“The Jewish community is not immune to—and I’ll put it nicely—nuts.” A handful of high-profile leaders, including an influential rabbi in Lakewood, New Jersey, (a nursing home escapee from Philadelphia) oppose vaccination, often offering justifications on religious grounds. Despite warnings from Orthodox rabbis, a recent gathering of anti-vaxxers in Rockland County drew an audience of hundreds, many of whom were Jewish....

Measles Can Be Contained. Anti-Semitism Cannot.

Just as the anti-vaccination movement feeds off a handful of fringe outsiders, long-standing stereotypes about Jews have found a new vector in the latest outbreak of the disease.

As the measles has spread in and around New York, so has anti-Semitism.

Amid an outbreak largely attributed to the anti-vax movement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed that, as of mid-May, 880 cases have been confirmed nationwide in 2019, “the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.” Since September 2018, 535 cases have been confirmed in Brooklyn and Queens alone, largely concentrated in Orthodox Jewish communities. Another 247 cases have been confirmed in Rockland County, north of New York City, also largely among Orthodox Jews.

The spread of measles is matched by a twin pathology. Since the start of the latest measles outbreak last fall, the Anti-Defamation League has seen a spike in reports of harassment specifically related to measles, yet another expression of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S.: pedestrians crossing the street to get away from visibly Jewish people, bus drivers barring Jews from boarding, and people tossing out slurs such as “dirty Jew.”

The distinctive demographics of the Orthodox world—lots of babies, tight-knit neighborhoods, frequent international travel—have compounded the recent measles outbreak. But just as the anti-vaccination movement feeds off a handful of fringe outsiders, long-standing stereotypes about Jews have found a new vector in this disease. Rabbis, community leaders, and public-health officials are working desperately to educate people in the Orthodox population who are scared or uncertain about vaccines, hoping to curb the spread of this dangerous illness. The outbreak of anti-Semitism, however, might prove much harder to contain.

Anti-Semites have long associated Jews with disease: Scholars have theorized that Dracula, the titular character in Bram Stoker’s story about a parasitic, deadly vampire who travels from Transylvania to England in search of new blood, might have been crafted to evoke insidious stereotypes of Jews. In New York, a very real public-health crisis has fed the image that Orthodox Jews are insular, ignorant, and against vaccines, when in reality the vast majority of this community—and Jews more broadly—support vaccination.

Rivkie Feiner, a community volunteer in Monsey, a town in Rockland County, told me she’s heard numerous stories of people yelling about measles or making derogatory comments when they see Jews. A man walked by her son in Costco and said, “I guess if I get the measles, I’m getting it here.” One local rabbi told her that during a visit to Rite Aid with his family, a group of teenagers screamed at them from the parking lot, “Hitler should have killed you all with the measles.” Feiner has lived in Monsey for basically all her life, she said, and in the past few years, “there have been more anti-Semitic incidents than in [her] entire life combined.”

The reasons behind the recent measles outbreak are complicated. The New York cases likely have origins in Israel and Ukraine, both of which are experiencing their own outbreaks of the disease. 

 

CDC officials have traced a handful of October cases in Rockland County to unvaccinated travelers arriving to the United States from Israel. The contagion there, according to the World Health Organization and The New York Times, was likely exacerbated by travelers returning from a pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, where some Jews pay respects to the grave of an important rabbi, Nachman of Breslov, on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Ukraine is currently experiencing an unprecedented measles outbreak, with 54,000 cases reported in 2018, according to Science magazine.

Orthodox Jews frequently travel back and forth between Israel and the United States, creating opportunities for the disease to spread, especially among unvaccinated people. On a recent press call, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s vaccine director, reported that 44 cases of measles have been brought to the U.S. by international travelers this year. More than 90 percent of those travelers, she said, were either unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.

While unvaccinated people seeded the outbreak, the number of small children in Orthodox communities has helped it spread. Aaron Glatt, the chief of infectious diseases and the resident epidemiologist at the South Nassau Communities hospital on Long Island, told me that “even in relatively highly vaccinated communities, if you have a lot of little children under the age of one … you’re going to have an awful lot of young children at high risk for contagion.” The standard CDC guidelines on the measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR, vaccine recommends that children receive a first dose at around 12 months and a second dose four to six years later. But for young children who might be exposed to the disease, especially through travel, the CDC recommends getting vaccinated sooner: as early as six months, with a second dose just four weeks later. Glatt has been working with public-health officials to share information about these updated guidelines, which could make a big difference in Orthodox neighborhoods with lots of babies.

In addition to his role as a doctor and an epidemiologist, Glatt is the assistant rabbi at Young Israel of Woodmere, a large Orthodox Jewish congregation on Long Island’s south shore. Communities like his are tight-knit, he said, and “unbelievably caring.” But this can have negative side effects: “There are many communal events, where, unfortunately, if somebody’s contagious, there will be tons of opportunities to spread that,” he said. “The nature of the community—so compassionate and close with each other—facilitates the spread of kindness, but also contagion.”

In Brooklyn, where the largest number of cases among the Orthodox has occurred, public-health statistics suggest that vaccination rates are actually quite high, even in two of the neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by the outbreak. According to New York State data for the 2017 to 2018 school year, 94 percent of kids at Orthodox Jewish schools in Williamsburg, along with 97 percent in Borough Park, have gotten their MMR vaccines. (These numbers do not include preschool-age kids, however.) Current vaccination rates might be even higher, given the recent vaccination push in these communities.

Rabbis and other Jewish communal leaders have played central roles in these efforts to encourage vaccination. A number of high-profile Orthodox rabbis have said that according to Jewish law, vaccinating is not just acceptable, it is required, because it protects and preserves life. A prominent Orthodox newspaper, Hamodia, has been running ads encouraging people to get vaccinated. Women in the community have also been working to distribute accurate medical information to Orthodox mothers, who often make medical decisions for their kids. Shoshana Bernstein, a mom in Monsey, collaborated with public-health officials on a handbook called Tzim Gezint—Yiddish for “good health,” often said after people sneeze—which offers culturally sensitive information about vaccines.
Despite these efforts, Glatt said, “the Jewish community is not immune to—and I’ll put it nicely—nuts.” A handful of high-profile leaders, including an influential rabbi in Lakewood, New Jersey, oppose vaccination, often offering justifications on religious grounds. Despite warnings from Orthodox rabbis, a recent gathering of anti-vaxxers in Rockland County drew an audience of hundreds, many of whom were Jewish.

