4 Gifts My Mother, Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, Gave Me

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04/22/2020

Book Review - 4 Gifts article - pic 1 — The biography Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, a'h, (The Rebbetzin, by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer) came out now in the midst of these challenging days.

By: Slovie Jungreis-Wolff

In this difficult time, how can we gather our inner strength and get through this world crisis?

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, and her late husband HaRav Meshulum HaLevi Jungreis, zt’l

I believe that everything in life is meant to be. And so I take great comfort knowing that the biography of my dear mother, Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, (The Rebbetzin, by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer) came out now in the midst of these challenging days. Many have asked me: what would your mother say? I know that her life speaks her response.

As a little girl my mother was a child of Bergen Belsen. She was shoved into the cattle cars together with her parents and two brothers. Each morning my mother stood at role call facing savage Nazi guards and their German Shepard dogs. Her head was shaved. She was starving, covered with lice and sores. But somehow I never heard about the fear. My mother would speak about strength and unwavering belief in God. She would look at those beasts of men and think to herself, Thank G-d I am the daughter of my people. I would never wish to be one of them. I am grateful to have my parents and my faith.

“Tatty,” my mother asked, “what can I do here in this terrible place? I’m just a child?”

My grandfather replied, “You can give a smile. When you give someone a smile it gives them hope.” This was a constant message throughout my life. My mother lived with that lesson on her lips until her very last day on earth.

Life brings us sometimes to places we never imagined possible. But here is what you must do, my mother would tell me. “When faced with darkness, you have a choice. You can either grow angry or depressed. Or you can light a candle and illuminate the darkness. Slovie, never sit in darkness. Always ask yourself, ‘How can I grow from this? How can I find purpose in the pain?’”

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, is seen here autographing her books for members of the United States military.

My mother also taught me the power of prayer. “Speak to God because prayer is our most potent weapon,” she’d say. “Prayer works!” We would call my mother day and night and ask her to pray for us. I have my mother’s book of Psalms. It is tattered and worn. I turn the pages today in this time of crisis and try hard to draw upon her faith and incredible power of prayer.

My mother’s wisdom sustains me through life. And though she has left this world, her legacy remains my spiritual lighthouse. I’d like to share with you four gifts (among the many) that my mother gave me. I take these gifts with me and carry them in my heart. They embolden me as the world around us is filled with pain and fear.

Live with Passion and Meaning

I will never forget sitting front row in Madison Square Garden, November 18, 1973. There were thousands of Jews from every walk of life; some sitting on the floor because there were no more seats. The room was pitch black. Suddenly the spotlight beamed brightly onto the stage. There standing bravely was my mother. “You are a Jew,” she proclaimed. She spoke with power and passion. That night was magical. At the end of the evening thousands rose to their feet, danced, sang the Shema together, and knew that their souls had been touched forever.

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, was chosen by former President George W. Bush to deliver the invocation at the Republican national convention during the year he was elected president.

I wondered sometimes and asked my mother, how did you ever think this possible? How did you speak to the Israeli army, the American army, across the world to thousands upon thousands of people? How did you speak about God and faith and never feel afraid? How did you start a worldwide movement called Hineni to bring Jews back to their roots?

My mother told me that when she arrived to America she saw a spiritual wasteland before her eyes. After witnessing the physical Holocaust she had gone through, she dared not remain silent. She knew that she had a mission in this world.

“What are you passionate about?” she would ask. “What do you wake up early for? What gets you going?”

Live with passion, but make it meaningful. If you believe in your mission you can do anything.

Never Give Up on a Soul

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, is seen here distributing her book, “The Committed Life” to soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces

I watched my mother connect with every type of person. What was her secret?

My mother believed that within every being was a soul waiting to be ignited. I can still her voice in my head. “It is a flicker of a light, a tiny flame, but if you will it that tiny flame can become a great fire!”

The book is filled with stories of the people whose lives would never be the same after meeting my mother. In 1982 I traveled with my mother from Lebanon where she spoke with battling Israeli troops to a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin in Jerusalem. And then a jeep took us to Ramle Prison where she gave the incarcerated women hope. Each of these encounters was precious to her. She saw beyond clothing, beyond the body, and found instead the sacred spark that lies beneath.

Love the Land of Israel

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, delivering a timely address before a large Jewish gathering.

My mother’s connection to the land of Israel was deep. One of my earliest memories is watching my parents cry with joy when they heard the radio broadcasting the shofar being blown at the Kotel during the battle for Jerusalem in 1967. My parents wanted to be part of the miracle. They had dreamed of living in Israel after the Holocaust but were unable to secure visas.

I was just a little child but our visit shortly after the 6 Day War remains imprinted in my heart and soul. Every step we took, my mother and father would stop for a moment and tearfully share the wonder. They would relay stories of the sacrifice of our people, the promise of our land in the Torah, the holiness that permeated the very air we breathed. My mother’s favorite place in the world was Jerusalem. She would devote much of her life to the people of Israel and the brave soldiers who fought for the Land.

Know Where You’ve Come From

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a’h, addressing her first massive gathering of Jewish youth at Madison Square Garden, November 18, 1973

My full name is Slova Channah. I was named for my Bubby who was last seen together with her husband, Rabbi Yisroel HaLevi Jungreis, zt’l holding their youngest grandchildren on line at the gas chambers of Auschwitz. We were given the names of our Bubbies and Zaydies so that we would continue to live as Jews because they could not. We continue to give the very same names to our children and grandchildren so that we may know forever from whence we have come; the potential that is within us.

Before being taken away to Bergen Belsen, my grandparents took one last trip to their parents in the city of Nadodver. My mother recalls how she’d love to sit by her Zaydie as he studied his holy books. This time though, her Zaydie was crying. My mother, a little child, grew frightened at the sight of her Zaydie’s tears. She ran to her father and together they took a walk in the deep snow. Her father walked first and my mother followed in his footsteps so that she would not fall.

Slovie Jungreis-Wolff writes: “My mother’s wisdom sustains me through life. And though she has left this world, her legacy remains my spiritual lighthouse.”

That walk would become my mother’s defining moment, her life legacy that she would share with countless audiences and us children alike. She would recall her father’s words explaining her Zaydie’s tears while learning Torah.

“Soon, my sweetest child, the snow is going to be very deep and you will fall, but every time you fall remember that Zaydie made a path for you. And then you will be able to stand up and keep on walking on that path.”

The snow did become very deep. Soon after, she was faced with the darkness of the Holocaust. My mother told us that she fell many times. But whenever she would fall she’d recall the tears and the words of her father. My mother would pick herself up and keep on walking… throughout her life those footsteps gave her the strength to put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking.

Linda Sarsour’s Book Offers a Message that is Now Alien to the Current Moment

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04/22/2020

Book Review - Linda Sarsour's Book article — Linda Sarsour's new memoir, "We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders," was published shortly before the coronavirus outbreak evolved into a pandemic and much of the United States shut down to confront a global health emergency. Photo Credit: AP

By: Cole Carnick

During crises, it can be important to look to the past for reminders of normalcy. Linda Sarsour’s new memoir, “We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders,” offers such an escape, reminding readers of the pre-pandemic era when people still talked about things like “white privilege” and the “liberation of Palestine.” Published shortly before the coronavirus outbreak evolved into a pandemic and much of the United States shut down to confront a global health emergency, Sarsour’s book offers a message that is now alien to the current moment.

Sarsour describes her memoir as a “social justice manifesto,” documenting anecdotes from her childhood and career as a professional activist to push her political worldview—namely, that through “intersectional organizing,” “marginalized communities” can bring about political change for their respective interests. There are groups of people in the United States, Sarsour writes, that are connected through their oppression by our country’s institutions, like law enforcement, national security agencies, and public school systems.

Whatever this sounds like in theory, in practice, Sarsour’s intersectional organizing has served to mainstream anti-Zionism on the activist left. A vocal proponent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Sarsour worked to link her personal project—the “liberation of Palestine”—to the Women’s March she cochaired. While feminism and anti-Zionism are seemingly separate causes, Sarsour writes that intersectionality requires feminists to also “stand up” for “Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza.”

