orthodox Jews in Williamsburg are largely members of the Satmar Hasidic sect and follow that group’s leader, he added.

Anti-vaxxers have been denounced by many community leaders and medical professionals. Citing years of research, they argue that Kamenetsky and others spread misinformation that endangers children.

“The anti-vaccination message is dangerous and the science is clear: Vaccines save lives,” said mayoral spokesperson Marcy Miranda. “When someone chooses not to get a vaccine, not only do they endanger themselves, but they unfairly endanger those that cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons. We should listen to medical professionals urging everyone to get vaccinated.”

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https://www.thecity.nyc/health/2019/5/23/21211066/anti-vaccine-rabbi-sits-on-prominent-ultra-orthodox-panel-as-measles-spread

All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. …

Hanukkah: A ‘Stiff Necked’ People — the Fight for Sovereignty and Against Assimilation

Hanukkah is not just about gifts, latkes, jelly-filled donuts (sufganyot), and dreidels — though they are certainly nice (and fun).

At its core, Hanukkah is the story of a battle for the heart and soul of a conquered and colonized people — of the clash between the dominant Greek/Hellenist culture of the time on the one hand, and the culture and essential identity of the Jewish people on the other.

More than 2,200 years ago, the differences between these two cultures and value systems were quite stark. The Greek/Hellenist culture worshiped physical beauty. They placed a principle value on the here and now — on personal gratification. Jewish values were the opposite. For the Jewish people, the spiritual, not the physical, was first and foremost.

After Judea fell to Hellenist colonialism, as often occurs within societies and peoples conquered by large expanding empires, there was an internal struggle in Judea between traditional Jews and those who did not entirely dissent from the Hellenists’ prohibitions on Jewish worship and culture, and in fact wished to succumb to Hellenism. Many Jews back then became, in effect, self-hating Jews, and wished to adopt Hellenism entirely.

Hanukkah, therefore, is as much a celebration of the Jewish people’s success in ridding Judea of the colonialists — who sought, like many colonialists that followed in their footsteps (be they Roman, Arab, Crusader, etc.), to impose their culture and/or faith on the people of Judea — as it is a celebration of the incredible perseverance of the Jewish people.

As Mark Twain noted in his short essay Concerning the Jews:

All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. … The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. … If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

These words ring even truer today — 73 years after the Holocaust and 70 years after the Jewish people regained their sovereignty in their indigenous, historical, and religious homeland — than they did when Mark Twain wrote them in 1898 from Vienna.

The Jewish people’s long-standing resistance to both colonialism and assimilation, and the miracle that is the survival of the Jewish people for thousands of years, arguably started with Hanukkah.

The Hanukkah miracle itself, the one day’s worth of oil that instead lasted eight days, tells a story of survival against all odds, which like the Jewish people’s 3,300-year-old and (B”H) counting story of survival, is miraculous. Many nations, tribes, and people have come and gone since the Jewish people first introduced ethical monotheism to the world. Unlike the Moabites, Phoenicians, Philistines, Amorites, etc., the Jewish people remain.

Hanukkah, and the miracle of the oil — as exemplified by the Hanukkah lights — should serve as a bright, shiny reminder of the Jewish people’s mission, of our resilience, and why we, as Mark Twain noted, continue to survive and contribute to the world in ways far exceeding our number, after all civilizations and cultures that were conquered by the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans have long since vanished from the world.

Because such a large part of the Hanukkah story is our resistance to not only tyranny, but also to the temptation of Hellenism and assimilation, the mitzvah of celebrating Hanukkah not only requires us to celebrate the holiday, but to publicize our celebration. This is the reason that whenever possible Jews are to light the menorah outdoors, and when lighting the candles indoors, we are supposed to put the menorah by a window facing the street, so that all those who walk by will know there are Jews celebrating Hanukkah in that home.

At a time when antisemitic attacks are on the rise in both the US and Europe, and Jews throughout Europe have attested to feeling like they have to hide their identity, the need to publicly and proudly celebrate being Jewish and Jewish sovereignty and self-determination could not be greater.

When Judea was occupied by the Hellenists there were quite a few Jews who were ready to abandon our tribal faith because the Seleucid Greeks had made them ashamed of their identity. These Jews had internalized the hatred the Hellenists had for their indigenous faith and culture. They had a colonized mentality, and as a result were embarrassed and/or afraid to be openly Jewish.

But the Maccabees, just like the Haganah and the IDF did over 2,000 years later (and sometimes arguably just as miraculously), taught the entire Jewish world the importance of Jewish pride — the importance of being a “stiff necked Jew,” a Jew who refuses to bow down to tyrants and despots, including those who on the eve of Hanukkah this year passed more “flat earth” resolutions at the UN General Assembly dishonestly denying the Jewish people’s historic connection to the land of the Maccabees.

