By: Ray Weiler

In this new age of sheltering at home, more New Yorkers than ever are staying in their homes. Tragically, many are dying in them during this age of Corona.

Hasidic communities in Brooklyn – specifically, Borough Park and Williamsburg — are reporting a major increase in the number of Jews who are passing away at home. One estimate says the number is now higher than normal by a factor of 10.

This represent “a disturbing citywide trend,” according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “In addition to the high death toll of confirmed coronavirus patients in this city’s hospitals, more New Yorkers are dying at home during the health crisis. Mayor Bill de Blasio had said it is reasonable to assume that most at-home deaths are attributable to COVID-19. Across the city, ProPublica found, at-home deaths have increased almost sixfold.”

Based on the number of calls to the Fire Department for fatal cardiac arrests, Gothamist.com pointed out that for Borough Park, Kensington and Ocean Parkway, there was a total of 27 fatal cardiac arrest calls to the Fire Department from March 1 to April 13. Previously, the average had been just two. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg combined there had been 16 calls this year, but only one in 2019.

“That makes those neighborhoods, both home to large populations of Hasidic Orthodox Jews, two of the areas with the biggest increases in at-home deaths compared to last year,” the news site pointed out. “Other neighborhoods with high at-home death rates are Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Jamaica and Astoria in Queens, and Washington Heights in Manhattan.”

According to statistics released by the New York City Department of Health, Borough Park, Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Midwood have some of the highest death at home rates in the city. “As of April 17, Borough Park has had more than 1,900 positive tests for the coronavirus, the fourth-highest number of any of the city’s Zip codes,” JTA reported.

Nor is the surge in at-home deaths restricted to the Jewish community. The news site propublica.org recently reported that experts are saying that it is “possible that some of the jump in at-home death stems from people infected by the virus who either didn’t seek treatment or did but were instructed to shelter in place, and that the undercount is exacerbated by lack of comprehensive testing. It’s also possible that the increase in at-home deaths reflects people dying from other ailments like heart attacks because they couldn’t get to a hospital or refused to go, fearful they’d contract COVID-19.”

Motty Brauner, a member of Borough Park’s Shomrim, a volunteer security patrol, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview that the need for wellness checks for the elderly at home has skyrocketed. To date, he added, the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus seems to be slowing down as locals get more strict about social distancing and other health measures.

By: Blaine Allen

With the Orthodox Jewish death toll from the coronavirus as tragically high as it is, transporting the dead to Israel for burial has become a major undertaking – and a major financial burden.

An employee at Israel’s Ben Gurion International recently confided to Calcalist, the Israeli daily newspaper and web site, that “A new industry is developing here for body-shipping and burials in Israel, most of which are coronavirus victims.”

The Health Ministry’s guidelines “are very clear on how a body must be shipped: in a casket and with consular clearance,” the source added, according to The Jewish Press. “But some of these bodies come on private jets at crazy prices, which involves executive jet companies, mainly from abroad, as well as shipping companies and all kinds of Haredi machers in the US and France – especially in places where there are financially strong Jewish communities that have been affected by the coronavirus.”

Attention to health and public safety is naturally at its highest level. For instance, according to a protocol established by the Israeli Health Ministry, corpses must be identified, then wrapped in a pair of polyethylene bags and placed inside “a sealed container with metallic walls or two wooden caskets, one inside the other.”

An employee at Ben Gurion Airport’s customs desk also told Calcalist: “If in routine times we would release one body every two to three nights, suddenly, dozens of bodies arrive from abroad in one day, mostly from New York, Paris, London. It’s really become a crazy industry.”

Understandably, those involved in the process in Israel find themselves having to deal with a flurry of emotions. “Feelings are very much mixed,” Yakov Kurtz, who works for Chevra Kadisha, the main group overseeing Jewish burials in Israel, told Reuters. “We don’t know what to expect, we don’t know how many dead we will have to tend to. There are many fears.”

Funerals and mourning rituals, noted the news service, “have changed for everyone since Israeli and Palestinian authorities imposed stay-at-home directives and restricted the size of public gatherings to try to halt the spread of infection. Funerals in Israel can be attended by no more than 20 people in an open space only. Social distancing rules mean that embracing the bereaved is just not done. That has affected the Jewish tradition of Shiva–a seven-day period that begins after a funeral, in which people come to the family home to offer condolences, bring food and reminisce about the departed.”

According to the web site onemileatatime.com, private jet charter companies like Talon Air are seeing bookings from New York to Tel Aviv rising. “It would appear that these charter flights are transporting the deceased to Israel. Many Jews consider it an honor to be buried in Israel. Generally remains would be shipped on United Airlines, as they continue to fly from Newark to Tel Aviv.”

It’s not an inexpensive flight. “Based on doing some Googling, a Gulfstream charter usually costs over $8,000 per hour,” the web site noted. “The plane is flying roundtrip to Israel, so it’s flying for well over 20 hours. Based on that, I would guess that one of these charters must cost somewhere around $150,000 to $200,000.”

By: Jared Evan

Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to call on President Trump to direct desperately needed federal funding to American cities, and to criticize the president’s silence on the matter, NY Times reported.