Once a rumor about the danger of vaccines starts spreading, it can be powerful, regardless of a community’s faith background. Members of Orthodox communities are often suspicious of outsiders, including non-Jewish public-health officials, and many don’t have access to the internet to do their own research. People are scared, says Israel Zyskind, a pediatrician in Borough Park who mostly treats the Orthodox. “Patients [who] were previously for vaccinating, or happily vaccinating their child and trusting their pediatrician, are now questioning … whether they should be worried, and should be concerned,” he told me. One young couple I met in Borough Park on a recent visit said they asked their rabbi before vaccinating their children; the father said he often hears men speculate about the danger of vaccines in synagogue after they meet for morning prayers.

All of this is happening at a time when Jews feel under attack. Deadly shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Chabad of Poway in Southern California have shaken the country. Several New England Chabad houses, which serve as Orthodox Jewish welcome centers, have recently been targeted with arson; a man threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in Chicago. In the very neighborhoods in Brooklyn where the measles is now spreading, more than a dozen Jews have been violently assaulted in recent months. Whether or not they’re Orthodox, the people who are visibly Jewish—because they wear a yarmulke or a wig, for example—are the most vulnerable. “It’s the easiest person to target,” says Evan Bernstein, the New York and New Jersey regional director at the ADL. “People that are overtly Orthodox are being somewhat ostracized because of the measles epidemic.”

The measles has spread among Orthodox Jews for complicated reasons, and the public-health conditions in those communities are nuanced. The thing about anti-Semitism, though, is that it’s not typically compatible with nuance. Vaccines are embraced by the vast majority of Jews and Jewish leaders; anti-vax conspiracy theories are a human phenomenon, not a Jewish one. And yet associations have staying power. With every new case of measles in Jewish Brooklyn, with every photograph of an Orthodox school paired with an article on the outbreak, the perceived connection between Jews and disease grows a little stronger. And no vaccine can eradicate that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/orthodox-jews-face-anti-semitism-after-measles-outbreak/590311/?utm_source=JTA%20Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA&utm_medium=email

TELL NO ONE (2019) | Full Documentary Movie by Tomasz Sekielski | English Subtitles --- Not For The Faint of Heart!

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — One victim spoke out, and then another, and another. A statue of a pedophile priest was toppled in Gdansk, put back by his supporters, and finally dismantled for good. A feature film about clerical abuse was a box office hit.

Poland thought it had started confronting the problem of clerical abuse and its cover-up by church authorities. Then a bombshell came: A documentary with victim testimony so harrowing it has forced an unprecedented reckoning with pedophile priests in one of Europe’s most deeply Catholic societies.

Poland’s bishops acknowledged this week they face a crisis and made a rare admission that they have failed to protect the young. It’s also a crisis for the country’s conservative government, which is closely aligned with the Catholic Church, putting the ruling Law and Justice party on the defensive before Sunday’s European Parliament vote in Poland.

The documentary ”Tell No One ” was directed by journalist Tomasz Sekielski. Before its release on May 11, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski had described discussion about clerical abuse as a “brutal attack” on the church and portrayed the LGBT rights movement as the key threat to children in the country. But the revelations in the documentary have pushed the party to face up to the cleric abuse crisis. It has vowed stiffer penalties for pedophilia, although its leaders have avoided pointing a finger at the church specifically.

Across the country, the film has triggered soul searching and raised questions, including whether the same bishops who moved perpetrators from parish to parish for years will be capable of cleansing the church. Some wonder if Poland, which is already being reshaped by economic growth and secularization, could eventually follow Ireland, where the abuse crisis broke the Catholic Church’s hold on society.

Crowdfunded and free on YouTube, “Tell No One” has gotten more than 21 million views so far and has prompted a new wave of survivors to come forward. About 150 people have contacted a foundation helping victims of clerical abuse, “Have No Fear.”

 One was an 86-year-old man who was molested when he was 6 and had never told anyone until now.

“He finally understood that he is not alone,” said Anna Frankowska, a lawyer for the organization who took his call.

“A huge tsunami has come, and there is no way this issue can be swept under the rug now,” she said. “It has to be addressed.”

Michal Wojciechowicz, a 54-year-old abused in his youth by a prominent Solidarity-era priest, the late Rev. Henryk Jankowski, sees a “revolution” whose time has come thanks to clerical sexual abuse revelations elsewhere as well as reforms by Pope Francis.

“The Catholic Church had power over people for centuries. We needed to wait for the right time, and this is the right time,” said Wojciechowicz, a writer. “The most important thing is that people are now willing to listen.”

The church has played an inspirational role in Poland, keeping its language and culture alive during a long era of occupation and foreign rule and supporting the anti-communist Solidarity movement in the 1980s. To generations, the church has been an advocate for freedom and a source of solace under hardship, and to many, Catholic faith and traditions are synonymous with Polishness itself.

A Polish pope who is now a saint, John Paul II, was a moral authority and a political hero for opposing communism, but even his legacy is now in question due to his failure to tackle clerical abuse.

Recognition of the problem came slowly at first. A book published six years ago by a Dutch journalist had the accounts of Polish victims and five years ago ”Have No Fear ” was founded to offer victims counseling and legal help. But the last eight months have brought the most dramatic milestones. A feature film about corrupt, abusive priests, “Clergy,” was a blockbuster after its September release.

Then in December, Barbara Borowiecka, 62, told Polish media about being abused when she was 11 by Jankowski, a prominent prelate in Lech Walesa’s anti-communist Solidarity movement in Gdansk, where a monument of him stood.

