Author Topic: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel  (Read 292782 times)

Offline Mikes@Micro

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Quote or engagement  equals full throated endorsement and vote!
H/t PinchosL

Offline PlatinumGuy

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1461 on: January 31, 2021, 09:30:56 AM »
The charedi R is now the lowest. It can only mean one thing...
The R measurements are only based on how many people test positive and may not be accurate when the positivity rate is growing

Which one thing?
He probably means herd immunity which I guess wasn’t debunked enough times, but realistically ~90% of frum schools are closed and most of the community obey the precautionary measures religiously


« Last Edit: January 31, 2021, 09:33:58 AM by PlatinumGuy »
״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline iluv2travel

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1462 on: January 31, 2021, 09:41:38 AM »

Offline Moshe123

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1463 on: January 31, 2021, 10:08:17 AM »
Which one thing?

That's on the way down bh.

Offline S209

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1464 on: January 31, 2021, 10:08:27 AM »
Try this.

https://archive.is/oeKGI
Isn’t it free to all because it’s COVID related? He probably just can’t access the link.
Quote from: YitzyS
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Offline iluv2travel

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1465 on: January 31, 2021, 10:27:22 AM »
Isn’t it free to all because it’s COVID related? He probably just can’t access the link.

I couldn't either access it. The pop-up prompting me to create an access came up right away blocking the content.

They must have decided it was more anti-semetic related than Covid related.

Offline PlatinumGuy

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״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline AsherO

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1467 on: January 31, 2021, 10:33:07 AM »
100% of Likes will be donated to support our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael

Offline aygart

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1468 on: January 31, 2021, 10:36:39 AM »
I couldn't either access it. The pop-up prompting me to create an access came up right away blocking the content.

They must have decided it was more anti-semetic related than Covid related.
Try to copy paste the link into another browser or ingognito
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline monoso

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1469 on: January 31, 2021, 10:38:08 AM »
To get around the New York Times subscription blocker just refresh and press the x before it finishes loading. It’s the only website I know where this work around still works. It’s literally the original work around.

Offline tavster

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1470 on: January 31, 2021, 10:52:47 AM »
Ok so the Knesset passed the bill about increased fines etc.

But is there stats about of any institutions / schools having been fined, and any evidence that the fines are being paid?

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1471 on: January 31, 2021, 11:05:20 AM »
Ok so the Knesset passed the bill about increased fines etc.

But is there stats about of any institutions / schools having been fined, and any evidence that the fines are being paid?
I believe the bigger news is

Quote
ראה גורם מורשה, על יסוד דין וחשבון
שהגיש לו הגורם המוסמך, כי מוסד המקיים פעילות חינוך (בסעיף זה – מוסד) פתוח ללומדים, לחניכים או למטופלים בו (בסעיף זה – תלמידים),
בניגוד להוראות שנקבעו בתקנות לפי סעיף 10(ב)(1) או (2) או שנקבעו על ידי ועדת השרים לפי סעיף 18, ולפיהן חל איסור לפתוח את המוסד לתלמידים (בסעיף זה – הוראות הגבלת פעילות לעניין מוסד), רשאי הוא לצוות בכתב על הגורם האחראי על המוסד, מנימוקים שיירשמו בצו, לסגור את המוסד או חלק ממנו לתלמידים (בסעיף זה – צו סגירה מינהלי למוסד); לעניין זה, "הגורם האחראי על המוסד" – מעסיק, מנהל, מחזיק, מפעיל, או גורם
אחר שיש לו יכולת שליטה על הפעלת המוסד.
https://main.knesset.gov.il/Activity/Legislation/Laws/Pages/LawBill.aspx?t=lawsuggestionssearch&lawitemid=2148343

Which in turn if disobeyed is punishable with 2 years prison time

Quote
287.  (א)  המפר הוראה שניתנה כשורה מאת בית משפט או מאת פקיד או אדם הפועל בתפקיד רשמי ומוסמך לאותו ענין, דינו - מאסר שנתיים.

https://www.nevo.co.il/law_html/law01/073_002.htm#Seif256
״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline tavster

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1472 on: January 31, 2021, 11:09:43 AM »
Will this be enforced?

Offline PlatinumGuy

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1473 on: January 31, 2021, 11:13:34 AM »
Will this be enforced?
Probably. I doubt you'll see anybody but the most fanatic anarchist sects breaking a specific צו סגירה (they'll just move to alternative locations instead), and if they do, the police can get away with punishing them harshly.
״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline PlatinumGuy

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1474 on: January 31, 2021, 11:17:41 AM »
״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline S209

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1475 on: January 31, 2021, 11:19:17 AM »
Can someone Copy/paste?