“President Trump, what’s going on? Cat got your tongue?” Mr. de Blasio said during his daily press briefing on Sunday. “You’re usually really talkative. You usually have an opinion on everything. How on earth do you not have an opinion on aid to American cities and states?”

“So my question is, Mr. Trump, Mr. President, are you going to save New York City or are you telling New York City to drop dead? Which one is it?”, the mayor said in an attempt to use anti Trump sentiment to boast his sinking popularity.

On Saturday night, de Blasio sounded similar sentiments while appearing on entertainment talk network MSNBC. “It means all the things that people depend on in their lives — police, fire, sanitation, education — go down the list of all the things that makes any city, any town function,” the mayor said as he called on Trump to take action

“If you’re missing $7 billion, I assure you, you have to stop — you have to start to cut that stuff back in ways that can be very dangerous.”

The mayor unveiled a “wartime budget” on Thursday with more than $2 billion in cuts as New York City is faced with a $7.4 billion shortfall in tax revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic.

De Blasio’s $89.3 billion executive budget proposal is $6 billion less than the one he pitched in January and $3.4 billion less than last year’s budget adopted in June 2019, according to de Blasio. The new budget includes an array of cuts including canceling after-school programs, keeping the city’s public pools closed for the summer and implementing a hiring freeze for many city agencies, Commercial observer reported.

“Things that might have been a priority a month or two months ago can’t be a priority now,” de Blasio said at a press conference when revealing the budget. “Things that we would love to focus on in peacetime, we can’t focus on in wartime. And this is, in effect, wartime.”

“If the federal government fails us then — I want to be really clear — the notion of this city recovering doesn’t work,” de Blasio said. “If we can’t provide the basics for our people then you can kiss our recovery goodbye.”

De Blasio has developed a speaking relationship with the president, and Trump recently complimented him; one must wonder why de Blasio does not simply discuss this with Trump, instead of the TV dramatics.

On Sunday de Blasio continued to push the program of citizens reporting others who are not social distancing via 311 on their smart phones. Critics call it a “snitching program”

“In war times, in a time when people’s lives are threatened … I’m sorry, this is not snitching, this is saving lives,” Hizzoner said of his “New Squeal” push for New Yorkers to snap photos of those gathering in public.

This is just the same reality, we just have a different enemy — an enemy you can’t see, but an enemy that has taken so many lives,” he said.

“We need those photos. We need those locations so we can enforce right away.”

The mayor admitted that staying inside was only going to get harder with the arrival of gorgeous Springtime temperatures — but threatened to dole out $1,000 fines for those he failed to heed social distancing guidelines, the NY Post reported.

By: Mike Mustiglione

“What oil is to Saudi Arabia our workforce is to New York,” 92nd Street Y CEO Seth Pinksy said Friday. “It is our most valuable natural resource. It is the fuel to our economic expansion. If we lose that workforce, we will have trouble recovering no matter what we do.”

Pinsky was a panelist Friday on a virtual forum called “Restarting NYC’s Economy” hosted by the Center for an Urban Future, Crain’s reported

The group made some startling predictions, the flight of millions of City residents, due to the pandemic.

Center for Urban Future wrote in a recent analysis: The current crisis is likely to have a particularly devastating economic impact on the four boroughs outside Manhattan. This analysis shows that many of the industries suffering the most catastrophic early setbacks from efforts to contain the virus—including restaurants, retail, personal care services, childcare services, and air transportation—are overrepresented in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Recent growth trends may have exacerbated these vulnerabilities: While the city’s decade-long economic boom resulted in significant job growth across the city, a larger share of the job gains outside Manhattan were in these hard-hit industries.

Small business are being devastated because the coronavirus shutdowns. The question remains, will people simply leave the city when the pandemic is over? It is clear based on the statistics around the country, New York City was clearly hit the hardest. One must contemplate what exactly is it about NYC that resulted in the huge numbers of people who are infected and who died from this hidden killer?

NYC is obviously a hotspot for tourists from all corners of the globe, so that definitely contributed to the rapid spread. There is another factor, very few people are discussing. New Yorkers count disproportionately on public transportation to get to work. Based on how the virus spreads, its almost of certainty that the reliance on public transportation was one of the main contributors to the startling COVID-19 numbers in NYC.

An MIT economics professor and physician Jeffrey Harris, points to a parallel between high ridership “and the rapid, exponential surge in infections” in the first two weeks of March — when the subways were still packed with up to 5 million riders per day — as well as between turnstile entries and virus hotspots. He concluded the trains were a major disseminator of the virus.

A quick look at the numbers, nationwide only 5% of Americans relay on public transportation to get to work, in NYC 39% use the subway, 23% drive alone, 11% take the bus, 9% walk to work, 7% travel by commuter rail, 4% carpool, 1.6% use a taxi, 1.1% ride their bicycle to work, and 0.4% travel by ferry, according to MTA numbers. That is a big difference between NYC and the rest of the country, over half of city residents take public transportation.