Borowiecka was encouraged to tell her story by another priest who brought her back to the church after a nearly five-decade break. Before his death in 2016, he made her promise to publicly name her aggressor when she was strong enough.

Shaken by Borowiecka’s story, three activists from Warsaw — Konrad Korzeniowski, Rafal Suszek i Michal Wojcieszczuk — traveled to Gdansk in February and in the middle of the night put a rope around the Jankowski monument and pulled it down.

“There was something in Borowiecka’s story that chilled me to the bone. It was shocking. The length of her isolation, the embarrassment she had to feel, that her own mother didn’t believe her,” said Korzeniowski, a computer programmer. “Even though I was aware of what is happening in the church with pedophilia, it put a face to it, and I was crying.”

They placed children’s underwear, shoes and white lace church vestments on the toppled statue to symbolize his victims’ suffering, then called police to turn themselves in. They also accused Jankowski, the church and society at large for remaining indifferent to his crimes and the venomous anti-Semitism he spread in his sermons.

Poles awoke to news of the toppled statue as the Vatican began hosting a landmark meeting on clerical sex abuse.

Two days later, the priest’s supporters, shipyard workers in Gdansk, re-erected the statue. During a Mass in his former church, the parish priest recalled the good done by Jankowski, who died in 2010. Pressured to act, the city dismantled the statue.

Borowiecka was touched and incredulous that three strangers risked prison — they have been charged with “insulting a monument” though no trial date has been set — to give her the relief she that feels now that the statue is gone. She met them in Warsaw this month, a warm encounter that sealed new friendships.

Days later, “Tell No One” came out, showing victims psychologically destroyed even in adulthood by their childhood abuse, priests caught by hidden cameras confessing to wrongdoing and convicted offenders still working with children.

Sekielski, the director, has been taken aback by the response, which has included new investigations and at least one priest asking to be laicized.

“A mental revolution is happening in front of our eyes. Victims are being called victims and perpetrators called perpetrators,” he told the weekly magazine Polityka.

Suszek welcomed Poland’s new awareness of clerical abuse but disagreed a revolution is underway, saying there is no mass of rebels and fearing instead a wave of emotion that could easily die down.

“If you are about to start a revolution, then you’d better have a plan for the aftermath,” Suszek said. “And nobody has a clear-cut idea about how to deal with the void that would inevitably come about when you remove the institutional church from the public sphere.”

https://www.apnews.com/8fbab7877b7844b39e2e257f114c8a4a

An Orthodox Group Releases Brave PSA Video About Sexual Abuse --- Abuse happens, and it certainly happens in our communities. But it thrives the most, as this organization bravely points out, when we refuse to acknowledge it.

Amudim, the Orthodox Jewish organization that supports Orthodox youth in crisis, just released a powerful video campaign about sexual abuse, produced by Yeeshai Gross — and it’s required viewing for anyone affiliated with just about any faith community.

A mother, father and teenage daughter sit facing an authority figure — a principal, a rabbi, an educator — having a conversation that happens in every community. In each scene, the family is played by the same actors, but each time dressed differently, shuffling identities that we Jews so love to differentiate ourselves between, as Hasidic, as modern Orthodox, as yeshivish, as Masorti.

Headscarf or sheitel or bare head, black hat or velvet yarmulke or knitted kippah — it’s all the same when it comes to abuse:

“This sort of thing doesn’t happen by us. Not in our community.”
“I’ve known him for fifteen years, and he would never do that.”
“If he’s been with us for so many years — why only now did this come up?
“We need one-hundred percent proof!”
“He has a family! Children to marry off!”
“He’s done so much good. This can ruin his life.”
“We don’t air our dirty laundry.”

The look of betrayal on the young girl’s face, the parents’ horrors at witnessing their child being dismissed, the principal’s head shaking — these scenes are far from fiction. They are lifted directly from real life. Anyone who has interacted with abuse victims in a religious community has heard these phrases before, time and time again.

Ask anyone in our community who has been in the unfortunate — yet necessary — position of having to inquire about an abuser, in order to report the crime. The responses are identical, predictable almost: “But his family! But his organization! What he’s done for our people! How dare you!” Listening to a person virulently defend an alleged perpetrator’s Importance In Our Community causes a sense of vertigo. In the back of one’s mind, images flash from the private testimonies that victims have painstakingly divulged: A locked door, an unwanted hand, a lifted skirt, a hand on the mouth.

There is something particularly brave about Amudim’s depiction of these behind-closed-doors conversations. Perhaps because instead of yet another op-ed or tweet calling for reforms, Amudim harnesses the power of art, a tool too rarely used in the Orthodox community to drive change. The choice to portray these secret conversations with little commentary — simply as if we are sitting right there, in those rabbinic offices — is brilliant. Let us hope that this wakes our community up, and most importantly, that the victims among us feel seen.

Abuse happens, and it certainly happens in our communities. But it thrives the most, as this organization bravely points out, when we refuse to acknowledge it.

https://forward.com/schmooze/424877/an-orthodox-group-releases-brave-psa-video-about-sexual-abuse-heres-why/

Many people around the world have never seen iron lungs, smallpox scars, or the blindness caused by measles. For some, not seeing these physical reminders makes it harder to weigh up the risks and benefits of vaccination....

Experiment Reveals How to Make Nearly 70% of Vaccine-Hesitant People Change Their Mind

A new study has shown it's possible to persuade members of our community who oppose vaccines to change their opinion by confronting them with the costs of their hesitation.

Many people around the world have never seen iron lungs, smallpox scars, or the blindness caused by measles. For some, not seeing these physical reminders makes it harder to weigh up the risks and benefits of vaccination.

Researchers from Brigham Young University in the US surveyed nearly 600 students with diverse positions on vaccination, and found that meeting a person with first-hand experience of a vaccine-preventable illness could provide an opportunity for a rethink.

It's wild that measles is making a booming comeback after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had optimistically set a target for its elimination within the country's borders in the early eighties.