He Is Israel’s ‘Prince of Torah.’ But to Some, He Is the King of Covid.
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky is the spiritual authority for hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews. But his pronouncements on the virus have made him a villain to many.

Jan. 29, 2021

BNEI BRAK, Israel — Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 93, can’t use a phone. He rarely leaves his house. His family says he has never successfully made a cup of tea. His closest aides think he doesn’t know the name of Israel’s prime minister. He studies the Torah for, give or take, 17 hours a day.

Yet despite his seeming detachment from worldly life, Rabbi Kanievsky has become one of the most consequential and controversial people in Israel today.

The spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Rabbi Kanievsky has landed at the center of tensions over the coronavirus between the Israeli mainstream and its growing ultra-Orthodox minority.

Throughout the pandemic, the authorities have clashed with the ultra-Orthodox over their resistance to antivirus protocols, particularly their early refusal to close schools or limit crowds at religious events. Similar conflicts have played out in the New York area.

Rabbi Kanievsky, issuing pronouncements from a book-filled study in his cramped apartment in an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, has often been at the fore of that resistance. Twice, during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Israel, he rejected state-imposed antivirus protocols and would not order his followers to close their yeshivas, independent religious schools where students gather in close quarters to study Jewish Scripture.

“God forbid!” he exclaimed. If anything, he said, the pandemic made prayer and study even more essential.

Both times he eventually relented, and it is unlikely that he played as big a role in spreading the virus as he was accused of, but the damage was done.

Many public health experts say that the ultra-Orthodox — who account for about 12 percent of the population but 28 percent of the coronavirus infections, according to Israeli government statistics — have undermined the national effort against the coronavirus.

The reaction has been fierce, much of it centered on Rabbi Kanievsky.

The rabbi “must be arrested for spreading a disease,” blared a column last week in Haaretz, a left-wing newspaper. “This rabbi dictates the scandalous conduct in the ultra-Orthodox sector,” said an article in Yedioth Ahronoth, a centrist news outlet.

The backlash exaggerates both the rabbi’s role and that of the ultra-Orthodox in general. Ultra-Orthodox society is not monolithic, and other prominent leaders were far quicker to comply with antivirus regulations. Ultra-Orthodox leaders say the majority of their followers have obeyed the rules although their typically large families, living in tight quarters under what is now the third national lockdown, have inevitably contributed to the spread of the contagion.

Rabbi Kanievsky’s position has also been more nuanced than sometimes portrayed. But he has contributed to one of the biggest-ever showdowns between the Israeli mainstream and the ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim.

“I don’t remember such a case in the history of the state of Israel,” said Prof. Benjamin Brown, an expert on Haredi thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the past, he said, ultra-Orthodox leaders have tried to avoid direct confrontation with the state.

Born in what is now Belarus in 1928, Rabbi Kanievsky immigrated to what was then Palestine before World War II. He has spent most of his subsequent waking life studying Jewish texts, gradually building a following among the so-called Lithuanian Jews, a non-Hasidic sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews with Eastern European roots who form roughly a third of the Haredim in Israel.

When the sect’s previous leader died in 2017, Rabbi Kanievsky was one of two senior rabbis who filled the vacuum, which gave him considerable authority over the sect as well as an ultra-Orthodox political party that now forms part of the government.

His pedigree adds to his prestige: His father and uncle were legendary spiritual leaders. But it is his relentless Torah study that gives the rabbi his authority — his followers believe his encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish teachings endows him with a near-mystical ability to offer religious guidance.

“They see him as a holy man,” said Eli Paley, the chairman of the Haredi Institute for Public Affairs, a Jerusalem-based research group. “They see their existence as relying on Rabbi Chaim and his Torah learning.”

On a recent afternoon in his apartment in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Bnei Brak, Rabbi Kanievsky appeared oblivious to the controversy raging around him. He sat silently at a small wooden table covered in a silvery tablecloth, surrounded by religious books. His wrinkled and reddened hands gripped a white book of Scripture. Since rising before dawn, he had been studying the Chullin, a rabbinical text on the laws of ritual slaughter, and would continue to study late into the night.

He never gives interviews and barely registered my presence, glancing at me only briefly to offer the short blessing he gives to most visitors.

It is this devotion to religious study that made Rabbi Kanievsky — sometimes nicknamed the ‘Prince of Torah’ — so reluctant to tell his followers to close their yeshivas at the start of the pandemic. The pandemic, he believed, according to his interlocutors, made prayer and study more important, not less.