The City over the last decade, under Bloomberg and de Blasio have heavily pushed public transportation and essentially made it impossible to drive into Manhattan to work, by eliminating parking spots and making the streets very driver unfriendly. The quest for a “green city” definitely resulted in the staggering coronavirus numbers.

The question remains, will people flee now that the outer boroughs are devested with loss of business and jobs and will those who travel by transportation, to the city from the outer boroughs, realize the trains were the biggest contributor to the spread and pack their bags for a different lifestyle. In order to maintain the Middle- and Working-class population, the City will have to be run differently.

By: Arthur Popowitz

Mayor de Blasio is about to spoil summer for millions of New Yorkers. Coronavirus and an over cautious mayor will combine to a summer of no beaches, public pools, or parades.

The NY Post reported: The move was described by de Blasio as equal parts social-distancing precaution and cost-saving measure, sufficient to save the city about $12 million as it stares down a 10-digit budget crunch.

The closing of public pools will leave hundred and thousands of urban children, many unprivileged sufferings in the heat. The closing of the city’s beaches especially Coney Island will be disastrous for local business in Coney Island, which is already a very poor neighborhood.

“Imagine Coney Island in the middle of summer, hundreds of thousands of people packed tightly together,” he said. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon. It’s not safe.”, de Blasio said at a recent press briefing.

Coney Island being closed will undoubtedly destroy the local restaurants and Luna Park. There has been no discussion if Luna Park will be open, considering the strong social distancing laws, the giant amusement park will probably be closed as well. Hundreds of jobs, which mostly are occupied by local minority youth will be lost.

The Post reported that other warm-weather traditions such as the Israeli Day Parade, Puerto Rican Day Parade and Pride March — which would be marking its 50th anniversary this year — were also on the bubble.

“The city is canceling all permitted events in May,” mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie said. “We are in the process of reviewing June events and will be engaging with key stakeholders. “A decision on June permitting will be announced later in the week.”

Sources to the NY Post that even events in July and beyond might not take place. This includes the 4th of July fireworks event and Brooklyn’s West Indian Day Parade, which happens during Labor Day in September

This is not what we’re looking for, but we know we’re gonna do this stage by stage, step by step, and it just reminds us that we have to stick to it”, de Blasio said.

Strangely enough, even as Cuomo is announcing downticks in hospital admissions, and ICI patients going down, de Blasio continues to say the exact opposite. De Blasio appears on TV almost daily as a panicked man, with very little clue as to what is actually happening in the city, and more intent on starting political spats with the president on MSNBC than actually leading NYC thru this awful time.

One thing for certain de Blasio is overly concerned for New York City’s prison population. “The The jail population is now under 4,000 inmates, ”de Blasio said. “That is the lowest in 74 years, since 1946, the year after World War II ended.”

By: Jennifer Peltz, Marina Villeneuve & Michael Hill

Hospitals in parts of upstate New York will be able to conduct outpatient elective surgeries again, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday as he pledged to consider regional differences when re-opening the state’s outbreak-stalled economy.

Hospitals in selected counties can resume elective outpatient treatments April 28 if a capacity benchmark is met and there have been fewer than 10 new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county over the past 10 days.

“We’re going to allow it in those hospitals and counties in the state that do not have a COVID issue or we wouldn’t need their beds in case of a surge,” Cuomo said at a briefing in Buffalo.

The hospital restrictions will remain in effect in hard-hit New York City, Long Island and suburban Westchester and Rockland counties, as well as in 10 upstate counties. Buffalo and Albany are in counties where the restrictions remain.

By Monday, more than 250,000 people in New York had tested positive for COVID-19 — a milestone figure that likely undercounts infected residents by a significant margin. People in New York City, a worldwide hotspot, were advised to seek testing only if they were ill enough to possibly require hospitalization.

Hospitalization trends are more encouraging, and the state is planning how to gradually ease up on outbreak restrictions.

Total statewide hospitalizations have slowly dropped to 16,076, more than 2,000 below a week ago. The state recorded 481 deaths Monday for a total of 14,828. It was the second straight day with under 500 fatalities.

As he plans for the re-opening, Cuomo said it was important to note that the outbreak hit regions of the state at different times and at different rates. Rural stretches of northern New York are facing “a totally different situation” than densely settled New York City.

“We operate as one state, but we also have to understand variations and you do want to get this economy opened as soon as possible,” he said. “And if the situation is radically different in one part of state than another part of the state, then take that into consideration.”

Cuomo appeared in Buffalo a day after protesters drove about 150 cars in the city’s downtown to call for an end to stay-at-home restrictions.

In contrast to overwhelmed New York City hospitals, some serving rural areas of the state have furloughed staff recently as revenue from elective procedures dried up.

In Buffalo, Catholic Health is losing about $30 million a month in revenue since drastically reducing elective procedures at its five western New York hospitals, President and Chief Executive Mark Sullivan said.

“It’s a huge burden on the health system but we can’t turn away from public safety and making sure that the plan going forward is appropriate,” Sullivan said by phone.

Only one of the system’s hospitals, Mount St. Mary’s Hospital in Niagara County, is outside an exclusion zone and administrators are looking at how to bring back elective treatments.