Harder to believe still, that the CDC's goal was actually met in 2000 as experts declared the disease was no longer endemic, meaning new cases would primarily come from abroad.

Polio's story is much the same. In the 1950s, thousands of individuals risked being paralysed by the disease. Thanks to vaccination, this is also an illness few of us will ever encounter in our lifetimes.
While global efforts to wipe out polio have managed to keep outbreaks relatively low, the same can't be said for other vaccine-preventable infections, such as measles and whooping cough.

Where most people were once keen to stick to vaccination schedules, today an increasing number of people are asking if the risks are really worth it.

"Vaccines are victims of their own success," says microbiologist Brian Poole.

"They're so effective that most people have no experience with vaccine preventable diseases. We need to reacquaint people with the dangers of those diseases."

It's a neat idea. There are good reasons to think an emotional reminder of a threat is far more likely to drive home the cost of vaccine hesitation than the cold numbers of graphs and tables.

But the human brain can be finicky when it comes to swapping teams, and our decisions on whether or not to vaccinate can be varied and complex, influenced by cultural forces as well as personal ones.

To test the extent to which an emotional reminder of 'unfashionable' diseases could work, researchers solicited the help of 56 college students who admitted to being somewhat dubious about vaccines in a survey.

Finding students with such a perspective probably wasn't much of a challenge, since they largely came from a part of Utah where vaccine coverage was among the lowest in the country.

An additional 369 students who expressed confidence in the benefits of vaccines also participated for course credits. Both groups included a number of volunteers enrolled in a course that featured content on vaccinations.

The combined sample was randomly divided into one of two groups. One half would interview a person diagnosed with an auto-immune disease; the other would talk to a person who had experience of a disease that could have been prevented by a modern vaccination program.

Both groups asked the same nine questions, seeking details on the type of illness they had, its impact on their lives, their family, and their finances.

The responses had quite an effect on some of the students.

"The pain was so bad that she ended up at a pain management clinic where they did steroid shots into her spine," reported a student who had interviewed a lady with shingles, a persistent effect from chicken pox.

"The pain meds didn't even touch her pain, even the heavy ones. For months, she couldn't leave the house."

A follow-up survey re-evaluated the volunteer's attitudes towards vaccines, while touching on their experience with their interview subject.

Of the 19 individuals who weren't studying vaccinations as part of their college curriculum and who also interviewed somebody who'd had a vaccine-preventable illness, 13 changed their minds in favour of vaccination.

Studies that included information on vaccinations also seemed to help, with all five hesitant students enrolled in a vaccine-related course shifting their opinions.

The numbers themselves aren't exactly earth-shattering, and it's important to keep in mind the study was confined to a rather limited an potentially 'WEIRD' demographic.

But taken in line with the growing pool of research claiming human narratives need to be at the centre of health education, this study shows the role personal story-telling can play in controlling the spread of disease.

"If your goal is to affect people's decisions about vaccines, this process works much better than trying to combat anti-vaccine information," says Poole.

Let's hope one day finding anybody who can tell such a story will be impossible.

This research was published in Vaccines.

https://www.sciencealert.com/experiment-suggests-how-to-make-70-percent-of-vaccine-hesitant-people-change-their-thinking?fbclid=IwAR3f9GgYS7LKcXAq1VJaA1L79nnuDI5GjcZp3QoyDT1qYDgb-cbzPIQTUD8

The measles outbreak makes it vital for New York lawmakers to end religious exemptions for vaccinations....

Infecting People Isn’t a Religious Right

The measles outbreak makes it vital for New York lawmakers to end religious exemptions for vaccinations.

By The Editorial Board

It’s no coincidence that measles is spreading across the United States after a decade in which the number of parents claiming exemption for their children from vaccination has grown. The outbreak has been most intense in New York, particularly in deeply insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and upstate that have been vulnerable to misinformation and resistant to vaccination. 

To halt the spread of the disease, bills in the State Senate and Assembly would prevent parents from claiming that their religious beliefs exempt them from legal requirements that their children be vaccinated before going to school. The American Academy of Pediatrics has made the elimination of such nonmedical exemptions its top priority this year.

The legislation would allow exemptions only if a licensed doctor certified that the immunization was detrimental to the child’s health, as is the case in current law.

Action on these sensible bills has stalled, however, just weeks before legislators leave for the summer —  even as the latest cases of the highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease were diagnosed in New York last week. 

While bills in both chambers are in committee, opposition to the legislation is centered on the Assembly, where a bill before the Health Committee has not received a vote and the committee chairman, Richard Gottfried, said it would not until a majority in the Assembly supported it. More disturbingly, Mr. Gottfried said he and other committee members thought the legislation could violate the First Amendment, echoing one of the anti-vaccine movement’s favored talking points — that beliefs about vaccines are protected by the Constitution. Mr. Gottfried said he was still wrestling with where he stood on the issue.

And while Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he opposes religious exemptions for vaccines, last month he hedged that stance, also expressing concern for First Amendment protections.

Religious freedom is important to protect, but the courts have ruled it doesn’t apply here. In upholding a California law that removed religious exemptions, a federal appeals court last year noted an earlier ruling that, “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”

Mr. Gottfried said he was uneasy anyway. “There are probably several issues where views on the Constitution and constitutional values may differ from what the Supreme Court majority thinks,” he said.

It’s not clear what these concerns are even based on. Faith leaders themselves have acknowledged that the grounds for religious opposition to vaccines are shaky, at best. The Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America have organized a public health campaign to get parents to vaccinate their children.

Legal mandates are one of the best ways to accomplish that goal. They increase the likelihood that vaccine-wary parents will consult legitimate medical professionals who have the capacity to allay their fears. They provide a crucial counter to the factually vacuous anti-vaccine campaign, which is being waged not only on social media platforms like Facebook, but also in statehouses across the country. And, as recent experience shows, they work: When legislators in California and Michigan strengthened their mandates, vaccination rates in those states went up. 

