Behind the Birth of an Anti-Vaccine Story A 24-year-old’s sudden death devastated his family — and caught the attention of the movement of vaccine opponents.

George Watts Sr. with a photograph of his son, George Watts Jr., who died in October 2021. George Jr.’s cause of death was documented as Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis.

Before he received his second shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, there was little reason to think that George Watts Jr. was about to die.

He was 24 and showed no obvious health problems. His family said he lived cautiously. He spent most of his time playing video games in his room at his parents’ house in Elmira, a city in south-central New York.

That is where he was when he collapsed on Oct. 27, 2021.

George Jr.’s mother, Kathy, called 911 and started C.P.R. Paramedics rushed him to the emergency room, where doctors pronounced him dead.

What happened?

To the family, the answer was instantly obvious. “I blame that damn Covid vaccine,” Ms. Watts said in the hospital’s waiting room after learning her son had died, according to her husband, George Watts Sr.

The medical examiner at a New York hospital reached a similar conclusion, adding more specifics: The cause of death, he wrote, was “Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis,” an uncommon and often mild condition involving inflammation of the heart. It can develop when the body battles viruses, responds to certain vaccines, or nearly a dozen other reasons. Multiple studies say the condition can develop in some people, particularly young men, who receive a Covid-19 vaccine.

Before long, news of George Jr.’s death ricocheted around the internet, transforming the family’s tragedy into a powerful anecdote inside anti-vaccine communities. It was shared as an urgent warning about vaccine dangers on online forums, podcasts and Facebook groups. The Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit founded by the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., contacted the Watts family and solicited donations for the organization off their name.

To vaccine opponents, George Jr.’s case delivered an unambiguous life-or-death warning: Don’t believe what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells you. Vaccines can kill, and here was all the proof anyone needed.

As those claims spread online, many medical experts started raising questions about the story. Myocarditis could have been the culprit, they said, but it was difficult to conclude that the vaccine was the cause — especially without further examination of George Jr.’s body. That is now impossible. His body was cremated.

The C.D.C. received specimens from George Jr.’s autopsy and is finalizing a pathology report, according to the New York State Department of Health. The agency has not released any information publicly, citing privacy concerns.

Those outstanding questions, however, have not stopped activists, radio hosts and disinformation peddlers from declaring unambiguously that George Jr.’s death resulted from his Covid-19 vaccination, and painted myocarditis as an automatic death sentence instead of a typically mild condition. And they are reaching a growing audience.

A Young Man Gets Vaccinated

The New York Times conducted dozens of interviews over several months for this article — including with the Watts family; the coroner’s office in Bradford County, Pa., which reviewed the case; and myocarditis experts, pathologists, lawyers and doctors who have reviewed details about George Jr.’s case.

When George Sr. talks about his son, a few things stand out. George Jr. was an avowed homebody, spending so much time at home that he planned to live there forever. He was so careful that he cringed at the thought of running a yellow light in the car.

He hoped to transform his passion for video games into a career by enrolling in community college in nearby Corning for computer science. The pandemic derailed much of his campus experience, and his grades were slipping heading into his last semester because of remote learning. He thought getting back to the classroom could turn things around.

But first, he needed to be vaccinated — a requirement for students at the school, run by the State University of New York.

His parents did not trust the vaccine. George Sr. believed it had been developed too quickly.

George Jr. had avoided the vaccine earlier in 2021 when it had received emergency-use authorization. He received his first dose on Aug. 27, 2021, four days after the Food and Drug Administration gave it its full approval.

Shortly after receiving his second dose, on Sept. 17, George Jr. started feeling pain in his heels, according to medical records and his father’s account. By early October, his fingers started going numb, and he had difficulty holding onto objects.

By mid-October, his father was so concerned that he drove him to the emergency room. Among other things, George Jr. had the markers of an upper respiratory infection: sinus congestion, a sore throat and a cough. An X-ray showed no abnormalities or fluid in his lungs, according to a summary of the visit from the coroner’s report. He said he didn’t have chest pain or shortness of breath, according to the coroner’s investigation, two common symptoms among myocarditis patients.

Doctors diagnosed him with a sinus infection and bronchitis and prescribed antibiotics. He also started taking NyQuil.

A week later, George Jr. was rushed back to the emergency room after coughing so much that he started vomiting. Doctors found no obvious lung problems, his heart wasn’t enlarged, and there were no signs of cardiac issues, according to the coroner’s report.

If there were clear signs of myocarditis, doctors would most likely have monitored George Jr. and prescribed drugs, like blood pressure medications, beta blockers or corticosteroids.

Eight days after his emergency room visit, George Jr. collapsed and died. His body was transported 40 minutes east, to Binghamton, for an autopsy at Lourdes Hospital.

The medical examiner at Lourdes found that the heart muscle, the myocardium, was losing some of its strength and sagging. Parts of the heart, when examined under a microscope, were inflamed. Both are clues that point toward myocarditis.

Soon after the government authorized Covid vaccines for the public, myocarditis became a flashpoint for health officials and vaccine opponents.

Myocarditis sometimes interferes with the heart’s function, interrupting electrical signals and causing chest pain, an irregular heartbeat and, in extremely rare cases, cardiac arrest.

It is well established that the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna slightly increase the risk of developing myocarditis, especially in young men who receive two or more doses. The overall numbers are small — there were 224 verified cases of myocarditis among vaccinated children and young adults in the United States from late 2020 to mid-2022, out of the nearly seven million vaccine doses that were administered, according to one study. Most patients recover from the condition after at least 90 days, according to another study published in late 2022.