The dense layers of intersectionality don’t end there. Back in 2015, Sarsour, who also worked with the Black Lives Matter movement, tied the Palestinian cause to the experience of African Americans, arguing that the “people who justify the massacres of Palestinian people and call it collateral damage are the same people who justify the murder of young black men and women.” Five years later, Sarsour opts for subtler language, writing that the Palestinian American experience is “inextricably interwoven with the everyday reality of [her] Black and brown brothers and sisters.”

While many progressive activists espouse similar views, Sarsour has garnered notoriety for her adventures into anti-Semitism, like when she accused progressive Jews of harboring a dual loyalty to Israel or when she called Jewish nationhood a form of racial “supremacy.” The activist’s comments, along with her controversial association with Hitler-praising clown Louis Farrakhan, ultimately precipitated her departure from the board of the Women’s March last year.

Such a rebuke from her own organization could have prompted Sarsour to reflect on her past statements. We are not, however, here to be bystanders. Relying on her intersectional ethos, she writes that her critics are “far-right Islamophobes” who labeled her anti-Semitic because she “advocated for the human rights of Palestinians.”

To explain her exit from the Women’s March, Sarsour omits the words “Louis” and “Farrakhan,” attributing her departure instead to a previously unreported white identitarian contingent of the organization:

“It turned out that some of the very same white women who had reached out to women of color for help in organizing the march now resented our being the faces associated with its resounding success…. I could not help but be reminded of how early white suffragists had similarly discounted the efforts of Black women, relegating their participation to a mere footnote in the history of feminism’s first popular campaign.”

This is delusional, at least in part because Sarsour was replaced, along with former cochairs Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland, with a 17-person intersectional dream team—which, coincidentally, has its own issues of anti-Semitism. At one time, a sensible reader could have been frustrated by Sarsour’s attempts to obfuscate her own bigotry by calling critics Islamophobic and creating a conspiracy theory about racial-group competition at the Women’s March, especially given the activist’s prominent platform as a surrogate for the Bernie Sanders campaign.

In the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of 95,000 people, however, Sarsour’s advocacy of “intersectional organizing”—which transparently promotes her own self-interest—seems trivial. What is the intersectional response to an epidemic? How does “coalition building” stop the transmission of a deadly illness? Does it produce much-needed medical supplies and vaccines? Or put food on the table for millions of Americans forced out of work?

As we learn more about the coronavirus, data indicate that African Americans are experiencing the disease at disproportionate rates compared with the rest of the U.S. population. Are black Americans seriously to believe that addressing this disparity requires them to recognize how “inextricably bound” they are with “the struggles of all oppressed people” and support the political objectives of BDS, gay rights, and illegal immigrants, among others?

Sarsour’s favorite cause—boycotting Israel—has already been shunted aside during the global health crisis. BDS cofounder Omar Barghouti has formally absolved supporters of the sin of accepting a potential vaccine from Israel. In her memoir, Sarsour reiterates her support for a one-state solution, writing that Israel’s insistence on existing as a Jewish state has “stymied peace talks for decades.” Given the demands of public health, it seems the dissolution of Israel will have to wait until after the availability of a coronavirus vaccine.

Toward the end of her book, Sarsour writes that “fifty years from now” people will call the anti-Israel Council on American Islamic Relations “one of the most effective civil rights organizations of all time.”

“It’s like how fifty years from now, people are going to be walking down Colin Kaepernick Boulevard. Sisters and brothers, this is how history in this country works.”

It seems the ongoing crisis has put Sarsour’s social justice Whig history on hold. At the very least, if people once again pick up the banner of intersectional organizing and call for the destruction of Israel, we’ll know we aren’t experiencing anything as serious as a deadly pandemic.

(Washington Free Beacon)

Cole Carnick is an assistant editor at the Washington Free Beacon. He graduated from the University of Michigan, where he served as editor in chief of the Michigan Review. He can be reached at [email protected].

Seven Lessons of the Holocaust

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04/22/2020

Holocaust Remembrance - Seven Lessons article — The first lesson is the importance of Zachor, of the duty of remembrance itself. Photo Credit: embassies.gov.il

By: Irwin Cotler

Lesson 1: The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance – The Responsibility of Memory

The first lesson is the importance of Zachor, of the duty of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah — defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide — we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews is not a matter of abstract statistics.

For unto each person there is a name — unto each person, there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us: “whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.” Just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as if they have killed an entire universe. And so the abiding imperative — that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Lesson 2: The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hatred and Genocide — The Responsibility to Prevent

The enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the industry of death and the technology of terror, but because of the state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all began. As the Canadian courts affirmed in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation, “the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers — it began with words”. These, as the Courts put it, are the chilling facts of history. These are the catastrophic effects of racism.
As the UN marks the commemoration of the Holocaust, we are witnessing yet again, a state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide, whose epicenter is Iran. Let there be no mistake about it. Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited under the Genocide Convention. Yet not one state party to the Genocide Convention has undertaken its mandated legal obligation to hold Ahmadinejad’s Iran to account.

Lesson 3: The Danger of Silence, The Consequences of Indifference — The Responsibility to Protect

The genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the state-sanctioned culture of hate and industry of death, but because of crimes of indifference, because of conspiracies of silence.
We have already witnessed an appalling indifference and inaction in our own day which took us down the road to the unspeakable — the genocide in Rwanda — unspeakable because this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act, just as we knew and did not act to stop the genocide by attrition in Darfur.
Indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim. Indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself.

Lesson 4: Combating Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity — The Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice

If the 20th Century — symbolized by the Holocaust — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. Yet those indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity – such as President Al-Bashir of Sudan – continue to be welcomed in international fora.

Lesson 5: The Trahison des Clercs — The Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power

The Holocaust was made possible, not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide”, as Robert Lifton put it, but because of the trahison des clercs — the complicity of the elites — physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects, educators, and the like. Indeed, one only has to read Gerhard Muller’s book on “Hitler’s Justice” to appreciate the complicity and criminality of judges and lawyers; or to read Robert-Jan van Pelt’s book on the architecture of Auschwitz, to be appalled by the minute involvement of engineers and architects in the design of death camps, and so on. Holocaust crimes, then, were also the crimes of the Nuremberg elites. As Elie Wiesel put it, “Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love poems and kill children”.

Lesson 6: Holocaust Remembrance — The Responsibility to Educate

In acting upon the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, states should commit themselves to implementing the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which concluded: “We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions… a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honor those who stood against it… a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust… a commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past… a commitment… to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”

Lesson 7: The Vulnerability of the Powerless — The Protection of the Vulnerable as the Test of a Just Society

The genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of the powerlessness of the vulnerable. It is not surprising that the triage of Nazi racial hygiene — the Sterilization Laws, the Nuremberg Race Laws, the Euthanasia Program — targeted those “whose lives were not worth living”; and it is not unrevealing, as Professor Henry Friedlander points out in his work on “The Origins of Genocide”, that the first group targeted for killing were the Jewish disabled — the whole anchored in the science of death, the medicalization of ethnic cleansing, the sanitizing even of the vocabulary of destruction.

And so it is our responsibility as citoyens du monde to give voice to the voiceless, as we seek to empower the powerless — be they the disabled, the poor, the refugee, the elderly, the women victims of violence, the vulnerable child — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

We remember – and we trust – that never again will we be silent or indifferent in the face of evil. May this International Day of Holocaust Remembrance be not only an act of remembrance, but a remembrance to act.

Irwin Cotler is a member of Parliament and the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. He is Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and has written extensively on the Holocaust, genocide and international humanitarian law.

A Holocaust Survivor’s Last Request

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04/22/2020

Holocaust Remembrance - A Holocaust Survivor's article — My grandfather insisted on being buried in his Auschwitz uniform

By: Ellen Bachner Greenberg

While the sepia photograph of my father’s Bar Mitzvah in Berlin, 1938 was prominently displayed in our living room, to me it was in always in the background. I knew my father’s parents and brother were in the photo along with my father who was wearing a wool blazer, shorts, and knee-high socks. At the time, I had no reason to know more.

That changed in 2016 when I started writing the story of my father, Fred Bachner, who survived several concentration camps including Auschwitz and passed away in 2008. I picked up the photograph that was still in my mother’s living room and saw details I had not noticed before.