That is the lesson of Hanukkah: To proudly defy those who want the Jewish people to disappear into the dustbin of history.

Happy Hanukkah!

https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/12/04/hanukkah-a-stiff-necked-people-the-fight-for-sovereignty-and-against-assimilation/?fbclid=IwAR1YI8yj-BTGYcALfLDReU6JjrlZ294lUKcS5tZFP_M2wS4zMab4IL7yoc4

Governor Cuomo Gonna Keep The Agudath Israel and Avi (bull) Shick Busy!

 

New York State Assembly Introduces Bill Mandating COVID-19 Vaccine

New Yorkers will no longer get to decide if they will receive a COVID-19 vaccine if a bill calling for a mandatory vaccine gets approved.

New York State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat who represents New York’s 67th Assembly District, quietly introduced a bill on Dec. 4 that would require “COVID-19 vaccine to be administered in accordance with the department of health’s COVID-19 vaccination administration program and mandates vaccination in certain situations.”

Every New Yorker, except those medically exempt, are required to receive the vaccine if the state’s vaccination efforts do not achieve “sufficient immunity from COVID-19.”

Rosenthal told WGRZ-TV the bill was “a protective health measure” that would “ensure that our residents are safe and protected against further spread.”

But in an event where not enough people get vaccinated to reach herd immunity, “the department of health of the state can then say that we need people to get the vaccination.” Rosenthal explained that an estimated 75 percent to 80 percent of the population would need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity.

Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, described the legislation as inappropriate.

“It is inappropriate for public health officials and state legislators to be introducing legislation that mandates use of an experimental vaccine being considered for release under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA),” Fisher told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Until a COVID-19 vaccine is formally licensed by the FDA and recommended for use by certain populations by the CDC, it remains an experimental vaccine,” she said. “This kind of bill sends the wrong message to the public.”

The National Vaccine Information Center is a nonprofit organization that publishes “information on diseases and vaccine science, policy, law and the ethical principle of informed consent.”

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will meet with a panel of independent medical advisers that will discuss whether scientific evidence supports the view that Pfizer’s vaccine, called BNT162b2, is effective in preventing COVID-19 in people aged 16 and older, and if the known benefits outweigh potential risks. COVID-19 is the disease the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes.

The FDA released an analysis (pdf) of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine prior to its Dec. 10 meeting, along with Pfizer’s own analysis (pdf) of the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety, and says it will issue an emergency use authorization if the advisory panel gives the vaccine a positive recommendation.

In the UK, the government has already begun vaccinating its citizens. The country became the first to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, grant it an emergency approval, and give it immunity from civil lawsuits, under Regulation 345 of the Human Medicines Regulations (pdf) of 2012.

According to a press release from the UK government, individuals experiencing severe adverse reactions that cause them to be “severely disabled as a result of taking a COVID-19 vaccine” are able to “access financial assistance through the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS).”

Vaccine-injured claimants are entitled to a one-time payment of 120,000 pounds ($161,676) under the scheme if they are able to prove they were injured as a result of being vaccinated.

In the United States, vaccines granted emergency authorization are also not liable for the harm they may cause. The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act (pdf) allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a PREP Act declaration giving liability immunity to “entities and individuals involved in the development, manufacturing, testing, distribution, administration, and use of such countermeasures.”

People injured by vaccines that have been granted emergency authorization have one year after receiving a vaccine to file a claim and prove their injury under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, a federal government program established as a result of the PREP Act. Certain survivors of people who died from those vaccines also qualify.

The PREP Act declaration for COVID-19 (pdf) went into effect on Feb. 4.

If the New York mandatory COVID-19 vaccine bill is approved, the bill will take effect immediately.

“Informed consent to medical risk-taking is a human right. Legislators should not forget that when proposing bills that use coercion and apply sanctions to force citizens to use vaccines without their voluntary consent,” Fisher said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/new-york-state-assembly-introduces-bill-mandating-covid-19-vaccine_3610392.html

"Put On Your Yarmulka Here Comes Hannukah"

 

The Absolute Dumbest Hasidic Rebbe Alive Today --- Aron Teitelbaum From Satmar Comes in a Close Second! They Would Rather Their Pathetic Followers Take Welfare From Their Respective Governments!

Vizhnitzer Rebbe condemns advanced academic studies "Their underlying purpose is to implant ideas of heresy into our minds."