Other coronavirus developments in New York:

Cuomo headed to the White House on Tuesday to seek federal help with coronavirus testing.

Cuomo said he’ll use his Tuesday meeting with President Donald Trump to push for the federal government to help manufacturers get the chemicals and swabs needed for states to perform wide-scale testing.

            (Associated Press)

By: Ilana Siyance

The novel Coronavirus has had its negative impact on each industry. New York City’s garment industry, however, is rising up to the call for action. The epidemic has led industry leaders to manufacture much needed surgical gowns for the city’s health care workers. The work will begin this week, and will provide jobs for up to 500 New Yorkers, who would have otherwise been home without work. As reported by the NY Post, the idea for local manufacturers to step up to the task of providing essentials is part of “Operation Local Production”, the White House’s response to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s urgent request for hospital protective gear during an Easter Sunday phone call.

The Mayor’s office was desperate after ordering fabric for 300,0000 hospital gowns from China, which never arrived. Last week, the Mayor said the city had “barely enough” emergency protection gear to protect frontline healthcare workers. Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President for Trade and Manufacturing Policy, had a solution for a fix which would also help the Big Apple’s struggling garment industry.

“New York’s famous garment industry was all but destroyed by the sweat shops of Asia, leaving Americans defenseless in this new war where our weapons range from masks and booties to surgical gowns,” said Navarro, the Nation’s equipment czar. “By setting in motion a plan to reinvigorate that garment industry in just seven days, Operation Local Production perfectly captures the spirit, speed, and innovation of a new Trump economy springing up swiftly in Trump time to combat the invisible virus. This is Buy and Build American at its very best”.

The White House was successful in getting a million yards of waterproof fabric from healthcare company Owens & Minor for NYC within a few days, thanks to the help of private enterprise and the National Council of Textile Organizations. UPS even volunteered a truck and driver which delivered the fabric from North Carolina in only two days. The fabric will be sent to four lead manufacturers, including Course of Trade, which is a non-profit organization in Sunset Park that provides free sewing training to New Yorkers in-need, as per de Blasio’s office.

The Mayor’s office announced that this week over 40,000 gowns will be made with the Owens & Minor fabric. By May 23 the production is slated to jump to 400,000 gowns. “I’m so thankful to Peter Navarro and so proud of the New Yorkers who are coming together in this time of need to help others,” said the Mayor.

“Our healthcare workers are heroes on the front line – we must use every tool we’ve got to ensure their safety,” said de Blasio in a statement.

In contrast, last month White House officials had swiftly sent protective equipment to frontline NYPD detectives, less than 24 hours after getting an emergency email from the chief of department in what became known as “Operation Blue Bloods.”

By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

NYC’s food banks are now servicing a wide array of newly unemployed residents. The Big Apple’s soup kitchens, food banks and do-good pop-up services are straining to meet the increasing needs of residents during the coronavirus crisis. As reported by the NY Post, actors, musicians, artists and even graduate school students are starting to show up at the city’s food banks, as the city’s unemployment rises.

Winston Majette, executive director of the Harlem chamber of commerce, confirmed the influx of hundreds of neighborhood newcomers. “That’s the dynamic in just two weeks,” Majette said. Similarly, City Harvest said it has experience the growing need. The nonprofit, which distributes food donated by restaurants and other retailers to about 250 food pantries and soup kitchens across NYC, says it delivered 6.6 million pounds of food between March 9 and April 12 this year. That is close to 5 million pounds more than the same period last year, as per Racine Lee Droz, City Harvest’s director of food sourcing. “Before COVID, we saw the same faces every week. Now we see lots of families with young children.”

Food Bank for New York City, which is the largest anti-hunger organization in the city, says the number of people served could double or even triple from the 2.5 million level before coronavirus. “In Richmond Hills, Queens, at the River Fund, we had an agency serving 1,000 to 1,500 people before COVID,” said Leslie Gordon, Food Bank’s president and chief executive. “It’s now going up to 5,000 people in line and that could continue to grow. This is not unique. It’s a bellwether for what is happening across New York City.”

“I felt like I had landed in a war zone,” said Diana Lee, founder of the Do-Good Auto Coalition, whose sponsors include Maserati. “There were hundreds of people lined up around the block. They were fighting for food, shouting at each other when they thought some people were taking too much. It was really hard. I’ve never seen anything like it. By the time we unloaded all of the food, 75 percent of it was already gone.” Last week the organization delivered 2,500 pounds of food from three currently shuttered Pret a Manger outlets.

Last week, about 791,000 NY residents applied for unemployment benefits, as per the Department of Labor. A New School study revealed that New York State has already lost 1.2 million jobs, and projects that one-third of the city could soon be unemployed.

Last Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to spend $170 million on food for the hungry. “People are literally asking, ‘Where is my next meal coming from?’,” said de Blasio. Non-profits have been rising to the task left and right, and restaurant-donation pickups from places like Pret A Manger and Paris Baguette have also been swelling.

City Harvest’s Droz says the nonprofit expects things to get even worse before it gets better. “The need will last far longer than when the government reopens the city because so many people are unemployed,” she said. “We plan on operating this way until the end of September.”