Doctors concluded the benefits from getting vaccinated far outweighed the risks. Their views were supported by the finding that myocarditis was significantly more likely to develop after a Covid-19 infection than from the vaccine, according to a report from 2021.

Deaths tied to the vaccine are extremely rare. Worldwide, there are a few known myocarditis deaths among vaccinated individuals, among hundreds of millions who received a shot.

Partly in response to myocarditis risks, the C.D.C. has changed its guidelines, increasing the amount of time boys and men from 12 to 39 years old should wait between their first and second vaccine dose — eight weeks, up from three to four weeks.

Yet the agency also continues to say that no one has died from Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis.

An Anti-Vaccine Story Takes Off

Almost as soon as Covid vaccines were approved in Washington, concerns about myocarditis started fueling claims from anti-vaccine activists. Fears that the vaccine would kill scores of Americans trended repeatedly on social media under the ominous hashtag #DiedSuddenly.

Prominent celebrity deaths helped the idea gain traction. Vaccine opponents said Lisa Marie Presley died in January from myocarditis after getting vaccinated, though an autopsy later found she died of a bowel obstruction. The deaths of Bob Saget and Betty White, two actors, and DMX, a rapper, spurred similar claims. None of those deaths were linked to the Covid vaccine.

Elon Musk, the owner of X, also suggested vaccine-related myocarditis was to blame after Bronny James, a son of the basketball star LeBron James, fell ill in July. Doctors later pointed to Mr. James’s congenital heart defect as the culprit.

Yet in the case of George Jr.’s death, vaccine opponents had one piece of concrete evidence: a death certificate that placed the blame squarely on the vaccine.

After his son’s death, George Sr. turned to Facebook, broadcasting details about his son’s story and posting images of the coroner’s report. His language was so forceful that Facebook temporarily limited his ability to post.

“I want to say how much I love and miss my son George J everyday that goes by it hurts us even more,” he wrote on Facebook. “I would give up my soul to get him back, that is what I’m willing to give up my afterlife just to have him here again.”

George Watts Sr. wears a bracelet commemorating his son George Jr.’s life.

Noticing that George Jr.’s story could yield some political influence, a collection of anti-vaccine influencers sought out the Watts family, introducing them to large platforms and even larger goals.

Shannon Joy, a radio and podcast host in Rochester, brought George Sr. onto her show for an hourlong interview in which they both shared concerns about vaccines.

“It is so hard for people to stand up and tell their stories of people who were maimed and tragically killed by Covid-19 vaccines,” Ms. Joy said during the show. “But we need to see the people. We need to hear their stories.”

In her mind, George Jr.’s case “got to the truth” about vaccines despite pushback from mysterious forces.

Children’s Health Defense, the group founded by Mr. Kennedy, approached the Watts family, kick-starting a relationship that resulted in a long-shot lawsuit brought by the Watts family and C.H.D. against the Defense Department, which had overseen the vaccine’s development under Operation Warp Speed. The lawsuit claimed the department had used George Jr. as “an unwitting guinea pig” in a “mass human experiment.” The group also started fund-raising in George Jr.’s name. (The Defense Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in September.)

Ms. Joy had also informed George Sr. about a website that showed that George Jr.’s vaccine batch was “toxic,” a claim that was based on misleading data. Soon he learned a lot more about Covid-19 conspiracy theories.

His wife, Kathy, shared a TikTok video with him claiming that Covid-19 is caused by snake venom — a conspiracy theory that was gaining popularity at the time.

“It affects the heart,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last year at a hotel restaurant in Elmira, near the prison where he works as a guard. “And then they put it in the vaccines and they’re putting it in water you drink.”

He also heard that hospitals were trying to euthanize Covid-19 patients by putting them on ventilators.

“Do I believe that? I don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know what to believe anymore.”

Doctors Raise Doubts

As claims about George Jr.’s death spread online, they made their way into the medical community and provoked questions among doctors who doubted the simple explanation offered by the medical examiner.

What stood out to several doctors was what happened in the rest of George Jr.’s body. Some said it raised more questions about his cause of death.

When George Jr.’s spleen was removed during autopsy, the medical examiner found it remarkably enlarged. It weighed 1,350 grams. A typical spleen weighs around 200 grams. This can happen if the body is showing symptoms of heart failure for months. But the examiner gave no explanation.

His kidney was also damaged, showing both inflammation and dead tissue. His lungs showed late-stage pneumonia. His brain showed chronic inflammation.

Autopsy tools at the Bradford County morgue in Wysox, Pa.

 

“It’s like the whole immune system was just revved up everywhere,” said Dr. James Gill, the chief medical examiner for Connecticut and former president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, who wrote a paper exploring two other deaths he linked to Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis and reviewed details about the case.

Even more alarming was the condition of George Jr.’s prostate gland, which was yellow in places and partially necrotic, meaning partially dead. That could explain the blood found in his urine during his emergency room visits.

Dr. Elizabeth Murray, a pediatrician from nearby Rochester who heard George Jr.’s story circulating in the local medical community, was skeptical about the medical examiner’s conclusions. If he “is going to say myocarditis due to the vaccine, then why isn’t he also saying kidney damage due to the vaccine? And lung damage and brain damage and prostate damage due to the vaccine?” she said. “None of that was listed.”

The Lourdes Hospital medical examiner’s office said it did not comment on cases. Since the C.D.C. has not publicized any details of George Jr.’s case, the coroner’s report and autopsy records are the best synopsis of his case.

“I would have no problem putting myocarditis on the death certificate as the cause of death,” said Dr. Mary Jumbelic, a retired forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner of Onondaga County, N.Y., who agreed to review details about the case. “But the leap here is the conclusion that it’s vaccine-related.”