I looked at the face of my grandmother, Erna Bachner, who was murdered at Auschwitz, hoping to know her as the Mutti my father adored. I was disheartened and confused why she appeared pensive and sad. This should have been a joyous occasion, but it was October 1938 in Berlin, a few weeks before Kristallnacht, and there were reasons for her to be worried.

My grandfather, Abraham Bachner, survived Auschwitz. In the photo he is standing straight and smiling, looking proud of his son. Looking back on 25 years of memories and images of my grandfather, whether it was a joyous occasion or a Sunday get-together with his two sons and four grandchildren, there was never another time I saw him smiling. As the family posed for the photo, I imagine they had no idea this would be the last family portrait and only remaining picture of all four Bachners.

Growing up, my grandfather remained a mystery. All I knew was that he was a Holocaust survivor, spoke with an accent, wore bifocals, and walked with a limp, an injury sustained when a New York City bus hit him in the 1950s, or so I was led to believe. The only comments I remember him saying to me were, “There’s room for improvement” when I showed him my Hebrew School report card, even though most of my grades were As, and “It could be better” the time I baked Pillsbury Poppin’ Fresh Cinnamon Rolls. His childhood in Poland and his life in Berlin before the war were never discussed and the “H” word was never mentioned.

Abraham Bachner passed away on December 8, 1980 at 85 years old. At the funeral, Rabbi Fabian Schoenfeld of Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills told the mourners Abraham’s final request was to be buried in his Auschwitz uniform. The Rabbi explained that initially he did not understand the request and reminded Abraham as an observant Jew he should be buried in the traditional shroud. Abraham insisted that at his time of judgment, he wanted the Almighty to look at whatever sins he had committed and weigh them against the years of torture and starvation he had endured during the Holocaust. The uniform would be a reminder.

I did not know my grandfather kept his uniform or understand why he wanted to be buried with it, but unlike my aunt and uncle who let it be known they thought the uniform should have been saved for posterity, I knew the uniform belonged with my grandfather.

Since his passing, I continued to wonder the reasons behind my grandfather’s request. It was clearly significant enough that Holocaust scholar and educator Yaffa Eliach included it as a chapter in her book, Hassidic Tales of the Holocaust, and Benjamin Mead, founder of WAGRO told the story at the Yom HaShoah commemoration at Temple Emanuel in Manhattan in 1981. Despite reading the chapter many times, it was not until recently when I gained an understanding of my grandfather and his request.

My trip to Poland in 2018 was a turning point in my relationship with my grandfather. I visited Chrzanow, the city he was born in and where he and his family returned to in 1939 when forced out of Germany. I stood outside the house they lived in and were later dragged out of during the roundups to Auschwitz. I said Kaddish and left a stone at the grave of his father, Shimon Josef, who died in a fire in 1898 when my grandfather was three years old and at the grave of his grandfather, Aron, who died in 1855. I felt my grandfather’s presence.

It was not until I stood outside the gates to Auschwitz that I realized when the war ended my grandfather was 50 years old and had been in labor and concentration camps for five years. Everything shifted for me as I came to understand and love him as the strong and brave person he had to be in order to survive. I also realized my grandfather’s request to be buried along with the uniform was his way of telling us he knew he was not the best version of who he had been before the Holocaust.

I thought my journey was complete, but there was still more. I continued researching my family’s history and recently found a new document. I never imagined it would be a picture of my grandfather in 1945, still wearing the uniform he wore in Auschwitz. He was thin, his eyes sunken, and he had a blank stare. It is hard to believe the picture of him at my father’s Bar Mitzvah was taken only seven years earlier. All the life was sucked out of him and he appears “broken.”

The contrast between the two photographs serves as reminder of the enormity of what he endured. Abraham Bachner survived the Holocaust, but so much of him had not.

Undying Resiliency: ‘The Survivors are Giving Us Strength’

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04/22/2020

Visitors tour the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem on International Holocaust Day, Jan. 26, 2017. Photo by Hadas Parush/Flash90.

Yom Hashoah commemorations, like everything else this year, may be low-key, but they will be marked with the same sense of honor and respect so indicative of this stalwart community.

By: Deborah Fineblum

Each year, Yom Hashoah brings with it memorial gatherings across the world, candle-lighting ceremonies with elderly survivors and speeches by dignitaries.

Across Israel, the children and grandchildren of survivors publicly read the names of those who perished. Not to mention the siren that wails for two solid minutes in the morning as pedestrians freeze in place, students stop their learning and workers their tasks, and even drivers climb out from behind the wheel to stand silently with bowed heads.

Photo of the Evron family on their multi-generational roots trip to Poland in 2005. Credit: Courtesy.

But this year, Holocaust Memorial Day (April 20-21) is expected to be a quiet event, with the survivors who usually are at its very heart representing the group at highest risk of likely infection and complications from the coronavirus (COVID-19) now in full force across the planet. They are warned to remain confined to their homes, and almost everyone else is limited in their outdoor movements as well.

But instead of being intimidated by the ruthless germ, many of the survivors are surprisingly … calm. “These are the frail elderly—people who are at the highest risk—and most of them are alone without their usual visitors, but amazingly they’re not afraid,” observes Simmy Allen, who heads up international media for Yad Vashem’s communications division. “The survivors are giving us strength.”

Take Jehuda Evron, for instance, who lives with his wife and fellow survivor Lea in Queens, N.Y. “My wife and I survived the Holocaust, and we’ll survive this, too,” he says.

In his Romanian hometown, 30,000 Jews, including many of his family, were killed in one day in 1942. “I was only 10 years old, but I remember it all,” says Evron, now 88. To make sure their descendants understand what happened there, the Evrons took the entire family to Eastern Europe in 2005. There they saw his hometown and her family’s fur factory that, despite decades of legal battles, they’ve yet to be compensated for.

So when it comes to the current threat, “we sure have faced more difficult times,” attests Evron. “We were persecuted and massacred, and yet we survived. So I don’t think we have to be afraid of this virus.”

It’s an attitude that their granddaughter, Adi Evron, has discerned since as early as she can remember. “I call them every Friday to see how they’re doing emotionally without family, and their optimistic spirit is an inspiration to me,” says Evron who now lives in Tel Aviv. “Even though I grew up hearing their stories, I could always tell how much they love life and live every minute to the fullest, and my grandfather knows every joke there is.”

‘I am not afraid’

That courage and will to survive—and to help others in the process—is the theme of this year’s Yad Vashem Yom Hashoah online exhibit: “Rescue by Jews: One for All.” By featuring many true-life stories, the exhibit demonstrates that “the Jewish rescuers faced frequent hardships and dilemmas, yet they chose to act on behalf of their fellow Jews.” Its message is a strong one: “It is incumbent upon the Jewish people, and the world, to remember and learn from these amazing deeds.”

The stories included the exhibit, says Allen, “disprove once and for all the stereotype that Jews were like sheep led to the slaughter. There were many, many who risked their own lives again and again to save their fellow Jews.”

Among those whose stories are featured in the exhibit: Fela Trajman is one of the living remnants of Nasza Grupa (“Our Group”), a resistance movement of young people from Poland as clever as they were courageous and determined to save other Jews, risking everything to do so.

Members of the “Nasza Grupa” together with members of “Hanoar Hazioni” from Hungary, Budapest, 1943. Bottom row, from right: Pinek Trajman, Yaakov-Jozek Rosenberg. Credit: Courtesy.

Not only did Trajman, her husband Pinek and their compatriots pull Jews out of hiding and transport them to safer ground, they arranged for falsified papers to allow Jews to pass as gentiles and escape, hid the vulnerable when necessary in trustworthy non-Jewish homes, sabotaged German property, smuggled in weapons and delivered warnings to flee across the few open borders when they got wind of upcoming deportations. Of the original 110, some 60 were murdered, often in the line of duty, and most of the 50 who survived the war, including the Trajmans, made their homes in Israel. Fela is one of only five of the original 110 alive today.

“In the ghetto before the deportation, I used to say to anyone who wanted to listen, ‘I will survive and not go to Auschwitz,’ ” she recalls. When deportation was imminent, she walked through the gate and was picked up by a German officer who hid her for three days and helped her escape to join the underground resistance forces. “I always met good people who helped me,” she says. “After I joined them I was able to help others escape, too.”