By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

Thousands of New York City residents have perished due to COVID-19. This has led to a tragic backlog of bodies in the city’s morgues, hospitals and funeral homes. As a result, NYC officials have said that unclaimed coronavirus victims will be buried in Hart Island, sparking fear that mass burials may be taking place. NY’s Police Department has seized the drone of a photojournalist documenting the burials on Hart Island.

On Wednesday morning, Aerial photographer George Steinmetz, who has an FAA license to fly a drone, launched his $1,500 drone from a City Island parking lot to record the dismal effort in Hart Island. He was abruptly confronted by plainclothes NYPD officers. Only minutes after he began, the group of police emerged from an unmarked van and stopped him. He was issued a misdemeanor summons for “avigation”, which is an old law barring aircraft or drones from taking off or landing anywhere in New York City other than an airport. As per a report by the NY Post, his drone was also confiscated.

Steinmetz posted the following message on Instagram: “For over 150 years this island with no public access has been used to bury over a million souls who’s bodies were not claimed for private burial. With the morgues of NYC strained, the pace of burials on Hart Island has increased dramatically. I was cited by NYPD while taking this photo, and my drone was confiscated as evidence, for a court date tentatively scheduled for mid-August. #keepthememorycard”

“These are humans, and they’re basically being treated like they’re toxic waste, like they’re radioactive,” Steinmetz told the Gothamist. “I think it’s important.”

Steinmetz is not the first journalist to have his drone seized by the police while trying to photograph Hart Island, since the start of the pandemic. Mickey Osterreicher, the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, said than an Associated Press photographer faced similar consequences last week, while trying to record the alleged mass burials.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has already responded earlier in the month with reassurance. “There will be no mass burials on Hart Island”, de Blasio had said. “Everything will be individual and every body will be treated with dignity.”

The one-mile long island in the Bronx, has over a million unclaimed people buried there over the past few decades. Annually there have been fewer than 1,500 burials there, but now the demand has increased. Access to the island is restricted by the Department of correction, and the burials are traditionally conducted by Rikers Island jail inmates.

By: Aron Heller

Israeli researchers reported Monday that the global coronavirus outbreak has sparked a rise in anti-Semitic expression blaming Jews for the spread of the disease and the economic recession it has caused.

The findings, which came in an annual report by Tel Aviv University researchers on anti-Semitism, show an 18% spike in attacks against Jews last year. The report warns that the pandemic has threatened to amp up incitement even more.

Although they did not include 2020 statistics, the researchers said the hatred has come from sources as varied as right-wing European politicians, ultra-conservative American pastors, anti-Zionist intellectuals and Iranian state authorities.

“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it,” said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across the continent. “The language and imagery used clearly identifies a revival of the medieval ‘blood libels’ when Jews were accused of spreading disease, poisoning wells or controlling economies.”

Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry releases its report every year on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Monday at sundown.

Researchers said the 18% increase in anti-Semitic violence in 2019 continued a steady rise of recent years. Seven Jews were killed in 2019 in more than 450 attacks across the globe against synagogues, community centers and other Jewish targets.

The researchers said the hateful response to the novel coronavirus — and the COVID-19 illness it causes — was the continuation of an ancient form of anti-Semitism that involves blaming Jews when “things go wrong.”

They recorded expressions such as pinning the source of the virus on Jews rejecting Christ, to accusing Jews of perpetrating the virus’s spread in order to profit from vaccines they would ultimately create to combat it. The FBI also warned against calls coming from neo-Nazis and white supremacists to spread contagion among Jews.

Kantor warned that the virus had the potential to spark populist extremism, similar to what erupted after the Great Depression and contributed to the rise of Nazism.

The dire warning comes on the heels of another difficult year for Jews, capped by the October shooting attack on Yom Kippur against a synagogue in the German city of Halle. Germany averaged five anti-Semitic incidents a day in 2019. Overall, at least 169 Jews were physically attacked in the world in 2019, some close to or even in their homes.

A recent survey, led by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, found that four out of 10 European Jews under the age of 60 have considered emigrating because of the rise in anti-Semitism. It doesn’t say where they want to emigrate. Also, the survey said eight out of 10 feel anti-Semitism is a problem in their countries.

Several governments have taken additional measures to protect Jews, with more than 20 countries adopting the working definition of anti-Semitism as outlined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. A Code of Conduct against illegal hate speech on the web was also signed in 2019 with internet platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube vowing to scan material identified as such and remove it within 24 hours.

In January, Israel hosted dozens of world leaders for the largest-ever gathering focused on combating anti-Semitism.

            (Associated Press)

By: Hellen Zaboulani

NYC transit workers have been doing essential work and are expected to show up for work despite the risk amid coronavirus. In light of this, some of these workers feel they should be entitled to some preferential treatment when it comes to shopping — such as being permitted to skip lines and avoid product limits. For now, these special privileges are reserved for police officers, emergency responders and doctors. But some argue that transit employee’s are doing “front-line” work as well, and should be given the courtesy.