The report being prepared by the C.D.C. could shed more light on George Jr.’s death. If they agree with the medical examiner, George Jr.’s death could become the first that the department has tied to vaccine-related myocarditis in the United States. If they disagree, it could offer more clarity about what happened to George Jr.

George Sr. said he would find no comfort in any new details that would point to causes other than the vaccine.

“I still got the reports that tell otherwise,” he said. “They’re not going to come knock on my door and try to take it from me. I won’t let that happen.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/technology/covid-anti-vaccine.html

In Your Face -- Outright Fraud!

 

The Rambam famously held that sorcery was mere deception, which the Torah forbids in order
to keep the Jewish people from foolishness. He wrote – All these matters are lies and deception that the original idolaters used to fool the non-Jewish nations to follow after them. It is not fitting for Israel, who are wise Sages, to be drawn after this nonsense, nor to imagine that there is any benefit to them.Whoever believes in these types of practices and considers that they are true and wise, but theTorah simply forbade them, is foolish and lacking intelligence. (Hilchot Avoda Zara 11:16). As certain as the Rambam was in stating his position, he was virtually the only
one among the great Sages throughout the generations to deny any truth or reality to these forbidden spiritual practices.

READ:

https://jewishclarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Segulot-Parts1-6.pdf

Da'as Torah May Not Be the Answer: But What is the Question?

 The Totality Of The Abuse of  Power - A Brief History - IGNORANCE! 

 

 

On Friday March 13, 2020, as the coronavirus was beginning to ravage Israel’s Haredi community, R. Hayyim Kanievsky, the 92-year old acknowledged leader of the so-called Lithuanian Haredim, issued an open letter “Regarding the concern of transmission of the Corona Virus Pandemic.” “Everyone,” he wrote, “must be mechazek [strengthen themselves] to refrain from Lashon Harah [gossip] and rechilus [slander] as it states in [Talmud] Arachin 15b…They must further strengthen themselves in the midah [attribute] of humility and to be maavir al midosav [let matters pass, that is, not take umbrage] as the pirush  haRosh [commentary of the Rosh] on the side of the page says explicitly in the end of [Talmud]Horios…And the merit of one who strengthens himself in these prescriptions will protect him and his family members so that not one of them will become ill.” [i] He said nothing about social distancing, or any other orders that might have emanated from the medical community.

The following night, Motzei Shabbat March 14, Rav Kanievsky’s grandson asked his grandfather (in Hebrew) whether Cheders (elementary schools) and Yeshivot should remain open. The grandson said that the “Medineh,” that is, the Israeli government, was warning that schools should remain closed until there was a way to deal with what he called the mageifeh   (plague). R. Kanievsky, mumbled something that was not entirely audible. The grandson then said, “so the cheders should remain open?” and R. Kanievsky nodded his assent. The grandson then followed up with “and the yeshivot should remain open too?” Again the Rav agreed. The grandson never mentioned medical advice, and the rabbi never asked.

Despite personal pleas the next day from top police officials, who did refer to medical opinion,  R. Kanievsky, together with R. Gershon Edelstein, the Rosh Yeshiva (Dean) of the famed Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnai Beraq and chairman of Aguda’s Mo’etzses Gedolei Hatorah (Council of Torah Greats) issued an open letter that called for Haredi schools at all levels to remain open though it did acknowledge the need for certain precautions. The letter began with a clarion call that no Haredi was likely to ignore:

“In a time when we are in grave need of great heavenly mercy to maintain the health of our nation, certainly it is proper to strengthen ourselves in the study of Torah, to be careful in committing slander (Lashon HaRah and Rechilus), and to strengthen ourselves in humility and to judge everyone favorably….Our sages have already stated (Yuma 28b), “Since the days of our forefathers, the Yeshivos have never ceased [to be active] from them.  They further stated (Shabbos 119b):  The world only exists on account of the sounds of children in the house of their Rebbe [yeshivos].  They are the greatest insurance possible that the destroyer not enter into the homes of Israel [my emphasis].”

The letter then made some allowances for the reality of the epidemic, calling for schools and yeshivot to split up students; ensure “that there is adequate space between person [social distancing – recommended at 2 meters” and that “classrooms and Batei Midrashim [study halls] be properly ventilated; and to appoint supervisors [Mashgichim] to maintain the proper level of cleanliness as a health necessity.” It also called upon educators to ensure that no one who was meant to be under quarantine, or had a family member under quarantine, was to enter the Beit Midrash.

The two rabbinical leaders then observed that “This is all from the perspective of an understood precondition to the action [of attending school or Yeshiva]. The Roshei Yeshiva [Deans] and the administrators of the Talmud Torahs (and Yeshivos) must be on guard to ensure compliance.” The letter did not specify whether “compliance” meant compliance with health regulations, or compliance with the directive to keep the yeshivot open. The letter then concluded with the admonition that “we must have faith in the Holy One Blessed Be He who watches over all His creations, and no man is stricken by a calamity if it was not decreed from Above.  And may the merit of Torah and all that strengthen us stand for us as protection and salvation.”[ii]

The letter prompted a major outcry over the danger into which the aged rabbi and his Ponevezh colleague had placed youngsters and their families and led to his reversal two weeks later. By then, however, considerable damage may have been done. Though it was unknown, indeed unknowable to what extent his ruling resulted in more coronavirus carriers and more Covid-19 deaths in Bnai Beraq, Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhoods, and other Haredi enclaves such as Beitar Ilit, there was little doubt that the letter had added to the roster of both carriers and death.