This same attitude holds Trajman in good stead today. “I am not afraid now because of my past in the Holocaust and in Israel, too.” Her husband again risked his life as a sniper for the Israeli army who was among the unit who conquered Mount Meron during Israel’s War of Independence.

These days, she says, “I’m staying at home alone, and if I have bad thoughts or a bad mood, I laugh and then I feel better. And I believe it will soon be over.”

This approach to new trauma doesn’t surprise Trajman’s daughter, Esti Shevach, who lives not far from her mom outside Tel Aviv. “After all of her losses, it’s that same optimism that I’m sure helped her survive.”

Nor does it surprise Abraham Sagi-Schwartz, professor emeritus at Haifa University and an expert on Holocaust-survivor psychology. His study (along with Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, Shai Linn and Marinus H. van IJzendoorn) of 60,000 survivors in Israel, titled “Against All Odds: Genocidal Trauma Is Associated with Longer Life-Expectancy of the Survivors,” showed that much to everyone’s surprise, they actually live longer than their peers. The results clearly demonstrated this pattern, surprising “given that most survivors not only suffered psychosocial trauma but also malnutrition, restriction in hygienic and sanitary facilities, and lack of preventive medical and health services, with potentially damaging effects for later health and life.”

“So, despite their trauma, despite deprivation, at this stage in their life, they’re managing the corona situation by saying, ‘We will overcome this, too. We will beat the corona,’ ” says Sagi-Schwartz. “It’s their amazing power of resiliency.”

That power is alive and well in fact in the world’s oldest working journalist and radio talk-show host. Ninety-six-year-old Walter Bingham was a teen when, just two years before his father and many of family members were murdered (his mother miraculously survived), he fled from his home in Nazi Germany to England through the Kindertransport (a program that rescued some 10,000 Jewish children) in the summer of 1939.

“We’re not shaking with fear,” he says from his Jerusalem home studio, where he broadcasts his program for Israel News Talk Radio and other outlets. “We’ve gone through a lot in our lives, but I’m as fit as can be—the only pills I take are what old men use to ease the waterworks and some vitamins—so if we do what we’re supposed to do and keep away from people, we’ll get through this, too.”

And, adds Bingham who made aliyah from London at age 80, “with everything we’ve survived, this is not reason to be melancholy. We’ve made it through much worse disasters in our lifetimes.”

‘The light at the end of the tunnel’

But despite their extraordinary courage and resilience, many Holocaust survivors find they’ve lost out on health and other services along with emotional support due to the pandemic. Things the Claims Conference is moving mountains to alleviate.

Not only has the organization, which provides compensation and support for Holocaust victims using both German reparations and private donations, freed up $300 million to help social-service agencies meet pressing needs for survivors, including home health care, and personal protective gear for survivors and caretakers alike, they have established a $4.3 million fund for emergency relief for many of the 400,000 survivors alive today around the world, many of them even more isolated than before in the face of the coronavirus threat.

“Right now, when most of them are alone, we’re 100 percent focused on making sure they are safe and have everything they need,” says Claims Conference executive vice president Greg Schneider.

In the flurry of delivering services where they are most desperately needed, what amazes him most is the questions he has been getting from the survivors, notably, “How are you doing with this, Greg? And how’s your family?”

“They have such a clear sense that they’ve been through the darkest times and experienced the worst pain, and yet were able to rebuild their lives,” he says. “So they see the light at the end of this tunnel, too.”

But not to be overlooked, warns Schneider, is the opposite reaction—that the corona threat can, for many survivors, trigger terrible memories and flashbacks of times when they’ve been isolated, dependent on others, and having to fear scarcity and hoard food. In addition, April is always an emotionally tough time anyway for survivors, he adds. “There’s Passover with its Yizkor service [the Jewish prayer for departed loved ones] and Yom Hashoah bringing back so many memories; these can be emotional bumps in the road even without the pandemic. So this year, when so many of the survivors are all alone without visitors, it’s even harder.”

Still, even with the return of painful memories and even in this day of social distancing, many of them are still reaching out to help others. “One survivor, it was Naftali Furst, called us with an offer last week,” relates Yad Vashem’s Allen. “He said, ‘If anyone feels alone or afraid, just have them call me.’ I can talk to them.”

And they’re also clinging to their unwavering hope for the future—a skill that’s held survivors in good stead for 75 years. Over in Queens, for instance, Jehuda Evron is already planning for next Passover. “Then we’ll do two years’ worth of celebration,” he says with a laugh. “We’ll have a lot of catching up to do.”

(JNS.org)

Death Rate in Nursing Homes Skyrockets Due to COVID-19; Dead Bodies Left in Beds–No Room at Morgues

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04/22/2020

Special Features - Death Rate article - pic 1 — The King David Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on Cropsey Avenue in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Photo Credit: kingdavidcenterrehab.com

By: TJVNews.com

In a series of shocking revelations, the New York Post reported last Monday that the death rate of those confined in the city’s nursing homes has not only exponentially increased but the situation has gotten so egregious that the there is no room to store the bodies of those who have expired.

According to the Post report about 90 nursing home residents have died in the midst of the public health crisis that was sparked by the Coronavirus pandemic.

On Sunday, the New York State Health Department released its first report of deaths due to COVID-19 at city nursing homes. All together there were 1,064 virus related deaths, according to the Post report.

“Every death is heartbreaking,” said Dr. Roy Goldberg, medical director at Kings Harbor Multicare Center, a 720-bed home in the Bronx which reported 45 fatalities. “These have been surreal times.” Photo Credit: senioradvice.com

Leading the list in nursing home fatalities was the borough of Queens with 193 deaths, 158 dead in the Bronx, 136 dead in Brooklyn, 116 dead in Suffolk county, 115 in Nassau county and 113 in Westchester county, as was reported by the Post. The Department of Health reported that in hospitals across the state another 915 nursing home residents died of the Coronavirus.

On Friday, the AP reported that New York leads the nation in coronavirus nursing home deaths. Details were released by the state after weeks of refusing to do so on outbreaks in individual facilities. It was revealed that in one home in Brooklyn 55 people died and four others had reported at least 40 deaths.

“Every death is heartbreaking,” said Dr. Roy Goldberg, medical director at Kings Harbor Multicare Center, a 720-bed home in the Bronx which reported 45 fatalities. “These have been surreal times.”

The state’s accounting of multiple deaths at 68 nursing homes was based on a survey and is substantially incomplete. It accounted for less than half of the 2,690 nursing home deaths that have been reported in the state. It also didn’t include people who got sick in nursing homes, but then died at hospitals, as was reported by the AP.

But it was the first time the state provided any information about homes that, according to an Associated Press tally, account for nearly 40% of the nation’s 6,912 deaths in such facilities.

AP reported that at the top of the list with 55 deaths was Cobble Hill Health Center, a 300-bed facility in a 19th-century former hospital in a tony section of Brooklyn.

Four ambulances arrived within an hour at the facility Friday, underscoring the ongoing crisis. Police showed up to assist with the removal of bodies, including one that was wheeled out the front door, as was reported by the AP.

The Cobble Hill home said in a statement that the deaths it reported were “based on the possibility of COVID-19 being a factor,” adding testing in nursing homes remains “extremely difficult to obtain.”

Ambulance crews are parked outside Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in Andover, N.J., on Thursday April 16, 2020. Police responding to an anonymous tip found more than a dozen bodies Sunday and Monday at the nursing home in northwestern New Jersey, according to news reports. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

“Although we’ve had an increase in deaths during the past few weeks, we have not been able to confirm that the deaths are specifically related to COVID-19,” the statement said.

Connecticut released a similar list Thursday, reporting that eight nursing homes had at least 10 residents die. In Connecticut, nursing home residents account for 375 of the state’s 971 virus deaths.

AP also reported on Friday that An extraordinary number of coronavirus-related deaths overwhelmed a nursing home in northern New Jersey where police found 18 bodies in what the governor called a “makeshift morgue” on two consecutive days earlier last week.

Police got an anonymous tip last Monday that a body was being stored outside the home, Andover Township Police Chief Eric Danielson said Thursday.

The New Jersey Herald first reported the finding of the bodies, which followed the discovery of five bodies at the home last Sunday after complaints from staff and family members to law enforcement, as was reported by the AP.