At a recent meeting of the Organization of Principals of Haredi Seminaries, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe expressed his strong opposition to haredi girls learning in university, likening advanced academic studies to the “Greek wisdom” that Torah sages have been traditionally opposed to throughout Jewish history, and asserting that the underlying purpose of introducing haredim to advanced university studies is to “implant ideas of heresy” into their minds.

 “We are now approaching the festival of Hanukkah, and as is known, one explanation for the Torah verse describing how the ‘earth was empty and formless and darkness was upon the face of the deep’ is that it refers to the rule of the Greek Empire, and the attempts of the Greeks to cloud the vision of the Jewish People via their decrees,” the Rebbe said. “Their sole desire was to teach the Jewish People their Greek wisdom and to separate them, G-d forbid, from the Torah of G-d. 

Therefore, we use a specific term that hints at this ‘darkness’ when we refer to their attempts to make us forget our connection to Torah, because being connected to G-d and His Torah comes from a place of light, whereas the opposite comes from darkness.” The Rebbe then linked his words to the current trend of university learning, saying, “I came here in order to arouse the listeners to the urgency of this matter of advanced academic studies which are forbidden, and indeed it should be obvious that such studies are in opposition to the wisdom of the holy Torah which enlightens mankind – they achieve the opposite effect and bring about only darkness.

 “Such is the situation today as well,” the Rebbe continued, “in their attempts to convince us with nice-sounding phrases and persuade us that this will enable us to earn a respectable income, and from there things just deteriorate.” Referring to the commonly made claim that having a degree enables a person to earn a higher income, the Rebbe said that given that this is accompanied by a decline in a person’s spiritual level, it should not be a matter for serious consideration, as “no G-d-fearing person wants his spiritual state to decline, regardless of possible material gains. “To our great distress,” he continued, “this is what we are seeing happen today, and I speak from personal experience from the many stories I have been told of the devastation wrought by advanced academic studies. A haredi Jew must know that he should not allow himself to be blinded by all these suggestions and vain promises whose underlying intent is to destroy him, G-d forbid.”

 The Rebbe furthermore stated that his opinion is that advanced academic studies are tangentially linked to the sin of idol worship, “because at first, they promise that the studies will be gender-segregated, but after completing a course, they suggest that in order to obtain a degree and advance still further, one must study in a mixed course, and from there things get worse and worse…” 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/292789

Grand Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum told his followers, “We are not Americans.”

 

WATCH VIDEO:

https://nypost.com/2020/12/07/nyc-synagogue-stopped-from-hosting-wedding-hosts-funeral/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

A Brooklyn synagogue that was stopped by the state before it could host a massive wedding in October finally succeeded on Monday in pulling off another potential super-spreader event — a jam-packed funeral.

The Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar went coronavirus rogue for the funeral of 94-year-old former chief Satmar judge Rabbi Yisroel Chaim Menashe Friedman — with up to an estimated 5,000 people cramming the house of worship at 152 Rodney St. in Williamsburg.

Bodies were pressed in on all sides and spilled out onto the sidewalk as just a fraction of the Hasidic crowd was seen wearing masks.

Five NYPD officers were seen standing nearby outside the house of worship — where a crowd of men and boys failed to socially distance, many also maskless or with their masks down around their necks.

“Normally, we would avoid having such a crowd unless it was for something very, very important. This was one of those times,’’ said an attendee whose first name is Lipa.

“This man was a giant,’’ he said of Friedman. “He was there from the beginning, when the community was rebuilding after the war. A very, very holy man. For someone like him, you couldn’t keep people from coming even if you wanted to.”

Another man at the service claimed that the community is immune to COVID-19 at this point — because virtually all of its members have already contracted it.

“Ask anybody here if they had COVID. They’ll say yes — and they won’t be lying,’’ the man said. “People from the outside, they don’t understand that. We’ve all had it.”

According to the CDC, even if a person has been infected and recovers from the virus, he or she may still be in danger of getting it again.

An organizer did announce in Yiddish just before the service that there were face masks available at the door, but hardly anyone donned masks inside.

Meanwhile, hours before the 12:30 p.m. funeral began, the synagogue held an event Sunday night — where maskless men packed around a dais as  --- Grand Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum told them, “We are not Americans.”

The rabbi  was commemorating the annual anniversary of legendary Satmar leader Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum’s escape from the Nazis on Dec. 7, 1944, during the Holocaust.

“We need to understand that we are in exile. We live here, but we are not Americans,” the younger Teitelbaum said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Teitelbaum also oversaw the funeral for Friedman.

The synagogue is the same place where Teitelbaum’s grandchild was set to be wed in a ceremony with 10,000 attendees in October — before Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office caught wind of the gathering and slapped a state order barring it from occurring.