It was also reported that Kupat Ha’ir, a charity based in Bnai Beraq that raises funds by offering to have young Haredi scholars pray at the kotel for all sorts of personal requests made by the donors, was advertising, in R. Kanievsky’s name, that donors who paid the shekel equivalent of $836 would “enjoy immunity from the coronavirus for themselves and their families.”[iii] This appeal for funds simply reinforced the intent of R. Kanievsky’s original edict of 13 March.

On April 20, shortly after the conclusion of Pesach, it was reported that R. Kanievsky had ordered the schools and yeshivot once again to open their doors but that R. Edelstein had put a hold on its publication. The latter denied that was the case, however, and instead, the two rabbis issued a second letter that revealed their impatience, warning that  if there will not be a response [to reopen the Yeshivot] and the foot dragging continues without real progress, the great Torah sages [of Agudah] will consider drastic action.”[iv]

Meanwhile the virus continued to rage in Israel generally, and among the Haredim in particular. Though Haredim accounted for perhaps 12 percent of the Israeli population, it was estimated that they accounted for as much as 50 percent of all hospital beds in the country. No wonder that R. Kanievsky’s edicts in response to the country’s health crisis prompted outrage among Israel’s non-Haredi elements.

At long last, in recognition of the depth of the crisis confronting the Haredi community no less than the entire Israeli population, the two rabbinic leaders, acting with the government’s consent, appointed a special task force consisting of  two younger rabbinic leaders, R. Shraga Shteinman, son of R. Kanievsky’s predecessor as leader of the “Lithuanian” Haredim, R. Aryeh Lev Shteinman (and R. Kanievsky’s son-in-law), and R. Baruch Dov Diskin, scion of another leading Haredi rabbinic family, together with Dr. Meshulam Hirt, “the Gedolim’s physician,” to examine ways to reopen schools in compliance with government directives. The task force issued its initial guidance on May 3, recommending that higher elementary grades and above could reopen under strict conditions mandated by the government. R. Kanievsky endorsed the task force recommendations.

For Haredim, Rav Kanievsky’s views were not merely the opinions of a wise leader. They were Da’as Torah[v] and thus had the imprimatur of the Divine.[vi] At a minimum, it was asserted in some quarters that if the rabbi had erred—and no one would dare say that he had—it was because he was so enmeshed in his studies that he did not fully realize the extent of the threat that the virus posed to Israeli society.

The problem, however, was not with R. Kanievsky’s initial responses. It was with the way the matter had been put to him.

Haredim and “The Medinah”

After 72 years of existence as a state, a consequential portion of the Haredi community has yet to recognize the reality of what they term “the Medinah.” Nothing has changed since 1912, when Yaakov Rosenheim convened the first Agudas Yisrael conference in Kattowitz (Katowice), then part of Germany, in no small part as a reaction to a decision by the Tenth Zionist Congress not to fund religious schools. Rosenheim envisaged Agudah as an umbrella organization for all religious Jews. While he never fully realized his dream, the organization did emerge as a major locus for opposition to Zionism. Not coincidentally, Da’as Torah also became enshrined in the Agudas Yisrael platform. Indeed, Agudah created a Council of Torah Giants (Mo’etses Gedolei HaTorah), whose pronouncements on all matters, whether Halachic or secular, were treated as authoritative and binding upon all religious Jews. And the Council was overwhelmingly anti-Zionist.

During the First World War, when Germany occupied parts of Russian Poland, leading German rabbis, notably Rabbi Dr. Emmanuel Carlebach, coordinated their activities with the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, one of the most prominent Hasidic leaders. Like the German rabbis, and indeed, Hasidic admorim (Grand Rabbis) of all stripes, R. Alter was hostile not only to secular Zionism, but also to religious Zionism, which was organized under the umbrella of the Mizrahi movement.

The Agudah leadership allied itself with the representatives of the so-called “Old Yishuv,” the long-standing Haredi community of Palestine, most of whose members resided in the older districts of Jerusalem and Tsefat. These Jews were violently opposed to the influx of Zionist settlers into what after 1918 became a British mandate. Not surprisingly, the Agudah leadership aligned itself with the leaders of the Old Yishuv who in 1937 testified before the British Peel Commission in opposition to the creation of a Jewish State.

Needless to say, Agudah invoked Da’as Torah in its opposition to Zionism and the notion of a Jewish State. In so doing, it was claiming heavenly support for what was essentially a political position. This was  consistent with the view, articulated by R. Yisroel Meir Kagan, best known as  Hofetz Hayyim, and subsequent rabbinic leaders such as  the late Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirer yeshiva, R. Nosson Zvi Finkel that Da’as Torah was as binding with respect to non-Halakhic matters as to Halakhic ones. As R. Finkel put it, “when a great man offers either advice or a ruling, Emunas Hakhamim [belief in the Sages][vii] mandates that one can neither hesitate nor doubt. This is Da’as Torah and this is how it should be.”[viii]

Agudah had no choice but to come to terms with the Jewish state once its leaders declared its independence in 1948. There was a sense among Haredim, as among some secular Jews, however, that the State would not survive more than a decade or at most fifteen years,[ix] but for the moment, Agudah felt it had no choice but to transform itself into an Israeli political party. Nevertheless, in so doing it did not relinquish its refusal to come to terms with the secular state. It refused to join government coalitions, or to allow its representatives to hold ministerial posts, though through a sleight-of-hand ruling, the Council of Torah Greats permitted Agudah’s representatives in the Knesset to serve as Deputy Ministers. These men often acted as de facto ministers, and in some “emergency” cases, held full ministerial portfolios.