Nineteen of the home’s 35 residents who have died since March 30 had the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said. AP reported that of more than 500 residents listed as of April 15, 103 had tested positive, and more than 100 more had symptoms. Fifty-two staff members also showed symptoms.

Local health officials visited early last Sunday after the state health department received word the facility needed body bags, Persichilli said. On Tuesday, they reported that the facility was understaffed.

While delivering the daily Coronavirus briefing in Albany, officials representing Governor Andrew Cuomo last week would not elaborate on nor give further details on the number of those who died at individual nursing homes because of privacy issues, as was reported by the Post.

At the 189-bed Chateau at Brooklyn Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in the Sheepshead Bay section of the borough, a worker there told the Post that “just over 40” residents had died there in the last three weeks. “They got several patients in isolation now and they are doing a whole lot of cleaning,” the worker told the Post.

For their part, the Chateau at Brooklyn said in a prepared statement that “no patient that passes away has ever been left in his or her bed.”

While leaving the venue on Monday, a nurse told the Post that “these places don’t have morgues. They were putting them downstairs but now a lot of them are being left in their rooms. What else can you do right now?” The nurse added, “It’s so sad to be taking blood from someone and the person in the next bed — next to them — is dead.”

A patient is loaded into the back of an ambulance by emergency medical workers outside Cobble Hill Health Center, Friday, April 17, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The despair wrought on nursing homes by the coronavirus was laid bare Friday in a state survey identifying numerous New York facilities where multiple patients have died. Nineteen of the state’s nursing homes have each had at least 20 deaths linked to the pandemic. Cobble Hill Health Center was listed as having 55 deaths. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The worker who was previously quoted in this article said that the deaths at the Chateau are fewer than the King David Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on Cropsey Avenue in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where the worker holds a second job. The worker told the Post that at the King David, “they’re closing in on 50” deaths.

Speaking to the NY Post, Brooklyn Councilman Mark Treyger said, “No one from the city or state has been able to confirm virus cases but clearly something is going on.” The 271-bed King David nursing home is in Treyger’s district. He further told the Post that he’d been “getting reports of ambulances coming in and out” of the facility.

In a report that appeared in Saturday’s New York Times, the Allure Group which owns the King David told the paper through a spokesman that the nursing and skilled care facility had confirmed cases of the virus there, but did not say that any deaths related to it had occurred.

Also shocking is that the first person who tested positive for the Coronavirus in New Jersey has been associated with the King David, according to the Post report.

WCBS reported that James Cai, a 32-year-old physician’s assistant at the King David said he thinks he caught the bug while attending a medical conference in early March at a Times Square hotel. “It happened so quick,” Cai told the outlet at the time. “The virus is everything. Diarrhea, watery eyes, shortness of breath, chest pain, you name it. High fever. … Every day is getting worse.” Cai has since recovered but before being hospitalized on March 3rd, he had treated 11 patients at the King David.

A reliable source close to the King David told the Jewish Voice on the condition of anonymity that the number of patient deaths at the nursing home far exceeds 50 and that the place is run in an abominable manner, with patients being intentionally neglected. Another source told the Jewish Voice that the King David gets paid by patient insurers for storing dead bodies in the event that they cannot be sent to funeral homes or local morgues.

Said the source: “If I had parents, grandparents or any relative or friend that was in a city nursing home right now, I would get them out of there immediately. These places are breeding grounds for this deadly viral infection and the manner in which the patients are treated is beyond deplorable. It is downright hideous; inhumane. No person, dead or alive should be treated like that.”

The NY Times report also indicated that at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation in Brooklyn, more than 15 patients died of the virus and their bodies were placed in a makeshift morgue because funeral homes were way too overcrowded to handle them. The Crown Heights nursing home is one of Allure Group’s six operations.

According to their web site, Allure also owns the Hamilton Park Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, the Linden Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation on Linden Blvd in Brooklyn, the Bedford Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation on Heyward Street in Brooklyn, and the Harlem Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation on West 138th Street in Manhattan.

The New York Post reported that Chateau at Brooklyn is owned by CareRite Centers of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which also owns 30 other nursing homes in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Tennessee.

According to a AP report on Sunday, more than 3,600 deaths nationwide have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, an alarming rise in just the past two weeks.

Reporters Bernard Condon and Randy Herschaft wrote that because the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own, the AP has kept its own running tally based on media reports and state health departments. The latest count of at least 3,621 deaths is up from about 450 deaths just 10 days ago.

But the true toll among the 1 million mostly frail and elderly people who live in such facilities is likely much higher, experts say, because most state counts don’t include those who died without ever being tested for COVID-19, as was indicated in the AP report.

The AP report also said that outbreaks in just the past few weeks have included one at a nursing home in suburban Richmond, Virginia, that has killed 42 and infected more than 100, another at nursing home in central Indiana that has killed 24 and infected 16, and one at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., that has killed 38, infected 88 and prompted a federal investigation. This comes weeks after an outbreak at a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that has so far claimed 43 lives.

The Allure Group which is a for-profit nursing home chain has been in the news before for dubious business dealings. It’s operators, Marvin Rubin and Joel Landau were under two years of city and state investigations because of the group’s closing of The Rivington House on Manhattan’s lower east side. The closing caused an uproar by community members of the LES, when the nursing home for seniors with HIV/AIDS was turned into luxury condominiums by the Allure Group.

The Jewish Voice previously reported that The Allure Group originally had purchased Rivington House in February of 2015 for $28 million, with promises that the facility would remain an operating nursing home. They then paid the Department of Citywide Administrative Services $16 million to adjust the deed on the facility. Prior to the decision to lift the deed restrictions on the nursing home by the city’s Department of Administrative Services, the site was limited to a not-for-profit residential health-care center.

Shortly after the purchase, the Allure Group, walked off with a $72 million pay day after they sold it to Slate, (a real estate development company) for the purpose of building luxury condominiums at the site, The Jewish Voice reported in 2016.

In January of 2018, the Jewish Voice reported that the Allure Group was poised to pursue its expansion of properties after the investigations concluded.

At the time, Crain’s reported that Allure, agreed to pay $2 million in penalties and charitable contributions to local nonprofits in a deal with former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Joel Landau who is the public face of the Allure Group, contributed $4950 to the De Blasio for mayor campaign in 2013. It was reported in the Daily News that James Capalino, an influential lobbyist had placed pressure on the DeBlasio administration to lift the deed requirements in order for one of his clients to turn Rivington House into luxury condos. Capalino was instrumental in acquiring $50,000 in donations to Mayor De Blasio.

The mayor claimed he was misled by the company and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services changed the deed without consulting him. “This was a mistake. It was ridiculous, and I’ve said it a thousand times,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the time during a town hall meeting on the Lower East Side. “Not only did we entirely change the rules around anything like this; now it will require a personal signature from me to happen, which did not happen in this case.”

Parshas Tazria-Metzora – Life and Death Are In The Tongue

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04/22/2020

Parsha - Parshas Tazria-Metzora article — A further illustration of how careful we must be of speaking even that which is true is demonstrated by the story of Miriam the Prophetess who spoke with genuine love about her brother Moshe. While her concerns were valid and pure, she was nevertheless stricken with tzaraas.

By: Rabbi Osher Jungreis

Most of us are under the erroneous impression that loshen hora constitutes only that which is gossip and slander, but if you know for a fact that the information that you are conveying is true, you are justified in revealing it. Some people actually believe that if the information is correct they are performing a righteous deed by making the story public.

In this week`s parsha however, we discover that, even if that which is related is true, it cannot be told (fabricating stories, spreading false gossip and rumors falls under a different category known as “Motzei Shem Ra”). The Torah instructs that he who spoke loshen hara had to be taken to Aaron, the High Priest (Leviticus 13:2), which leads us to ask why exactly, it was Aaron who was assigned the task of curing the individual who was guilty of loshen hora and was now suffering from tzaraas (a form of skin disease).

The Mishna teaches us that Aaron, the High Priest, was committed to making peace between people. If he heard that two individuals were in conflict, he approached them separately and spoke to their hearts. “Why are you fighting?” he would ask. “Don`t you realize that the person with whom you are having this controversy is contrite, that he truly cares about you, that he is sorry for the ill feelings that prevail between you?” Following such a conversation with Aaron, it was easy for the two to reconcile.