“He believes the Torah sustains the world,” said Yaakov Kanievsky, his 31-year-old grandson and the rabbi’s main mediator with the outside world. “Without Torah learning, we don’t have any reason to live. It’s written in the Bible — if you stop learning, the world will collapse.”

For a few hours each day, Rabbi Kanievsky stops studying to take questions from his followers, who either put their requests in writing or pose them in person during visiting hours. Since the rabbi is hard of hearing, the questions are relayed by his grandsons, who shout them in the rabbi’s ear and, when necessary, contextualize the questions and clarify their grandfather’s terse, mumbled answers.

A few such exchanges at the start of the pandemic quickly gained national notoriety.

“There is now a great epidemic in the world, a disease called corona and it affects many people,” one grandson shouted in the rabbi’s ear last year, following a question from a visitor, according to a video of the conversation. “He asks what they should take upon themselves so this disease does not get to them and there are no problems.”

“They should learn Talmud,” the rabbi whispered in response.

“The question is,” Yaakov asked his grandfather on a separate occasion, “if grandfather thinks that they should close the schools because of this?”

“God forbid!” the rabbi replied.

In an interview, Yaakov Kanievsky, better known as Yanki, said that these brief clips don’t tell the whole story. The rabbi, he said, has long complied with government policy.

“There are things that get misunderstood,” Yanki said. “He takes Covid very seriously, and he takes the patients very seriously.”

Several weeks into the pandemic, the rabbi ordered his followers to obey social distancing guidelines, even equating scofflaws to murderers. In June, he said face masks were a religious obligation. In December, he gave his blessing to the vaccine, not long after recovering from the virus himself. In recent days he condemned a group of Haredi youths who clashed with police officers trying to enforce coronavirus regulations.

And he ultimately reversed himself on closing the yeshivas, which remain closed or under quarantine during the current lockdown.

“If you look at the news tonight, there will be one Haredi school open, and people will say, ‘Oh, it’s all Rabbi Kanievsky’s fault,’” Yanki said. “But it’s really not.”

Yanki’s dominant role in his grandfather’s life has led to questions about who is really in charge, and whether Rabbi Kanievsky is alert enough to judge matters of national importance. Critics say the grandson controls who can and can’t reach the grandfather — even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been granted the privilege of speaking with Rabbi Kanievsky directly.

It is usually Yanki who shapes the way questions are put to the rabbi, potentially influencing the way that he might answer them.

“It’s all a question of how things are presented — the man does not have the ability to figure out how things are projected to him,” said Prof. Kimmy Caplan, an expert on Haredim at Bar-Ilan University. “We’re talking about a person who has been living in Bubble Wrap for quite a few years. The man is 93 years old. I’m not taking away from his wisdom, but he is in many ways detached from reality.”

The younger Mr. Kanievsky said that his grandfather is entirely his own man, and that it would be impossible to influence him even if he tried. Everyone has the right to ask him anything — they just have to line up and wait their turn.

“I can’t tell the rabbi what to say,” said Yanki. “If he thinks I’m trying to manipulate him, I am finished.”

But without speaking to the rabbi directly, it is hard to know exactly what he thinks. As the interview with Yanki drew to close, we asked for a final audience with the rabbi.

Yanki shook his head. Rabbi Kanievsky was taking a nap.

Reporting was contributed by Myra Noveck and Irit Pazner Garshowitz.
Quote from: YitzyS
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Offline Moshe123

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Offline iluv2travel

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1477 on: January 31, 2021, 01:48:57 PM »
Try to copy paste the link into another browser or ingognito

To get around the New York Times subscription blocker just refresh and press the x before it finishes loading. It’s the only website I know where this work around still works. It’s literally the original work around.

Will try these ideas. Thank you.

Offline Traveler718

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Re: The current state of COVID-19 in Israel
« Reply #1478 on: January 31, 2021, 03:04:25 PM »
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/world/israel-virus-rabbi-orthodox.html

Am I the only one wondering if Rav Chaim's family knows what the NYT is? It's clear from the article that the author entered the house with permission, along with a staff photographer, to observe Rav Chaim and also interview his grandson. It's one thing if the NYT decided to write an anti-gadol article on their own, but for a family that made him unavailable for Bibi, maybe I'm out of the loop, but I would have expected them to slam the door on an American newspaper (especially the Times) even harder.

Offline S209

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Quote from: YitzyS
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