New York City has declared a public health emergency around the measles outbreaks in Brooklyn and Queens, even closing several yeshivas — and threatening to close others — that did not comply with mandatory vaccination orders. But children throughout New York State remain vulnerable. State Senator Brad Hoylman, a lead sponsor of the legislation to end the religious exemption, said in a phone interview on Tuesday that he didn’t want to wait for tragedy to act. 

Mr. Hoylman is right, and New York’s leaders must not let this legislation continue to languish. The bill could go further — as currently written, it wouldn’t impose any penalties, for instance, on parents who violate the law and send their children to school unvaccinated. Yet, in a state with an urgent public health crisis, this is the best place to begin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/opinion/measles-vaccines-new-york.html

The prayer asks that the vaccines being given “bring health, blessing and redemption, and protect us from suffering and terrible diseases” and asks God to bless the nurses and doctors who provide vaccines with a “long and peaceful life, financial security and success.”

Israeli health advocate pens prayer to encourage vaccination

JERUSALEM (RNS) — In early spring, as the worldwide measles outbreak was raging, an Orthodox Israeli woman wrote a prayer to encourage religious parents to vaccinate their children.

“I’ve come across a lot of people who do vaccinate, but they often feel conflicted,” said the prayer’s author, Hannah Katsman, a lactation therapist in central Israel. “I wrote the prayer to help them see vaccines as a positive thing to be grateful for and not something to fear.”

“Prayer Before a Vaccination” was published in English and Hebrew by the Open Siddur Project.

Hannah Katsman, an Orthodox Israeli lactation therapist, has written a prayer on the occasion of vaccination. She wrote the prayer to help parents see vaccines as a positive thing to be grateful for and not something to fear.

The prayer asks that the vaccines being given “bring health, blessing and redemption, and protect us from suffering and terrible diseases” and asks God to bless the nurses and doctors who provide vaccines with a “long and peaceful life, financial security and success.”

Katsman said members of a Hebrew-language pro-vaccination Facebook group, where she is active, urged her to write the prayer as the number of measles cases in Israel and elsewhere — particularly in some ultra-Orthodox enclaves — began to skyrocket. Jerusalem, New York and New Jersey have had serious outbreaks.

“These outbreaks were an impetus,” Katsman told Religion News Service. “Pockets of the Orthodox community were being hit hard,” largely due to the communities’ high birthrates and higher-than-average percentage of babies too young to vaccinate.

Although a small number of rabbis forbade their followers from vaccinating their children, the vast majority of community leaders openly endorsed vaccination.

Katsman, a public-health advocate, also wanted to pay tribute to the health professionals “who are working on the front lines, sometimes under threat,” to eradicate preventable diseases like measles and polio.

She dedicated the prayer to the memory of her brother Dr. Sholom Wacholder, a biostatistician “who was instrumental in the development of the vaccine to prevent cancers caused by HPV.”

This week, an official at one of Israel’s four HMOs asked Katsman’s permission to post the prayer in well-baby clinics throughout the country.

“This is exactly what I was hoping for,” Katsman said. “I also hope the prayer will be translated into Yiddish.”

That language is spoken by many ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Katsman doesn’t expect to change the opinion of the strongest anti-vaxxers.

“My hope is that I can give comfort to those seeking it.”

https://religionnews.com/2019/05/17/israeli-health-advocates-urge-compliance-via-prayer-before-a-vaccination/

At the time of his arrest, The CJN reported that Kravetsky’s LinkedIn profile said that he was an instructor at Durham College in Oshawa and previously worked at Yeshivas Binyan Hatorah High School in Toronto as a counsellor, and at Yeshiva Gedolah Zichron Shmayahu as a teacher.

Sex assault charges against Toronto therapist withdrawn

Phil Kravetsky

Criminal charges against Phil Kravetsky, who’s well known in Toronto’s Jewish community as a family mediator and psychotherapist, have been withdrawn.

Kravetsky, who was 51 at the time, was charged in March 2018 with sexual assault and sexual interference with a person under 16 years of age, after police investigated a claim that a child was assaulted in the Lawrence Avenue and Bathurst Street area of the city.

On April 24, those charges were withdrawn and Kravetsky entered into a peace bond for a period of 12 months, according to the Ontario attorney general’s office.

A court-imposed publication ban prevented the identification of the complainant and witnesses.

The College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario’s website lists Kravetsky as being a registered member, with offices in Oshawa and Toronto.

His LinkedIn profile says he’s the owner of Durham Region Family Law Support Services.

At the time of his arrest, The CJN reported that Kravetsky’s LinkedIn profile said that he was an instructor at Durham College in Oshawa and previously worked at Yeshivas Binyan Hatorah High School in Toronto as a counsellor, and at Yeshiva Gedolah Zichron Shmayahu as a teacher.

He was also well known as a Jewish music DJ who would perform at bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings and other simchas.

Kravetsky had no comment on the charges being withdrawn, when he was contacted by The CJN.

https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/sex-assault-charges-against-toronto-therapist-withdrawn?fbclid=IwAR08c6eeBG79lyW6khUKSJ2jgN_YvXWySC9LiaSZ7c_oTjhUa0z9dI6VYGw

A Justice Ministry official told The Times of Israel in February that police had recordings of Litzman and officials in his office speaking to Health Ministry employees and pressing them to act on Leifer’s behalf....

Deputy minister accused of protecting sex offenders in at least 10 cases

 

UTJ leader Yaakov Litzman alleged to have pattern of aiding ultra-Orthodox convicts by pressuring corrections officials, Channel 13 report claims

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism holds a press conference after meeting with President Reuven Rivlin

 

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman allegedly helped at least 10 serious sex offenders obtain improved conditions, including home visits and other benefits, by pressuring state psychiatrists and prisons service officials, according to a report Tuesday.

Litzman, who hails from the Gur Hasidic community, has been accused in the past of using his influence to protect Malka Leifer, who has been fighting extradition to Australia for allegedly abusing students at a Jewish school there.