Agudah’s participation in Israeli political affairs did not extend to other aspects of Israeli society, however, particularly army service. The Haredi leadership viewed the army’s secular, assimilationist orientation as the leading threat both to its values and to its control of the community. Thanks to an agreement between Agudah’s acknowledged leader, R. Abraham Isaiah Karelitz, popularly known by the title of his works as Hazon Ish, and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion , yeshiva students were exempted from service in the Israeli Defense Forces. The agreement enabled Haredi leaders to maintain at least some semblance of a wall between their adherents and the rest of Israeli society, and to underscore their fundamental and principled opposition to what they termed “the Medinah.” It is in the context of this opposition that R. Kanievsky’s edict must be seen.

The Mantle of Haredi Leadership

Not all Haredim are anti-Zionist. In 1984 the great Sephardi leader R. Ovadia Yosef led his followers out of the main Ashkenazi Haredi political parties, and created the Shas Party with its own Council of Torah Sages (Motetset Hakhmei HaTorah). Shas displayed a more sympathetic attitude toward the state, including having its Knesset members serve as full ministers in the government.

Even among Ashkenazi Haredim, however, there is no common stance vis a vis “the Medineh.”  Although they share a common antipathy to Zionism, Haredi leadership is not vested solely in Agudah’s Council of Torah Greats. In particular, the Eidah Haredis, successors to the Old Yishuv, is far more vociferously, and far too often violently, opposed to the Jewish State. Moreover, whereas the majority of Haredi yeshivot do not hesitate to receive financial support from the State’s coffers, some –such as the Brisker yeshiva, following the leadership of its late dean, R. Yosef Zev Soloveichik—refuse to take any state funds. Nevertheless, whatever their differences, the vast majority of Ashkenazim look to a single leader for guidance, Da’as Torah, on major political and social issues.  Until his passing, Hazon Ish was that leader.

Hazon Ish rose to his position of prominence on the passing in 1940 of his brother-in-law, R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski, who had in turn succeeded Hofetz Hayyim as the acknowledged leader of the Lithuanian Haredi world. Familial ties among the Lithuanian Haredi leadership continue to this day: R. Kanievsky was not only a student of the Hazon Ish, but also his nephew.  And, as has been noted, R. Shraga Shteinmann, whom R. Kanievsky appointed to the coronavirus task force, is the latter’s son-in-law.

 At 93, R. Kanievsky represents the tendency of the Lithuanian Haredim to recognize as supreme leaders of the movement nonogenarians or even centenarians. Thus, R. Kanievski’s predecessor, R. Aryeh Yehuda Leib Shteinman was niftar (passed away) in 2017 at the age of 103, while his own predecessor, R. Sholom Yisef Elyashiv died at the age of 102. R. Elyashiv’s predecessor, R. Elazar Menachem Man Shach, likewise was 102 when he was niftar.

Is the problem the answer, the question, or the system?

The Torah teaches that Moses was as much in control of all his faculties on the day he died at the age of 120, as when he was a much younger man. That is not necessarily the case with other older persons, even if they are great scholars. It is arguable that by the time they reach their nineties, even leading Halakhic experts may have lost half a mental step. They might comprehend what is being asked of them, indeed, their replies may reflect their decades of Torah knowledge. Nevertheless, they may not have the mental acuity to probe all facets of whatever issue is brought before them, as they may have been able to do as recently as a decade earlier.

It is well known that Haredi leaders surround themselves—or are surrounded by—men who are collectively known as askanim. In the words of R. David Stav, leader of the moderate Orthodox Tzohar movement, askanim are “a small group of Haredi askanim who, because of their own personal interests, make Judaism and Haredi society hateful to Israelis." [x] R. Dov Lipman, an American-born moderate Haredi who served for a period as a Knesset member, outlined the power of these men:

“The issue of the gedolim Torah greats] is very largely the askanim who surround them…Askanim are the community activists and assistants who normally surround the leading rabbis and act as a buffer between them and the communities they lead. They [Torah greats] are totally controlled by people around them and that’s the biggest problem….[xi]”

These askanim clearly take advantage of elderly rabbis, putting questions to them in much the same way as pollsters with a particular political bias will put questions to their respondents. Not surprisingly, manipulative questioners will elicit pronouncements that are in line with what they want to hear. And since those pronouncements have the force of unchallengeable law for the Haredi community, they are in effect empowering their questioners to ride roughshod over that community.

This appears to have been the case when R. Kanievsky’s grandson, with one of the askanim standing over his shoulder, asked his grandfather whether yeshivot and elementary cheders should remain open. He did not explain clearly that not just the “Medineh,” but doctors had argued for such closures. Had he done so, R. Kanievsky would immediately have recognized that the issue was one of pikuach nefesh, saving lives. Without a doubt, had R. Kanievsky been asked whether schools should be closed to save lives, his answer would have been in the affirmative. After all, Halakha is unambiguous with respect to this issue; indeed, Halakha posits that even the remote possibility of life being endangered justifies violating the Torah.[xii] Indeed, once R. Kanievsky fully fathomed the severity of the crisis, he did call upon a trusted doctor, along with respected Haredi rabbis, to devise an approach that satisfied both the requirement to maintain safety and the objective of studying Torah. It was the word “Medineh” that had acted as a red flag to the aged rabbi and prompted his initial response.

The Challenge for the Haredi world

Modern Orthodox Jews do not recognize Da’as Torah outside the bounds of Halakha. They look to specialists, for example in the military or medical realms, for guidance on purely secular issues. They justify their attitude both because rabbinic greats ranging from R. Joseph B. Soloveichik to R. Ovadia  Yosef took this view, and because Da’as Torah has been on the wrong side of Jewish history in multiple occasions, failing the Jewish people at critical times in the recent past. These include opposing immigration to America or Israel when it was still possible before the invasion of Poland; opposition to the creation of the State of Israel; and opposition to public demonstrations to free Soviet Jewry. For the Modern Orthodox, therefore, Haredi rulings concerning responses to the coronavirus epidemic had little impact.