Aaron did this without really consulting the individual parties, but he understood that establishing peace between people must be our priority, and so, the gossiper who justifies his evil talk by claiming it to be true, is taught a profound lesson by Aaron. There are times when “telling it like it is”–forthrightness, must take a back seat for the sake of shalom–peace. Through our speech, we can either revive people or destroy them.

A further illustration of how careful we must be of speaking even that which is true is demonstrated by the story of Miriam the Prophetess who spoke with genuine love about her brother Moshe. While her concerns were valid and pure, she was nevertheless stricken with tzaraas.

We are commanded to remember that which happened to Miriam, for if such a fate can befall a woman as righteous as she was, who had no trace of malice, whose heart was full of love and whose intentions were pure, how much more must we be careful with the words that emanate from our own lips.

It is the power of speech that distinguishes us from all other creatures. Through speech, we can elevate or debase ourselves. Therefore, it is written: “Life and death are in the tongue.” We would do well to recall that one of the reasons why G-d found our ancestors worthy of redemption from Egypt is that they did not speak loshen hora. We are all in desperate need of redemption. Let us guard our tongues!

The second of the two Torah portions that we will be reading this week is called “Metzora”. The word “Metzora” is a combination of two words, Motzei Ra, which means to speak evil about others. The juxtaposition of this parsha to last week`s is very instructive, for, in the previous parsha, we studied about non kosher foods that we are forbidden to eat.

By placing these two parshiot—forbidden food and loshen hora (speaking gossip) next to each other, the Torah reminds us that, not only must we be careful about that which enters our mouths, but we must be equally careful about that which comes forth from our lips. We must be ever on guard not to cause pain to anyone with our words. Since this is no small achievement, we pray for G-d`s help and guidance in this regard, and conclude every Amidah service with the words, “My G-d, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully.”

Loshen hora, evil talk, is considered a heinous sin equal to all the three cardinal sins. In these difficult times for our people, we should all take extra precautions to avoid speaking negatively about others. To what extent we must go to avoid loshen hora can be learned from Miriam, the prophetess, who in good faith criticized her younger brother Moses, and for those seemingly innocent words, was afflicted with Tzora`as, the skin disease that is described in this week`s portion. The Torah commands us to remember what happened to Miriam and thus avoid the pitfalls of loshen hara. Language is a Divine gift. Let us use it wisely.

PIRKE AVOT–ETHICS OF THE FATHERS

From the first Shabbos after Pesach and throughout the summer months until the Sabbath before Succoth, we study one of the six chapters of Ethics of the Fathers. These teachings focus on moral and ethical conduct and general character improvement. Therefore, it is most appropriate that we study them during the six weeks between the holidays of Peach and Shavuos, when we prepare ourselves for the receiving of G-d`s Torah. This is in keeping with the teaching “Derech Eretz Kadmoh La Torah” — “Proper ethical behavior is the prerequisite to Torah study.”

For more insightful Divrei Torah on the weekly Torah portion, please visit the Hineni web site at: www.hineni.org

Parshas Tazria–You Have Potential

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04/22/2020

Parsha - Parshas Tazria You Have Potential article — HASHEM spoke to Moshe, saying: “Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: When a woman conceives and gives birth to a male…On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. (Vayikra 12:1-2). Photo Credit: Wikipedia.com

By: Rabbi Label Lam

HASHEM spoke to Moshe, saying: “Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: When a woman conceives and gives birth to a male…On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. (Vayikra 12:1-2)

It’s not written here that there should be any expense for the event of the circumcision. Come and see how dear this Mitzvah is to Israel that they go through great expense to guard and rejoice in it… (Midrash Tanchuma)

It is a wondrous phenomenon that of all Mitzvos, Bris Mila should remain as a lasting symbol of Jewish loyalty. It is also no mistake that it is one of only two “positive”or action-Mitzvos in the entire Torah that we are warned that the failure to perform would result in “kores” -being “cut-off”.

The other Action Mitzva is the Korban Pesach. Why is the “punishment so terribly harsh for not making a Bris? What’s the great joy associated with making a Bris? It’s a surgery! The kid is crying and all the adults are wishing “Mazel Tov” and eating lox. What’s going on here?

Recently I traveled half way around the world to attend and participate in the Bris of a grandchild. I was wondering aloud in my own brain, why I had traveled so far for this same day surgery on an eight day old baby. As the Bris was about to take place and while everything was being readied, it was discovered that the designated bottle of wine was closed and required a cork screw. Someone was dispatched to retrieve the correct instrumentation.

As the baby was entering for the Bris there was a hushed silence and I don’t know if anyone else caught the same significance that I did but the sound of the pop of the bottle being uncorked punctuated my thinking. That’s it! We are uncorking revealing the child’s potential, giving him access to his limitless G-dly soul, and launching him on his holy mission in life with a name, his name. A bottle of wine uncorked is like a car that remains locked and parked in the garage. The essence, the true purpose is never realized. That alienation is an aspect of being cut off, spiritually unemployed.

I have presented to many a class, students young and old the following scenario. It always jump starts a lively discussion. Imagine that a very poor man is lying on his death bed. His is repenting! So poor he is in his old rickety house that he cannot afford a plot. The plot thickens. The burial society is in the back already digging a grave when a shovel meets something unexpected. In his backyard they uncover a giant chest dripping with jewels and gold and silver. They rush it to his bedside before it’s too late. He glances over at the treasure chest, now open before him. He realizes that the wealth is all his, and then he takes a final gasp and expires. My question to the students is, “Was he a rich man or not?” Usually, we reach a consensus after a lively debate. Sure he lived to realize that he had wealth but he never actualized it. He was poor in that sense.

The Arizal said that what knocks a person out of this world after 120 or anytime sooner is the picture of what a person could have become! They are shown their potential! The shock over the disparity delivers a fatal blow. My own beloved grandmother repeated on her death bed over and over again two phrases, “potential, potential, potential!” and, “Diabolical, diabolical, diabolical!” She didn’t usually talk like that! It was a puzzle to me until I saw this statement from the Arizal. Not only in the final moment does one become aware of this enormous truth, but it haunts us throughout life. We are in competition with no one else but our own G-d given potential.

Years ago I received both a stinging rebuke and a flattering compliment simultaneously. It was just after lunch-time in the Yeshiva and I was to learn with a South African buddy who was as much of a beginner at Talmud learning as I. Upon entering the study hall he arose from his seat as one should for a Talmud Scholar. I looked behind me to see if perhaps one of the Rebbeim was there. I let him know how irreverent his behavior was, “Zach, you can’t joke around like that!” To which he retorted, “Reb Label, I wasn’t standing up for you! I was standing up for your potential!” Zap! The good news is, “You have potential!” The bad news is, “you have potential!”

(Torah.org)

The Angel of Death Visited Us this Passover

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04/22/2020

Jewish Features - The Angel of Death article — Facing our mortality can make us serious about what life is about.

By: Rabbi Naftali Schiff

The Angel of Death visited our community and our family in particular this Passover season, sadly not just in the Chad Gadya finale of our Seder, but for real.

My father-in-law was one of dozens who have been torn from British Jewry by the contemporary plague of the coronavirus. I was the last family member to be with him, reciting the Shema by his bedside in London’s Royal Free Hospital, just before he passed away. Sadly, there was no passing over of Jewish homes in Britain this year. The relatively small British community has been devastated by loss

In just a three-day period some 30 Jewish people were buried here. The Jews are just 0.3% of the British population, but account for a far greater percentage of the coronavirus fatalities. It is a tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes, one that we cannot grieve through together, as we are unable to hold normally populated funerals nor visit shivas in person.

In London today, as in many other places, there is no shielding children from the loss and devastation that is taking place. Their whole world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus crisis. They understand that their school and studies have been paused, and that they are being kept home to try to stop the alarming disease and death count from rising.

Children are discussing the nitty-gritty of the crisis just like everyone else. Those who tried in the past to shield and protect children from the topic of death are having no success today

What is more, all of us adults are staring death in the face, whether at close quarters like myself, or because, globally, we have suddenly become acutely and immediately aware of our own mortality. Who has not thought about the reality of death in the last few weeks?