According to Channel 13 news, Litzman is suspected of a pattern of pressuring corrections officials to be lenient with other ultra-Orthodox offenders as well.

Litzman, who heads the United Torah Judaism party and is expected to remain in his post in the next government, has been under police investigation since February on suspicions he sought to obtain a falsified psychiatric report that would have prevented Leifer from being extradited to Australia.

Leifer, a former principal at the Adass Israel school in Melbourne, has been charged in Australia with 74 counts of sexually abusing her students. Her extradition from Israel has been delayed by her claims to be mentally unfit to stand trial.

In March, Channel 13 reported on a second police probe in which Litzman and his chief of staff are suspected of pressuring a psychiatrist, Moshe Birger, to ensure that another imprisoned sex offender close to Litzman’s Gur sect was placed in a rehabilitation program.

Participation in the program can lead to home-visit rights and early release from prison.

A private investigator tagged Malka Leifer as she spoke on the phone, while sitting on a bench in Bnei Brak, on December 14, 2017.

 

Litzman denied the accusations in February, saying, “I have a lot to say, but I cannot speak about it. It was all for the good of the public, everything was legal.”

In March, he denied wrongdoing in both cases, saying his assistance to Leifer was part of his general effort to assist any citizen who appeals to his office for help, and calling the Birger suspicions “lies and slander that never happened.”

According to Tuesday’s report, Channel 13 has now amassed evidence in at least 10 cases, some of which are reportedly being examined by police, in which Litzman is accused of pressuring state psychiatrists and other officials in the cases of sex offenders.

The offenders include convicted pedophiles and rapists, the report said.

“Litzman and his staff reached the point of actual conflict with relevant officials, which helped lead to tensions between the Prisons Service and the Health Ministry,” Channel 13 said, adding that several psychiatrists who faced the alleged pressure have given statements to police.

Protesters demonstrate on March 13, 2019, outside the Jeursalem District Court during extradition hearings for Malka Leifer, a former girls school principal wanted for sexual abuse in Australia.

Part of the new accusations concern Litzman’s former aide and now freshman UTJ lawmaker Yaakov Tesler, who allegedly pressured the Prisons Service to allow home visits for convicted murderer-rapist Tal Tzarfati while he served a 14.5-year sentence for the killing of a young woman in Tel Aviv.

In a brief confrontation between Hamakor and Tesler in a Knesset cafeteria shown in the Tuesday broadcast, Tesler defended his actions.

“Any appeal I receive from a person asking for help, I don’t ask, are they a sex offender or not a sex offender,” he told the channel’s reporter. “Every request I receive, regardless of who it is, I take care of it.”

There was no immediate response from Litzman.

It is not yet clear exactly how many of the cases involved Haredi convicts, a key factor for Hamakor’s charge that Litzman and Tesler’s actions constitute discriminatory protection of sex offenders due to their religious affiliation.

Leifer is known to have links to the Gur community, having once taught at a school in Israel affiliated with the branch.

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman attends a conference of the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel party in the coastal city of Netanya on January 30, 2019.

A Justice Ministry official told The Times of Israel in February that police had recordings of Litzman and officials in his office speaking to Health Ministry employees and pressing them to act on Leifer’s behalf.

Concerns over Haredi community leaders protecting those accused of sexual offenses, including against children, have dogged the case from the start.

Leifer, for example, an Israeli citizen, slipped out of Australia and went back to Israel in 2008, days before allegations of sexual abuse against her surfaced, in an escape plan allegedly orchestrated by officials at the Adass Israel school where she taught.

After authorities in Melbourne filed charges against her, Australia officially filed an extradition request in 2012. Two years later, Leifer was arrested in Israel but released to house arrest shortly thereafter.

Judges deemed her mentally unfit to stand trial and eventually removed all restrictions against her, concluding that she was too ill to even leave her bed.

She was rearrested last February following a police undercover operation that cast doubts on her claims regarding her mental state, and has remained in custody since. The operation was launched after the Jewish Community Watch NGO hired private investigators who placed hidden cameras in the Emmanuel settlement, a Haredi community where Leifer had been living, which showed the alleged sex abuser roaming around the town without any apparent difficulty.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/deputy-minister-accused-of-protecting-sex-offenders-in-at-least-10-cases/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2019-05-15&utm_medium=email

A pediatrician questioned whether Jews were being intentionally given “bad lots” of vaccines that ended up giving children a new strain of the virus....

Despite Measles Warnings, Anti-Vaccine Rally Draws Hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

 

Hundreds were in attendance at an anti-vaccine rally in Monsey, N.Y., in Rockland County.

MONSEY, N.Y. — An ultra-Orthodox rabbi falsely described the measles outbreak among Jews as part of an elaborate plan concocted by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York to deflect attention from “more serious” diseases brought by Central American migrants.

A pediatrician questioned whether Jews were being intentionally given “bad lots” of vaccines that ended up giving children a new strain of the virus. And Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor whose study linking measles vaccines with autism was widely discredited and condemned, appeared via Skype to offer an almost apocalyptic vision of a world in which vaccines were giving rise to deadlier immunization-resistant diseases. 

Since the measles outbreak began last fall, the health authorities have embarked on a sweeping and exhaustive campaign, repeatedly urging people to get vaccinated and fighting the spread of misinformation. They have made special efforts in the ultra-Orthodox communities of Brooklyn and Rockland County, N.Y., where the disease has been spreading most quickly.

A pediatrician questioned whether Jews were being intentionally given “bad lots” of vaccines that ended up giving children a new strain of the virus. And Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor whose study linking measles vaccines with autism was widely discredited and condemned, appeared via Skype to offer an almost apocalyptic vision of a world in which vaccines were giving rise to deadlier immunization-resistant diseases. 

“We Hasidim have been chosen as the target,” said the rabbi, Hillel Handler. “The campaign against us has been successful.” 