“As far as first-responders go, we’re taking them to work — and we’re not being afforded any form of courtesy or respect,” subway operator Adam Black told the Post. Black says he tried to explain this and evade the line in a Brooklyn supermarket, but to no avail. In a video he posted on Facebook, he told the grocery store security guards, “I’m dying out here. … My brethren are dying. … We’re the ones taking the first responders where they gotta go.” One of the guards acknowledged that transit workers are “essential” workers, but he said the privileges are still only for “first responders.”

As reported by the NY Post, the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which Black is a member of, said it has had a staggering 42 workers die from COVID-19. That is more casualties than was suffered by the city police, firefighters and EMTs — combined. “We are getting the essential workers to their jobs. Dozens of transit workers have died,” said union President Tony Utano. “[Transit workers] absolutely should be recognized for all that they are doing and have sacrificed.”

MTA bus driver Letty Daniels, 33, also said she tried to convince store managers to allow her to bypass the line or to purchase two packs of disinfecting wipes instead of the limit one. “We’re not saying we’re first-responders per se, but we are front-line workers. We’re on the front lines. The doctors can’t get to where they’re going, the nurses can’t get to where they’re going” without mass transit,” Daniels said. “We’re basically risking our lives, and we’re not even getting the respect that’s due.”

The MTA said it fully backs the transit workers’ push. “New York City Transit’s work force are truly heroes of this crisis,” agency spokesman Shams Tarek said in a statement. “The MTA supports any effort to provide them with a priority access to benefits being afforded our region’s heroes.”

By: Jared Evan

A 65-Year-old woman died after her doctor prescribed hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, after she described coronavirus like symptoms over the phone, NY Post reported.

In early April, Ligia, a 65-year-old Queens resident, was given the drug by her general practitioner after she reported having a bad cough, fever, and shortness of breath. Ligia’s last name is being withheld on the request of her children, NBC News reported.

The doctor never tested the patient for COVID-19, but only based the prescription on her described symptoms.

NBC reported: Ligia’s symptoms were consistent with those of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, she was never tested for the virus, her brother-in-law, Lee Levitt, told NBC News. Ligia received the drug after speaking by phone with her doctor, Levitt said. She was never evaluated in person and received no heart screening or warning about the potential side effects.

“It was handed over like a bag of cookies,” Levitt said.

The victim’s family is not sure the drugs caused her death and as of press they have not received a certificate of death.

American Heart Association have issued warnings about the drug’s potential to trigger heart arrhythmia in some patients.

The Food and Drug Administration has only approved hydroxychloroquine — which is typically used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis — for treatment of COVID-19 in advanced cases of the virus and by the time patients have to rely on ventilators, the NY Post reported.

She filled her prescription on April 4, four days before the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology provided guidance for doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

The AHA urged caution given that “each have potential serious implications for people with existing cardiovascular disease,” including increased risk of sudden death.

However, she never even was seen by her physician or tested to see if she actually had COVID-19.

The drug combination which President Trump has been overly excited about, has received mixed reviews from various studies. In China, a study of 50 patients found that hydroxychloroquine did not provide better help than standard care and was much more likely to cause side effects.

However, there have also been rousing success stories.

Dr. Mohammud Alam, an infectious disease specialist affiliated with Plainview Hospital, said 81 percent of infected covid patients he treated with hydroxychloroquine at three Long Island nursing homes recovered from the contagion, TJV previously reported.

Michigan State House Rep. Karen Whitsett, who represents District 9 in Detroit, credits hydroxychloroquine and President Donald Trump with saving her from the COVID-19 coronavirus, ABC reported.

Finally, The National File exclusively reported David Bryan keyboard player from Bon Jovi credited Hydroxychloroquine with helping him recover from COVID-19.

Any reputable doctor should know better than to prescribe a powerful drug, with many known side effects over the phone without even personally verifying the symptoms of the patient, let alone testing for coronavirus. It is conceivable with the pandemic in full swing in NY, some people might assume they actually have the virus, based on what they learned online and on the news.

One should never self-diagnose and its reprehensible the unnamed doctor accepted a self-diagnosis as coronavirus and prescribed powerful drugs which can affect one’s cardiovascular functioning.

By: Howard Riell

They say numbers don’t lie. But they certainly tell stories – including the story of New York City in this time of pandemic.

And the story is an unusual one, as the New York Times recently chronicled in its statistical look at how the coronavirus has changed life in the Big Apple. For example:

* 2,637%: Increase in unemployment claims. “During the week of March 22, nearly 144,000 unemployment claims were made in New York City,” Times editors Corina Knoll, Azi Paybarah, Jacob Meschke and Elaine Chen noted. “That constituted a 2,637 percent increase from last year, when the same time frame yielded about 5,300 claims.”

* 7%: Decrease in trash collection in Manhattan. Information for the month of March from New York City’s Department of Sanitation shows “the amount of refuse collected from Manhattan residences shrank by nearly 7 percent compared to the borough average for that month over the last five years.”

* 3,000: Number of applications to Foster Dogs. With not much to do and the need for contact, people have been reaching out to man’s best friend. “Interest in fostering pets has surged in the city, as many New Yorkers find themselves looking for companionship and having more time at home to care for a pet,” the Times pointed out.