Moreover, not all Haredi leaders are as closed to the outside world, and therefore as vulnerable to askanim. The recently departed Novominsker Rebbe, R.  Yaakov Perlow, who died due to the coronavirus, graduated with honors from Brooklyn College![xiii] A group of Hasidic admorim and rabbonim residing in Boro Park, Brooklyn and led by R. Perlow, issued a proclamation on the eve of Pesach outlining the importance of maintaining government restrictions even at the cost of hallowed Passover traditions.

On the other hand, as noted at the outset of this essay, contrary pronouncements by Haredi rabbinic leaders have had a devastating effect on the community. Indeed, the outsized impact of the coronavirus on the Haredi population has affected all Israelis, since Haredim occupy a disproportionate percentage of hospital beds. The community, whether in Israel, the United States or elsewhere therefore needs to re-evaluate how to structure its leadership. In particular, if it will continue to treat the words of aged leaders as inviolable law it must take steps to rid itself of the scourge of askanim. The lesson of Israel’s hospital bed crisis is that doing so not only will enhance the welfare of Haredim, but will also redound to the benefit of the Jewish community as a whole.

 

https://www.jewishideas.org/article/daas-torah-may-not-be-answer-what-question

If Any Of Those Brave Agudath Israel "leaders" Children Or Family's Remains Were Tossed In Garbage Bags After Being Mutilated, Burned Alive, Raped, Tortured.. Would They Pontificate From Their Comfortable Offices If You Are Pemitted To Attend A Rally Supporting "Acheinu Kall Bais Yisroel B'Chol Makom V'matzav Ruchni Sheheim"?

 

Expert in ancient DNA and wildlife forensics helps identify Oct. 7 massacre victims

 

Hebrew University Prof. Gila Kahila Bar-Gal uses her knowledge of difficult DNA extraction and physical anthropology as she volunteers at Abu Kabir

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  Prof. Gila Kahila Bar-Gal assisting with DNA extraction and amplification at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir), November 2023. (Courtesy)
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  Charred bone shards are all that remain of some of the victims of the mass murderous attack by Hamas on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023. Scientists and anthropologists examine and try to extract DNA from them for identification purposes at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa, October 16, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
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  A charred bone shard from an unidentified victim of the mass murderous attack by Hamas on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 is examined at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa, October 16, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
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  Human remains of victims of the mass murderous attack by Hamas on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 await advanced examination at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa, October 16, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
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  Forensic medicine staff examine the unidentified decomposed body of a victim of the mass murderous attack by Hamas on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa, October 16, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

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Professor Gila Kahila Bar-Gal hasn’t worked in her lab at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for nearly two months. Instead, has been volunteering at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) on an assignment she never imagined having.

Bar-Gal, whose research focuses on interpreting DNA from archeological samples and on wildlife forensics, has lent her expertise to efforts to arrive at the identification of the overwhelming amount of human remains brought to Abu Kabir since October 7.

That Saturday, Hamas breached the border with Israel and brutally attacked over 20 Israeli communities, murdering more than 1,200 people and taking some 240 Israelis and foreign nationals hostage to Gaza. The devastating attack sparked an ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Headed by Dr. Nurit Bublil, Abu Kabir’s lab is responsible for extracting DNA profiles to be used in identifying all the dead from October 7. In many cases, this has been extremely difficult because of the degraded condition of the remains.

Bar-Gal is familiar with DNA that is hard to extract, sequence or genotype. However, she is dealing with different circumstances at Abu Kabir.

“I usually work also with DNA from archeological and museum samples. When you deal with ancient samples, the quality and quantity of DNA in the specimen is very low,” Bar-Gal said.

Prof. Gila Kahila Bar-Gal working in her lab at the Hebrew University

In the case of the October 7 victims, the age of the bones is not the challenge. Rather, it’s the fact that the terrorists set homes and bodies on fire, resulting in burned remains.

“The remains of the victims varied, including burned samples. The problem is the lack of presence of DNA in samples that were exposed to high temperatures like that,” Bar-Gal explained.

Before volunteering at Abu Kabir, Bar-Gal reached out to the Division of Identification and Forensic Science of the Israel Police, and the IDF.

“I called both the police and the IDF the night of October 7. I had collaborated with or done pro bono work for them before and offered to help,” Bar-Gal said.

“They said they didn’t need me at that point, so I thought of Dr. Bublil, whom I had met before, and called her. She told me my assistance would be very welcome,” she said.

Prof. Gila Kahila Bar-Gal of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Bar-Gal’s skill at extracting and amplifying DNA to arrive at a profile for comparison for police and other databases adds value to the efforts at Abu Kabir. Her experience in forensics and preparing evidence for use in court are also critical to arriving at identifications that everyone can rely on as 100 percent accurate.

She also brings to the table her knowledge from her position as director of the National Natural History Collections at Hebrew University, along with her background in physical anthropology and ability to morphologically identify human and non-human bones.

Bar-Gal does most of her work in Abu Kabir’s molecular forensic lab, but it is not unusual for her to be called to the dissection room.

“I consult with the doctors and anthropologists there about which bone — and which part of it — would be best for sampling for DNA analysis,” she said.

Anthropologists at the National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) attempt to put together the bones of unidentified victims of the October 7, 2023 mass murderous Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities. Jaffa, October 16, 2023. (Renee Ghert-Zand/Times of Israel)

 

When bags of bones come in, the physical anthropologists lay the bones and shards out to try to piece together partial or whole skeletons. Bar-Gal sometimes helps them with their work to maximize the chances that DNA is extracted from bones from different individuals.