Since the measles outbreak began last fall, the health authorities have embarked on a sweeping and exhaustive campaign, repeatedly urging people to get vaccinated and fighting the spread of misinformation. They have made special efforts in the ultra-Orthodox communities of Brooklyn and Rockland County, N.Y., where the disease has been spreading most quickly.

But the rally on Monday in Monsey, a Rockland County town about 30 miles northwest of New York City, vividly illustrated how the anti-vaccine fervor is not only enduring, but may be growing: Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed a ballroom for a “vaccine symposium” with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. 

Organized by a Monsey-based Jewish group, the event also showed how the movement was gaining ground: Greg Mitchell, a Washington-based lobbyist who represents the Church of Scientology, attended the meeting and addressed the crowd, offering to be their “voice in the public-policy game.”

The gathering was denounced by local elected officials, health authorities and some ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who said the speakers were spreading propaganda that could cause the outbreak to deepen, risking the health of countless people. 

The event was held in a large ballroom. As is customary at ultra-Orthodox gatherings, the men were separated by an improvised wall from the women. Speakers were introduced and applauded as if they were celebrities. 

The remarks — and the rapt audience — illustrated how the anti-vaccination movement can exploit fear and anxiety within relatively insular communities, especially religious ones, to undercut scientifically sound warnings from health experts. 

“They are doubling down and increasing their messaging — capitalizing on fear,” Dr. Jane Zucker, the assistant commissioner of immunization for the New York City health department, said in an interview. “Parents are afraid of who and what to believe.”

Rabbi Handler, a 77-year-old from Brooklyn who said he was a Holocaust survivor, set the tone for the night, claiming that Jews were being persecuted as disease carriers and were being attacked on the street in New York City for sneezing. (The Anti-Defamation League has strongly objected to the appropriation of Holocaust symbols by vaccine critics.)

Mr. de Blasio has issued a public health emergency for four ZIP codes in Brooklyn where ultra-Orthodox Jews live. That decision appeared to have earned him the ire of Rabbi Handler, who described Mr. de Blasio as a “sneaky fellow” and a closet German — “Wilhelm, his real name, was named after Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.”

(In fact, none of this is true. Mr. de Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr., and later decided to take his mother’s last name as his own after becoming alienated from his father.)

‘Monkey, Rat and Pig DNA’: How Misinformation Is Driving the Measles Outbreak Among Ultra-Orthodox Jews

April 9, 2019

The pediatrician who spoke on Monday night, Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, is regularly cited in pamphlets circulated in New York City that urge women not to get their children vaccinated. His views have no basis in science, experts said. 

At the rally, he talked at length about mutating viruses and falsely claimed that failed vaccines were producing a new strain of measles. Women scribbled into notepads as he spoke. Others filmed his comments, sending them to their contacts on WhatsApp. Essentially, he said, there were no studies available to show how the vaccine affects the human body.

“Is it possible that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that is somehow being given in this lot to communities in Williamsburg and Lakewood and Monsey, maybe in Borough Park, is it possible that these lots are bad?” he asked, referring to areas in New York and New Jersey with large ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. 

“It’s fascinating because we’re told how contagious the disease is, but somehow it’s centered in the Jewish community.” 

Dr. Palevsky could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. 

Mr. Wakefield, who was stripped of his medical license in his native Britain some two decades ago for fraudulent claims linking vaccines to autism, accused the health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of misleading the public. But before doing that, he insisted on his own innocence.

“I wanted to reassure you that I have never been involved in scientific fraud,” he said via Skype from a darkened room, his face appearing eerily white as it was projected onto two large overhead screens.

“What happened to me is what happens to doctors who threatened the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies.”

Rockland County has the highest number of recorded cases after New York City. But there are other pockets of large outbreaks as well, and not all of them in are in religious communities. 

The C.D.C. said on Monday that the number of measles reported across the country rose by 75 last week, bringing the total to 839 in 23 states, the highest number of cases the United States has seen since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.

New York City alone has seen 498 confirmed cases of the disease since September. In the rest of New York state, there have been 274 confirmed cases, according to official figures. About 80 percent of those cases were located in Rockland County.

Read more about parents who choose not to vaccinate their children:

Measles Outbreak: Opposition to Vaccine Extends Well Beyond Ultra-Orthodox Jews in N.Y.

May 9, 2019

New York authorities have used a number of tactics to force people to get immunized, including excluding unvaccinated children from going to schools with low vaccination rates or threatening thousand-dollar fines on parents for failing to vaccinate their children. 

The strategies have been largely successful, health officials have insisted, even though there have been setbacks. 

In Rockland County, for example, a state of emergency declaration in March that banned unvaccinated children from public spaces was challenged by parents and halted after a judge ruled that the outbreak did not legally merit an emergency declaration. 

The county executive, Ed Day, issued a new declaration last month that sought to prevent people who were exposed to measles from being in public places.

Local officials, including Mr. Day and Rabbi Chaim Schabes, expressed outrage in a joint statement at the “outsiders” who organized Monday’s rally and “are targeting our community.”

“Tonight’s event and the misinformation being shared at it runs counter to every statement from the medical experts and elected officials of our county,” the statement read.

“This type of propaganda endangers the health and safety of children within our community and around the world, and must be denounced in the strongest language possible.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/nyregion/measles-vaccine-orthodox-jews.html?fbclid=IwAR189XXFEOk6xDLFywqVE1R6aOpPo2Bg3F05whrF1zCvU8eznomy-kLeozA

Just one of the event’s five speakers, who were introduced as “distinguished personalities” and the “cream of humanity’s crop,” was from the Orthodox community. Rabbi Hillel Handler, who has likened vaccination to “child sacrifice” in the past, told the crowd that according to “medical research,” if you catch “measles, mumps and chickenpox, your chances of getting cancer, heart disease, and strokes goes down 60 percent.” READ IT ALL:

http://gothamist.com/2019/05/14/anti_vaxx_symposium_orthodox.php

One Would Think a Human Being With a Conscience Would Stand Up and Admit They Were So Very Wrong & Helped Create an Epidemic! Not These Guys!" Dual Scourges – Disease and Ignorance"