* 18%: Decrease in morning electricity usage. The stats began to show a decrease once offices, businesses and schools started to shut down. By the end of March, the Times noted, “the city’s energy use was down by more than 10 percent, according to the New York Independent System Operator, the agency responsible for managing the state’s electric grid. The change was most pronounced on weekday mornings, when usage would normally spike as people started their days and businesses opened. With nonessential workers ordered to stay home, it appeared that many were awakening later than usual.”

42%: Increase in complaints about loud televisions. The TV has turned out to be the indispensable piece of equipment for New Yorkers trapped at home, and many try and drown out the sounds of normal life by pumping up the volume. “New Yorkers’ patience with noisy neighbors has run thin, particularly when it comes to blaring televisions, which prompted a 42 percent increase in 311 complaints in March compared to last year, according to NYC Open Data,” the Times wrote. “Complaints of loud talking and music increased by 12 and 30 percent across the city. Similarly, residential noise complaints, a broad category that’s also one of the most common, rose significantly in every borough, peaking with a 33 percent increase in Staten Island. New Yorkers are especially irritated with helicopter noise; grievances about helicopters have tripled across the city.”

A beloved community activist and staunch advocate for Jewish rights

Edited By: Fern Sidman

Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish communities were plunged into a sea of grief early Sunday morning when news emerged about the untimely passing of New York Supreme Court Judge and former NY City Council member Noach Dear, 67. Dear had valiantly fought for his life for the last few weeks while attached to a ventilator. He too was a victim of the deadly invisible enemy known as the horrific COVID-19 novel coronavirus.

Dear, a beloved figure throughout the Jewish community, was a native Brooklynite and as a child he was in Eli Lipsker’s Pirchei Agudath Israel Choir, and sang on the first New York Pirchei album. He attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and went on to Brooklyn College where he graduated in 1975 with a BS degree. He also attained a Masters in Social Work degree from Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work and a JD degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1991.

As a well respected and active member of the Jewish community of Midwood in Brooklyn, Dear always placed himself in the forefront of burning Jewish issues and was an ardent and vocal supporter of Israel. As a prominent member of the New York City Council from 1983-2001, he championed the issues of the communities he represented (Midwood, Bensonhurst and most of Boro Park in the 44th district) before the Council and worked tirelessly with his colleagues and former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, who gave Dear his ringing endorsement.

HaModia reported that Dear was known as an ardent advocate of protecting the morality issues which were close to the hearts of his constituents despite what other politicians held on these matters. In 1986 Dear voted against a civil rights bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodation. The bill passed anyway.

While serving on the Transportation Committee of the City Council, Noach opposed “dollar vans,” commuter vans which offered a transportation alternative.

After his tenure on the City Council, Dear was appointed as Commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission for a seven-year term.

In 2008 he began his career on the bench, serving first as a civil court judge, then as an acting Supreme Court Justice in 2010, and finally in 2015 as a permanent justice in the Brooklyn Supreme Court, as was reported by the Jewish Press.

Dear’s civil court judgeship represented Brooklyn’s Fifth Municipal Court District, chiefly his old Boro Park base when he served on the City Council, as was reported by Matzav.com.

After serving in the civil court system for a bit over two years, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Dear as a Supreme Court Justice largely as a result of his impressive accomplishments in consumer debt court. He quickly gained acclaim for cracking down on suits by debt collectors, as was reported by Matzav.

Dear became increasingly focused on consumer debt, and became the ranking judge in Brooklyn in consumer debt issues. He developed a manual for judges on credit card debt at the instruction of the state’s retiring Chief Justice Jonathan Lippmann. “I took this whole concept of consumer debt and turned it into a national issue. We changed the way we do business,” Dear told Hamodia at the time.

When Rachel “Ruchie” Freier made history in Brooklyn by becoming the first-ever Hasidic woman to become a judge in the U.S., it was Noach Dear who served as master of ceremonies for the event that was held at Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn.

According to a December 2016 report in the Brooklyn Eagle, Dear said, “When Ruchie decided to run, I don’t think there was anybody anywhere who thought Ruchie was going to win. They said that Borough Park is never going to vote for a woman for judge. They got that wrong. One of the things I said to them was ‘Did you meet her yet? Meet her and tell me then.’ I met her a few years ago, and I said to myself that this is someone who is outstanding, she’s really good. She’s prepared and ready.”

Yeshiva World News reported that Dear’s name was splashed on newspaper headlines in 2017 when he was subject to an anti-Semitic incident on the streets of Brooklyn. A man began screaming anti-Semitic expletives at him as he was walking near Maimonides Hospital early in the morning. Dear ignored the man, entered his car and called the police.

Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who served the same general community as Dear on the state level, said, “This is such sad news. Noach was a champion, a fighter for his people and all of his constituents. He especially cared for the voiceless and powerless, and dedicated his every single day to making the world a better place.”

“Judge Dear had a certain energetic, colorful persona that epitomized the great diversity not only with respect to the Kings County Judiciary but also as a member of our Bar Association and Brooklyn Community at large,” said Brooklyn Bar Association President Frank Carone. “He will be sorely missed.”