New York currently allows “no more than 33% of the maximum occupancy for a particular area for [religious] services occurring indoors,’’ according to the state’s Web site. People who are not members of the same household must remain 6 feet apart.

A certificate of occupancy for the synagogue from the city Department of Buildings says it can hold 1,600 people max. 

In November, Teitelbaum’s rabbi brother, Aaron, pulled off a secret wedding with thousands of attendees a few blocks from his sibling’s temple in Williamsburg.

At the time, Mayor Bill de Blasio called the event “amazingly irresponsible’’ and levied $15,000 in fines against the synagogue.

"Tell Me Why You Cry and Why You Lie to Me....."

 

 Part of the retort of Agudath Israel lying without shame to the the Supreme Court:

 ......that the spread was “because of their religious practices.” App’x 310, 386.4And he emphasized that “[t]he micro-cluster we’re focusing on is the ultra-Orthodox communities” and that it is necessary to impose stringent restrictions on “these ultra-Orthodox communities, who are also very politically powerful.”5In his Opposition, the Governor has no serious defense for his repeated discriminatory statements, which show beyond dispute that he targeted the Orthodox Jewish community. The Governor simply ignores many discriminatory statements for which he has no possible answer. He does not even attempt to provide a neutral basis for his October 14 identification of Orthodox Jewish religious practices for targeting, stating “[w]ere now having issues in the Orthodox Jewish community in New York, where because of their religious practices, etc., we’re seeing a spread.” App’x 310, 386 (emphasis added). He likewise has no response for his October 9 comments when asked whether he planned to impose a “targeted fix” or “a more broader lockdown,” to which he responded unequivocally that “we have a couple of unique clusters, frankly, which are more religious organizations, and that’s what we’re targeting” and identified “the cluster [as] a predominately ultra-orthodox cluster.” October 9 Interview (emphasis added). The Governor’s statements that he believes the “religious practices” of “the Orthodox Jewish community” cause COVID-19 spread

 4See also https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-says-religious-practices-of-orthodox-jews-causing-virus-to-spread-in-new-york-city/. 5NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Conference Call Transcript October 14, rev.com (Oct. 14, 2020), https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/ny-gov-andrew-cuomo-conference-call-transcript-october-14/.

- 6 - and that he is “targeting” the “ultra-orthodox cluster” and “religious organizations” for restrictions thus stand unrebutted.

 READ THE LITANY OF LIES AND ASSURANCES TO THE SUPREME COURT:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20A90/161477/20201122083829884_Reply%20Brief%20iso%20Emergency%20Application%20for%20Writ%20of%20Injunction-FINAL.pdf
 

 MORE: https://boropark24.com/news/pidyon-haben-for-great-grandson-of-gaved-karlesburg

HALAKHIC ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMUNIZATION

 

 Before we specifically address the case, our discussion will touch on a number of issues:

 1. May one expose himself to the dangers of inoculation? 

2. Does the state have authority to immunize the populace? 

3. Is the physician or health authority obligated to warn the populace of the possible dangers of vaccination? 

4. If a direct cause-effect relationship between the injection and the disease has been statistically established, can the physician be held negligent for administering the first injection?

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD 

The halakhic principle forbidding one to place himself in danger is a double-edged sword; it obligates one to actively guard his health, yet at the same time limits the use of dangerous medications, medical experimentation, and unsubstantiated medical practices. The law determines that one may place himself in danger to avoid a greater one, only if the efficacy of the dangerous treatment has been adequately proven.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled that a dangerous medical practice is permissible only "when the doctors ascertain that at least half of the patients with this disease were cured by this remedy.

 In certain instances one may endanger or even forfeit his life. For example, Rabbi Unterman noted that while no explicit permission is found in the Mishneh Torah or Shulhan Arukh for one to voluntarily give his life to save the community, nonetheless, he concluded that such action is permissible. Many have discussed this issue in context of war and concluded that wartime dangers are unlike other dangers; halakhah rules that endangering oneself to fight for Israel is not only permissible, but is a great mitzvah and privilege. The question facing us is: Does the duty to avoid danger obligate administering vaccines that will definitely harm a given percent of the population in order to save the majority from disease; or does this duty forbid use of these vaccines due to the inevitable damage caused to the few?

 

A VERY IMPORTANT READ FOR OUR CHALLENGING TIMES:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54694fa6e4b0eaec4530f99d/t/5cacfc68c830256c3b25acb0/1554840682154/HALAKHIC+ATTITUDES+TOWARD+IMMUNIZATION.pdf