“The goal is to find the minimum number of individuals from a bag of remains brought in. If you have full bones or the indicative parts of bones, it is somewhat easier. But if you have small pieces of bones, sometimes it’s very difficult,” Bar-Gal said.

Bar-Gal shared that the only way for her to get through this experience at Abu Kabir is to look at the remains only as specimens. To do anything else would make it impossible to do the work. She finds this especially so when dealing with bones that she knows to have belonged to juveniles.

As hard as she tries to maintain an emotional distance, she was once a member of one of the attacked kibbutzim and knows people from others. Her personal background has provided challenging moments.

“The first week I got remains to sample, they were labeled with names and locations. It was very difficult. Since then, I’m only getting bags with numbers, so I don’t know where they are from, which is better,” she said.

The destroyed Calderon family home, Kibbutz Nir Oz, October 30, 2023. 

 

There are still at least 10 missing or unidentified individuals from the October 7 massacre, and families have expressed their anger at the lack of clarity about the fate of their loved ones. In some cases, families were told that their loved ones were held hostage in Gaza, only to learn that they were actually dead following the delayed retrieval of their remains from the field or identification in the lab — or both.

“Families have expressed their impatience since the very beginning, but what they need to understand is that this is not like CSI and other TV series where they work on a sample and get a DNA profile in 45 minutes. It takes much longer,” Bar-Gal said.

“Just the stage of extracting the DNA from the sample takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Then that has to be in some buffers for two days to extract the DNA before amplifying it to reach a profile. The whole process takes a minimum of three to four days,” she said.

The process can be frustrating for the scientists too, as sometimes it proves unsuccessful. Bar-Gal said there were instances where she had to extract samples from the same bone three or four times.

Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine near Tel Aviv

On some occasions, bones are tested and all turn out to have belonged to the same person despite best efforts by her and the physical anthropologists to prevent this from happening. Families must also face the fact that as time goes on, remains become more degraded and the identification process becomes harder, if not impossible.

“It could be that we will not be able to identify everyone, but we keep trying. We are not giving up on sampling and trying to reach answers,” Bar-Gal said.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/expert-in-ancient-dna-and-wildlife-forensics-helps-identify-oct-7-massacre-victims/?utm_campaign=daily-edition-2023-12-11&utm_medium=email&utm_source=The+Daily+Edition

The Energizer Idiots Keep Giving & Giving....The Same Group Who Said It Was Forbidden To Go To America And Israel During The Holocaust....But Most Escaped In Middle Of The Night And Left Their Kehillas For Dead...

 

How the Israel-Hamas war exposed a rift in Haredi Orthodox Judaism

 

Some Haredi leaders disparaged the DC rally for Israel. The backlash has been fierce

 

Demonstrators gather on Nov. 14, 2023 at the national March for Israel in Washington, D.C.

When the question about the rally finally came, Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky chuckled. “I had a hunch that that might come up, for some reason,” he said.

Lopiansky, the head of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, was seated on a panel this weekend at the annual convention held by Agudath Israel of America, the leading national organization for Haredi Orthodox Jews. 

It’s been nearly three weeks since tens of thousands of American Jews descended upon Washington for the March for Israel, but in parts of the Haredi world, they’re still talking about it — and questioning the instructions given by several Agudath Israel-affiliated rabbinic leaders to skip it.

The rabbis left no room for interpretation — one yeshiva head said that “going to Washington is treif like chazzer,” or nonkosher like pig — and one in particular left it late, announcing the morning of the rally that he was withdrawing his support.

What influence the various statements had on Haredi turnout is unclear. But they rankled many in the Haredi world who saw joining the demonstration as a no-brainer to ensure the safety of fellow Jews — and opposition as a betrayal. An anonymous letter to Agudath Israel leadership, shared on Haredi blogs in the weeks since, called the council out of touch and said it should be overhauled. One prominent Haredi publication described the fallout as a “massive controversy.” 

The idea that some Haredi Jews would reject a rally organized to show support for Israel and to counter rising antisemitism may surprise those unfamiliar with the community, a small but fast-growing sector of American Jewry. The Haredi world’s disregard for Zionism originates in its opposition to the movement’s secular orientation and the belief that Jewish nationhood could only be achieved through the Messiah. But the debate over the rally exposed a split some observers say has widened since Oct. 7, between some Haredi leaders who maintain traditional non-Zionist attitudes and a constituency whose decadeslong pro-Israel shift crystallized following the attack.

Several Haredi Jews who were willing to be interviewed for this story declined to go on the record, citing the sensitivity of the subject in the Orthodox community. But much of the discourse on the topic has been public: in speeches posted online, open letters, on message boards, and in Haredi media.

In one circulating audio recording, an instructor at a Haredi yeshiva in Jerusalem, Rabbi Berel Whitman, attacked opposition to the rally, saying it “is making an enormous portion of the frum world say, ‘Oh my God, if this is what the rabbis say, they’re so out of touch, I want nothing to do with it.’”

The Haredi hangup on secular Zionism

In the 75 years since Israel’s founding — and especially in the 21st century — many Haredi Jews’ stance toward Israel has softened. Sources offered a few reasons for the change, including new strains of Haredi thought, increasing assimilation into modern society, and the connections many have to Israel through family or personal experience. Concern that secular Zionism threatens religious Judaism has also diminished over time as religious Jews have gained a foothold in Israeli society.

“A lot of the fears of the initial Haredi world in the ’40s and ’50s of what the secular state may foreshadow for Orthodox Judaism has not only not played out, it’s just in the opposite reality,” said Rabbi Ron Yitzchok Eisenman, who has led a Haredi synagogue in Passaic, New Jersey, for nearly three decades. “The Israeli government is the largest supporter of Haredi Jewry in the world right now.”