Chaskel Bennett, a community askan, said Dear was a “legendary public servant & representative who understood that his position should be used to help the most vulnerable & downtrodden. He was respected & admired. To watch him pray was an experience. He will be deeply missed.”

Edited by: JV Staff

Klal Yisroel has lost one of its most experienced Rebbeim. Rabbi Baruch Pollack was niftar Motzei Shabbos HaGadol at the age of 92 in Yerushalayim. Rabbi Pollack had been a 1st grade Rebbe for over 60 years. He started in Yeshiva of Lubovitch in the Bronx and then taught in Yeshiva of Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn and Yeshiva Mercaz HaTorah (RJJ) in Staten Island. Rabbi Pollack was extremely beloved by 3 generations of students and their parents.

They appreciated his tremendous devotion and tireless dedication to his “boyalach” as he called them. His excitement for the chumosh and other Torah subjects he taught was contagious. It’s no wonder that so many of his students remember him as being the best Rebbe/teacher they ever had. He had a profound influence on thousands of students and gave the boys a solid basis to love their learning and Yiddishkeit. Rabbi

Pollack was born in 1927 in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He was an orphan from birth(his father died when his mother was yet pregnant with him).

He was called to the Torah as Baruch ben Baruch and used to quip to the gabbai he got the name backward! After receiving semicha from Rav Hutner in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, he and his family moved to East Flatbush where he helped found and was very active in

Rav Asher Zimmerman’s Young Israel of Remsen. He was an expert Baal Tokea and on Rosh Hoshana would go to nearby Brookdale Hospital to blow shofer for the patients. Later, the family moved to Flatbush where he continued to use his talents as gabbai in Rav Poupko’s shul.

Anyone who came in contact with him appreciated his sharp wit and “vertlach” that he enjoyed sharing. In addition, he was the executive director of Y.I. of Bedford Bay where he ran a Talmud Torah and summer camp. There too, he influenced many children to come closer to Torah. Many of his talmidim, from both the yeshivos and Talmud Torah, are today great mechanchim themselves who have continued in Rabbi Pollack’s footsteps. He lived his final year in the Ramot neighborhood of Yerushalayim and merited burial in Eretz Yisroel. He is survived by his devoted wife of 71 years as well as 3 sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

By: David Goldman & Matt Sedensky

The streets are eerily quiet. Barely a soul walks by. But when Rabbi Shmuel Plafker arrives at the cemetery, it’s buzzing: Vans pulling in with bodies aboard, mounds of dirt piling up as graves are dug open, a line of white signs pressed into the ground marking plots that are newly occupied.

Some of the few signs of life in this anguished city are coming from those tending to the dead.

As the world retreats and the pandemic’s confirmed death toll in New York City alone charges past 10,000, funeral directors, cemetery workers and others who oversee a body’s final chapter are sprinting to keep up.

Plafker, the chaplain at Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island, grips in hands covered by rubber gloves the long list of burials he must preside over this day. In the notes section beside each person’s name, the reason for their demise: “COVID.” “COVID.” “COVID.”

“There’s a tremendous sadness,” he says. “Were it not for this, they would be living, some healthy, some not so healthy. But they would be alive.”

Mount Richmond is run by the Hebrew Free Burial Association, which buries Jews who die with little or nothing. A century ago, it buried garment workers killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and those who fell to the Spanish flu. More recently, it was Holocaust survivors who fled Europe.

And now, those dying of the coronavirus.

A stream of people trusted with preparing Mount Richmond’s dead for burial continues to arrive at the cemetery, carefully washing the bodies as Jewish law dictates, then placing them in a white shroud. The Torah calls for burial as soon as possible. These days, it’s more of a challenge than ever.

Companies that transport the dead to their final resting places are backed up, part of a chain reaction of hold-ups that includes overbooked funeral homes and cemeteries that are turning families away.

“The casket companies have no caskets,” says James Donofrio, a funeral director who handles Mount Richmond’s arrangements.

Hebrew Free Burial stocked up on caskets before the coronavirus unleashed its worst, just as they did with protective gear for workers, garments for the dead and other supplies. They think they have enough. Then again, they thought the mortuary cooler they ordered a month ago to fit an extra four bodies would be enough extra space. Now they have a refrigerated trailer big enough to hold 20.

Amy Koplow, who runs Hebrew Free Burial, worries about staff maintaining such furious pace and raising enough money to cover the costs being run up. But they’ve vowed to plod on.

They were used to burying one person on an average day. A “crazy day,” Koplow says, would be five.

The other day, they put 11 people in the ground.

Staffers find themselves exchanging texts about death certificates at 2 a.m. and fielding dozens of calls at a time. It takes its toll on everyone.

Plafker looks at the trees in bloom and the grass sprouting and finds spring’s signs of rebirth so paradoxical given the death that surrounds him. He thinks of the centuries-old words he recites on the High Holy Days, that seem to carry so much more weight now.

“How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,” it says. “Who shall perish by water and who by fire? Who by sword and who by wild beast? Who by famine and who by thirst? Who by earthquake and who by plague?”

Now, it seems, a plague is upon him.

            (AP)