“I see vaccinations as the problem. It’s a hoax. Even the Salk vaccine [against polio] is a hoax. It is just big business.” Shmuel Kaminetzky

Trust any of these imbeciles at your own peril...and that of your community!

http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2018/03/trust-any-of-these-imbeciles-at-your.html

http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2018/11/shmuel-and-temi-kamenetzky-will-not-be.html

Vaccination is Pikuach Nefesh

By: Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt
Director, Halachah & Medicine Commission
Rabbinical Alliance of America/Igud HaRabbonim

https://rabbinicalalliance.org/2019/04/10/vaccination-is-pikuach-nefesh/?fbclid=IwAR0d6fvSEYobdBElxAyAUT7ALisNrlkK0gfHZ-OCElRYBmjQBfJS1W9-KkU

I have one perfectly healthy child and I do not want DOCTORS anywhere near her!

I Didn’t Vaccinate My Kids and the One Who Lived, Turned out Just Fine

TRUTH ALERT: I didn’t vaccinate my kids and the one who lived, turned out just fine.

You heard me. When each of my five children were born, my husband and I made the decision NOT to pump our kids full of “vaccines” and “preventative medicines” despite the societal pressure to do so. And today we have one perfectly fine child who lived to see her 13th birthday.

If you want to hear the TRUTH that the vaccine industry doesn’t want YOU to know, keep reading.

Like most mothers, I take my children’s health and well-being very seriously. When my beautiful babies, who I miss so much, were born, I went with my gut and the advice of my yoga friends and didn’t vaccinate them. Now I am asking you to PLEASE do the same.

I’m a mother and I read a lot of stuff on the internet; I know vaccines are approved by the FDA to prevent disease BUT I’M NOT CONVINCED! And I’m here to convince you to not be convinced by their “science” and “research.”

Would you rather take advice from me, a real mother who raised five kids and still has one wonderful, beautiful teenage daughter? Or would you rather listen to the BIASED media, or worse, the corrupt doctors?

The choice should be simple.

Don’t even get me started on those death peddlers. At best, doctors are snake oil salesmen trying to pump our kids full of vaccines they don’t need. At worst, they are actively trying to kill our children.

  MY children, my friends’ children, and if you’re not careful they’ll come after YOUR children.

I have one perfectly healthy child and I do not want DOCTORS anywhere near her.

As soon as my first baby was born, which I’m ashamed to say happened in a hospital, the doctors immediately tried to vaccinate him. They said they wanted to prevent the spread of diseases that I’m pretty sure they were making up! Is anyone fact-checking doctors these days? 

THEY SHOULD BE.

Besides, if doctors were so smart, why couldn’t they cure my oldest son when he got measles?  Or my second daughter when she got cholera? Where’s their science when we really need it?

Exactly. If they really knew about the immune system or any of these diseases they’d know how to fix them and not just try and fill our babies with chemicals AND LIES.

Vaccines are the number one killer of all children on the planet. THEY don’t want you to know, but it’s the truth.

So please, as a mother, THINK before you vaccinate your child. I’ve raised plenty of kids, one all the way to the age of 13.
 
Trust me when I tell you the vaccines aren’t worth the risk.

My beautiful daughter wasn’t vaccinated and she’s just starting high school. She has lots of friends and gets awesome grades (B’s and C’s, proud mama!). And we just found out she has polio so she may very well be the next Stephen Hawking.

https://thehardtimes.net/hardstyle/didnt-vaccinate-kids-one-lived-turned-fine/?fbclid=IwAR2u_sLBMA9snJHddzPmiy_E63DtYNUCK4WOZV6nfh_a9RcJOKXQodNlTOE

Just How Dumb & Crazy Does It Get? The ‘top doctor from Oklahoma’ said that doctors are all bought out by the pharmaceutical companies. To which Dr Wertzberger replied ‘ how much did you get paid to come here!?

Satmar Rebbe & R’ Elya Ber met physicians to discuss vaccinations, read what happened

 

Teitelbaum & Wachtfogel

There was a two hour heated debate at the home of the Satmar Rebbe of Kiryas Yoel, on the topic of vaccinations. R’ Elya Ber Wachtfogel was in attendance as well. R’ Elya Ber is reportedly an Anti-vaxxer.

The anti-vaxxers brought a physician from Oklohoma, who made four points.

1. vaccinations are dangerous,
2. It is against the Torah (I don’t think they brought a DR for that)
3. Doctors are bought by the pharmaceutical companies
4. The health department is wrong

The pro-vaxxers had Dr Wertzberger & another doctor (some Hatzolah member were there as well).

Related: GL Exclusive: Anti-Vaxxers responses – Part 1

When the Oklahoma physician said the Torah doesn’t allow it, the Rebbe said ‘leave the Torah out’ just stick to medical facts. After several questions, they realized this ‘top doctor from Oklahoma’ never dealt with Kids. He was not a pediatrician.

Dr. Wertzberger said he was a pediatrician and has been seeing children for 30+ years and vaccinated over 10,000 children. He said of course vaccinations are a good thing etc. and he has the stats from his own patients to show it.

The ‘top doctor from Oklahoma’ said that doctors are all bought out by the pharmaceutical companies. To which Dr Wertzberger replied ‘ how much did you get paid to come here!?

During the exchange, some anti-vaxxers in the room started screaming that kids die from vaccines. 

The Rebbe said people died from heart surgery should we not do heart surgery? People died from the needle at the dentist, should we not go to the dentist anymore? The Rebbe said the bottom line is we will not force you to vaccinate but don’t put us in danger. The Anti-vaxxers should open their own schools, shuls, camps & playgrounds.

https://greaterlakewood.com/satmar-rebbe-r-elya-ber-meet-physicians-to-discuss-vaccinations-sees-what-happened/?fbclid=IwAR0-8c7xldSiv5QbqaHSzpiNnDzZnd_0R2jICiZvMhWW46_PJLU_YVRgXQE