The March for Israel inadvertently tested the limits of that change of heart. Many Haredi Jews understood it as a necessary political action — supporting Biden to ward off momentum toward a demand for cease-fire. But the program did not include any Orthodox rabbis (or any rabbis at all for that matter) among its speakers, and it was overtly Zionist. 

The range of Haredi advisories reflected differing tolerance levels — even within Agudath Israel leadership. A Nov. 13 community notice signed by five of the 13 members of the organization’s rabbinic council, Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, discouraged going because “the main speakers are a mixture of people whose entire essence is the opposite of Torah and yirah (God-fearingness) and tznius (modesty).” (Dozens spoke or performed at the rally, including politicians, celebrities and the families of hostages held by Hamas.)

But that message did not contain the organization’s imprimatur, and Agudath Israel’s formal statement took a more open stance. It stopped short of encouraging people to attend but said that it was “important, midarchei hashtadlonus [for purposes of influence], that there be a large turnout at this event.” 

Meanwhile, mainstream Orthodox institutions were descending on D.C. en masse. Yeshiva University, which is to the religious left of Haredi orthodoxy, canceled classes for the day. Synagogues and high schools up and down the Eastern Seaboard sent delegations. And some Hasidic bodies, like the Lubavitch-serving Crown Heights Beis Din and the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, threw their support behind the rally.

It was against this current of sentiment that Rabbi Aharon Feldman — the head of Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, who had originally backed the rally — withdrew his support after the full program was announced. He eventually provided two reasons for the decision: the program’s inclusion of Christian nationalist Pastor John Hagee, which he called “the first step to interfaith acceptance,” and the rally’s grounding in secular Zionism, which he called “a rejection of the Jewish faith.”

“It supplants God and Torah as the basis of the Jewish people, for which it substitutes a common land and language,” Feldman wrote Nov. 20. “There can be no greater evidence of this than the anthem Hatikvah, which states that the hope of Jews for two millennia has been ‘to be a free nation in our land’ — not a nation of God and Torah. This anthem was scheduled to begin the program.”

But many Haredi Jews made the trip anyway, among them Eisenman, who has three sons who served in the IDF.

The backlash

Frustration with Haredi leadership smoldering in the days after the rally came to a head with the publication of an open letter to Agudath Israel that was spread on WhatsApp and Haredi blogs.

“There is a terrible divide between the ideology of the voice coming out of Agudah and the people who are its loyal adherents,” wrote the the letter’s anonymous author, who claims to be an Agudath Israel constituent, adding, “If you want to continue to be the voice for what is still the mainstream ultra-Orthodox in the country, it is time that real change comes to your institution.”

The anonymous letter had its critics, who said its suggestions to appoint Modern Orthodox and Chabad rabbis to the Moetzes were unreasonable. That an actual Agudath Israel constituent would suggest those additions, they said, was implausible.

But Haredi rabbis in the movement’s rank-and-file echoed its main points. Whitman, the Mir Yeshiva rabbi, said he had been “bombarded day and night” with people upset about the rally communiques. 

He said the Moetzes rabbis’ obsession with the boogeymen of secular Zionism and Christian Zionism were missing the point of the rally — to stave off calls for a cease-fire by demonstrating support for President Biden in as great of numbers as the American Jewish community could summon. Even the Moetzes rabbis agreed the rally was pikuach nefesh, or life-saving, Whitman said, and opposing it in spite of that undermined their authority as religious leaders.

“The frum community doesn’t show up at a rally which is pikuach nefesh to save people murdered by terrorism?” Whitman said. “This is what it expresses: that Haredi society sadly, tragically, always finds a reason to say no.”

A ‘reassessment’

The discontent over the rally in the U.S. matched a shift occurring in Israel, where for the first time in the nation’s history, thousands of Haredi men are enlisting in the IDF.

Experts have said that the enlistment trend is unlikely to last. But Eisenman believed it speaks to a solidifying understanding among Haredi Jews that their stake in the nation can translate into more direct involvement in its welfare.

“The movement is towards — for lack of a better term — a reassessment,” Eisenman said. “A reassessment of the old positions of total isolation and insularity.”

Eisenman wrote a lengthy post about his decision to attend the rally on Matzav, a Haredi blog. He says that he received scores of complimentary emails from Haredi Jews after its publication.

Since Oct. 7, his synagogue, Congregation Ahavas Israel, is one of many that have added “Acheinu,” a Jewish solidarity standard, to the prayer service.

“There’s a vulnerability that galvanized a lot of people,” he said, “to recognize that we’re in this together and ultimately as Israel goes, so probably we all go.”

Lopiansky, the Washington yeshiva rabbi who fielded the question about the rally, had prepared: He pulled from his jacket pocket a piece of paper containing an excerpt from the Talmud. In the passage, a student finds two groups examining the same case reaching opposite conclusions. But there aren’t two Torahs, the Talmud teaches, but one containing the entire spectrum of opinions.

Likewise, he said, Agudath Israel was originally composed of several strains of Orthodox thought: Lithuanian, Hungarian, Polish and German, and they only achieved unification by preserving a decentralized system.

“There’s a mistake as if Agudah, as if Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah, is” always of one mind, Lopiansky said. “There will always be disagreements, but the differences in opinion are legitimate.”

https://forward.com/news/572644/agudath-israel-haredi-disagreement-over-rally/?utm_source=The+Forward+Association&utm_campaign=7a87129465-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_10_24_08_43_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-aaa3b6e98a-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D