I can’t at this moment of personal and national grief give answers to the most searching questions, but I can share one of the thoughts that struck me during this painful period: perhaps we should proactively stare death in the face at this time and each write our own obituary.

Watching this microscopic virus wreak havoc on all that we thought was so sturdy – international travel, financial markets, our lifestyles and routines – is surreal and underscores the transience of our existence. Seeing lives suddenly lost to an illness that was not even known mere weeks ago begs the most fundamental of life’s questions and perhaps forces each one of us to ponder just how many of us allocate our time in what we really consider the most worthwhile way possible.

So instead of binge-watching another series on Netflix about the life of a fictional character, perhaps we take this time out to write our own life story, and make preparations today to make the reality match the script of tomorrow.

I would suggest that another constructive response may be to talk openly and candidly to our children about death. Don’t leave it to their peers to educate them about death. Speak to them. Connect with them. Show them that talking about death is not morbid, but underscores the preciousness of life and each of journeys through it. It may be one of the most important conversations we ever have.

Children have greater capacity for deep reflection than many adults recognize. When I was 15, both my grandfathers died within the same month. This tragic and traumatic life event changed me forever. It dawned on me that they were not buried with anything we spend so much of our everyday thinking about – no credit cards, no car keys, none of the things I seemingly aspired to as a teenager.

The Pharaoh of the Exodus story, like other Pharaohs, would have been buried with many riches that he hoped to take to the afterworld. Judaism is clear that the only financial account that matters when we die is the sum we have used for good deeds. I recall the story attributed to a number of illustrious Jewish businessmen of yesteryear, who, to the consternation of his servant demands to review his account ledgers on his deathbed. Until he clarifies that actually he only wanted to see the ledger of charitable donations, as only these had relevance where he was headed.

Last week, when I sat with my father-in-law just before his passing, all worldly concerns fell away. The only thoughts were those of family and of a life of right and wrong well lived.

The reality is that facing our mortality often gets us serious with what life is about. I recalled those moments aged 15 when I had questioned my own father about the nature of life and death. This month, not just once did I ask myself if, God forbid, I were to end up on a ventilator, what type of a life would I have lived. And if I came out of that terrible experience, what kind of a life would I commit to live henceforth.

Judaism does not teach that our normal everyday concerns are unimportant. Rather, it reminds us that they are a means to an end, and that all of us have a capacity to connect to something far greater.

I have no magic words that ease the sense of tragedy facing my family and our community. But as I sit at home, missing the human connections we normally take for granted, mourning people for whom we cannot hold regular shiva services, I’m left asking that most Jewish of questions. It isn’t “why?” but rather “what now?”

Some people have suggested that by confining us at home, the coronavirus crisis puts our lives “on hold.” I disagree. I think it can push us to experience life in a more stark and meaningful way, and to ask some of the very biggest questions. As Jews, we constantly encourage our children to ask questions. Let’s not shy away from the biggest, arguably the most challenging ones too, for in times of death we can discover the keys to a meaningful life’s journey too.

The Commandment of Counting

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04/22/2020

Jewish Features - The Commandment article — Counting the Omer teaches us mindfulness, and opens our hearts to the power of stories.

By: Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

The commandment to count the omer is one of the more curious prescriptions of the Torah. We are told to count the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot even though, of course, the number of days never changes. Therefore, it is very much an effort in which the process is in and of itself a value.

The word for “number” in Hebrew is mispar. Its root is closely related to the word for “story” – sipur. What is the relationship between the two?

A collection of events becomes a story – as opposed to a random anthology of events – when there is a beginning in which the characters are introduced, a middle in which conflict takes place, and an end in which there is resolution.

Our lives flow by so quickly that we frequently lose awareness of the awesome power of our own stories. The metamorphosis of today into tomorrow is subtle enough for us to lose consciousness of beginnings and ends.

The commandment to count teaches us mindfulness. It re-opens our hearts to hearing stories. And what story is being told?

There are two stories intertwined.

One is the story of a transformation of a people who at Passover become physically free into a people who at Shavuot become spiritually free as well.

The day we left Egypt was one in which we rejected the Egyptian definition of what our lives can hold. We were free to be who we wanted to be. But we didn’t yet know our own story. It is only when we received the Torah that we found the channels that could give our souls expression.

It was then that we learned the mechanics of meeting challenges that are genuine and enduring. Our story began to evolve.

Barley and Wheat

The rituals that define this time of year reflect this change. The sacrifice that was offered on Passover was made out of barley. In ancient times, barley was used as fodder for animals. The sacrifice that was offered on Shavuot was made of wheat. Wheat is often used as an allegory for the human capacity for using our intelligence. While an animal can eat a fruit or a leaf, it requires human intelligence and creativity to make bread.

What this symbolizes is the transformation of the Jewish people from one who are defined primarily through the strivings and yearnings for the sort of freedom that we share in common with the animals to becoming truly evolved humans. It is indeed quite a story.

What makes us truly human? The mystic literature discusses the bonds that we share with God as being the humanizing factor. These bonds are called sefirot, a name which, as is obvious, also has the same root as number and story.

This common root conveys the fact that our beginning, middle and end are ultimately measured and finite, but nonetheless touched by the infinite spark of Godliness within us.

The earliest mention of this mystic concept is presented in the Kabbalistic work called Sefer Yetzirah, literally the “Book of Formation,” which is attributed to Abraham. There are over a thousand commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah, yet it remains nonetheless one of the most esoteric of the Jewish works on God’s nature.

In the 1500s, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria – a mystic from Egypt who settled in Safed and who is known widely by the acrostic of his name as the Ari (literally “the Lion”) – elucidated the most enigmatic sections of Kabbalah to a select group of disciples with unsurpassed clarity. Subsequently, the mystic teachings of Judaism became far more accessible than they had ever been in the past.

One of the most central of his teachings is the significance of gaining awareness of the bond that we share with God, the sefirot of our spiritual souls.

The Seven Aspects of Godliness

Let us now examine the bonds with God that make us human – the seven expressive aspects of Godliness.

(1) Chesed, “kindness”

While the drives of the body are towards oneself, those of the soul are directed outwards towards others. We love those to whom we give because they validate our spirituality. We see our highest self-reflected in them.

(2) Gevurah, “strength” or “empowerment”

Specifically this refers to empowering one’s soul to overcome the obstacles that stand before it. We have the capacity to live for the sake of our goals, and to make sacrifices to attain it. The ultimate goal of every Jew is to be a source of light. In order to do this, we must submit our egos and desires to the scrutiny of God’s Torah.

(3) Tiferet, “beauty”

Beauty is created through harmony and contrast – that is when we make a “match.” When we become people of truth, our words, thoughts, and deeds match. Only humans can lie. The reason for this is that only humans have the possibility of creating themselves in a certain sense. To use the words of the Maharal of Prague, “we give birth to ourselves.” When we lie we succumb to our animalistic desire for comfort and ease. When we tell the truth, we reconnect to Gods transcendental reality and chose to be authentic as humans.

(4) Netzach, “infinity”

Anyone who has ever resisted the desire for immediate gratification has touched this quality. It is the source of hope and aspiration towards growth.

(5) Hod, “gratitude”

In Hebrew, hod is a noun which literally means “splendor,” but as a verb means both “to confess” and “to thank.” As humans we can be moved by splendor whether its source is spiritual or physical. Our ability to be truly sensitive in this sense is what inspires us to express gratitude. We often resist allowing ourselves to be grateful because of the fragility of our self-esteem. When we begin the day with the words Modeh Ani, ”I thank you,” we express gratitude towards God, and simultaneously see our selves as creations that are worthy of life.

(6) Yesod, “foundation”

This refers to our ability to bond. It is called “foundation” because it is the very foundation of all interactions. What we ultimately seek in relationships is goodness. Inevitably if we had to choose one trait in a perspective spouse, it would be a spiritual one. For some of us it would be compassion, for others honesty or sensitivity. If we see our own goodness mirrored back to us, we love the person even more. What this tells us is that what we are seeking is in the final analysis, spiritual bonding. We are searching for the face of God.

(7) The final attribute is malchut, “kingship”

It refers to our ability to bring God’s kingdom into being in the greater world and into our own hearts. The way we do this is through the recognition that our missions are of infinite significance; at the same time we retain the humility that comes as a result of knowing what a tiny piece of infinity we can individually call our own.

The seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot have the spiritually potency to give us the ability to let our stories unfold. We can make every day count, and emerge more human than we ever could have imagined.

With Synagogues Closed, Omer App Sees Spike in Use and New Downloads

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04/22/2020

Jewish Features - With Synagogues article - pic 1 — Chabad.org’s free “Omer Counter” app makes counting the 49 days between the second night of Passover and Shavuot easier and more meaningful.

A daily reminder, inspiration and more on Android and iOS devices

By: Menachem Posner

With synagogues shuttered indefinitely, Jewish life is evolving to conform with the new home-based reality. When possible, technology is taking a more prominent role, facilitating Torah study, fellowship and more.

Perhaps one of the most difficult mitzvahs to fulfill in an ordinary year is the counting of the Omer, which requires that each sequential day be counted (after nightfall) without missing a day—from the second night of Passover all the way until the eve of Shavuot. (If one misses a day, one should still count, but without making a blessing before the counting.) Those who pray in synagogue have an easier time remembering the brief counting ceremony since it is included in the evening service.

This year, more than ever, thousands are turning to the Omer Counter app to help them remember to count each night.

In addition to remembering to count on each of 49 consecutive nights, the counter needs to verbalize that night’s count and the corresponding Kabbalistic formula—all that before daybreak, or at least, before sunset the following evening.

A live counter tells the user how much time remains for counting that day and sends updated reminders as well. It also features a specially created “daily meditation” corresponding to the Kabbalistic mystical confluence of sefirot (emanations) associated with each day, as well as a wealth of insights and other information culled from Chabad.org’s repository of Jewish content.

Chabad.org’s app development team has found a novel way to offer assistance with its “Omer Counter” app. In addition to daily reminders, a live counter tells the user how much time remains for counting that day.

Highly customizable, the app—with texts in Hebrew and English—tracks the user’s counting record and can then produce the appropriate text for that person (since a person who misses one day may no longer include the special blessing before counting on the subsequent nights that year).

Beyond the mechanics of the daily count, the app also features a specially created “daily meditation” from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, corresponding to the Kabbalistic mystical confluence of sefirot (emanations) associated with each day, as well as a wealth of insights and other information culled from Chabad.org’s repository of Jewish content.

For the novice just foraying into the intricacies of Hebrew reading, the app features a trainer that assists students by highlighting each word as it is chanted, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the Hebrew at their own pace. Supported on mobile devices and tablets, it is ideal for those learning while they are on the move.

This Year More Than Ever

Lead developer Dov Dukes notes that the technology for the trainer is built on Chabad.org’s “Torah Trainer,” which now includes all 54 Torah portions, their Haftarahs and the blessings recited before and after the readings.

This year, Dukes notes that preliminary data suggests a significant spike in people signing up for and using the app, reflecting its added relevance in a time when people struggle to maintain their Jewish observance without the physical presence of a community.

“Omer Counter” joins Chabad.org’s Jewish Apps Suite in strategically leveraging Chabad.org’s content and know-how to other platforms.

Through the vision and generosity of a group of funders, the “Omer” app joins the “Hayom” app, the “Passover Assistant,” the “Jewish.tv” Video app, the “Shabbat Times” app, a JewishKids.org app for children and others—all designed to help bring Jewish wisdom and tools to the fingertips of users. Additional apps are in the planning and developmental stages by an international Chabad.org team.

The drive, vision for and underwriting of the apps, which are available free of charge, come from the generous partnership of Dovid and Malkie Smetana, Alan and Lori Zekelman, the Meromim Fund, and Moris and Lillian Tabacinic—all dedicated to spreading the wisdom and practice of Judaism worldwide.

“The possibilities in app development for a Jewish audience are virtually endless,” says Chabad.org’s managing director, Rabbi Meir Simcha Kogan, “and we are determined to implement the drive and vision of our generous partners and our staff to use the best practices and highest standards in leveraging these technologies for strengthening Jewish awareness and observance.”

(Chabad.org)

The “Omer Counter” app is available free of charge on Apple’s App Store for iOS devices and Google’s Play Store for Android devices.

Is Robert DeNiro’s Miami Beach Hotel Ripping Off NY Customers?

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04/22/2020

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241632126.html

Travel - Is Robert DeNiro article — The Nobu Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida is owned by film star Robert DeNiro and partner Meir Teper. Photo Credit: YouTube

By: Denis Cyr

As the Coronavirus continues to keep New Yorkers sequestered at home, all travel plans for the upcoming Passover holiday had been cancelled. It now appears that an ugly legal dispute has arisen between a Brooklyn school and a Miami Beach hotel.

Film fans are familiar with Robert De Niro’s Oscar-winning roles — but fewer people know that he is also an astute businessman, according to 2018 CNN report.

The American actor and director co-founded the first Nobu, an upmarket Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurant, in 1994.

According to the CNN report, De Niro and his co-founders — celebrity chef Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa and film producer and entrepreneur Meir Teper — own 39 restaurants and eight luxury hotels across five continents. Their lifestyle brand Nobu Hospitality was founded in 2009.

One of the hotels that DeNiro owns is the Nobu Miami Beach. It is located inside and next to the Eden Roc and is considered a hotel within a hotel.

The Eden Roc which expanded in 2008 with a second tower has undergone another renaissance with the arrival of Nobu Hotel, since October 2016.

According to sources close to the Eden Roc and its management, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Nobu shares the same guest policies with the Eden Roc.

Is it possible that Robert DeNiro and his business partners are responsible for adamantly refusing to refund money to customers who booked rooms at the Eden Roc for Passover?

It goes without saying, that everyone who had made reservations for Passover at a resort or hotel was left with no choice but to cancel due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic. Hotels all over the country and the entire world for that matter were closed in this global lockdown.

According to published reports, Brooklyn’s Magen David Yeshiva had planned to spend their Passover holiday at the iconic Eden Roc hotel in South Beach, however the deadly pandemic that has been ravaging the world has prevented New Yorkers from leaving home.

The private school, established in 1946 and rooted in Sephardic Jewish tradition, services students from pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade. As with schools across the nation, the viral outbreak has forced the Brooklyn campus to shutter and move classes online, as was reported by the Miami Herald.

Working with the tour operator, Elegant Travel, the school first booked a Passover trip in 2018, and followed up with another in 2019. Then, it signed a three-year contract to keep the event at the hotel.

Because of rapid spread of the Coronavirus, Magen David had no other option but to cancel the trip. Eden Roc, however is refusing to issue a refund to the school for its down payment of $2.3 million. The school had rented 621 rooms at the iconic hotel for 10 nights for their 1200 guests to enjoy all of the amenities that the hotel provided

According to the breach of contract lawsuit filed by Magen David’s attorney in Miami-Dade circuit court, the school has cited a passage in the contract that would allow for a cancellation in the event of a “disease outbreak.”

The NY Post reported that on March 9, the school told the hotel that many of the families who were traveling with the elderly wouldn’t be able to attend because of the “escalating problems presented by COVID-19,” the court documents say. The Miami Herald reported that after Magen David made this announcement, the hotel’s vice president of sales, Sergio Rivera, responded by “demanding” that Magen David pony up an additional $1.2 million toward the rest of the cost of renting out the hotel.

An attorney representing the hotel “did not recognize or acknowledge the mushrooming COVID-19 catastrophe,” the court filings declare.

On March 18th, the school (working with the tour operator Elegant Travel) formally cancelled the trip. Within days, New York’s governor issued a statewide “shelter-in-place” order that forbade travel and Miami Beach ordered hotels to cancel existing reservations, according to the Miami Herald report.

At about the same time, the Eden Roc’s summarily rejected the notion that disease outbreak was a legitimate or credible reason for the trip to be canceled and according to the court filings, said that the Eden Roc will ‘retain the entirety” of the school’s deposit.

Magen David’s attorney, Daniel Blonsky of the Miami law firm, Coffey Burlington, told the Jewish Voice that the contract agreed upon by Magen David, Elegant Travel and the Eden Roc includes a provision entitled “Force Majeure” which grants legal permission for the school to cancel the contract for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the outbreak of disease. The lawsuit reveals that the other matters include “acts of G-d, natural disasters, union strike, terrorist attacks in the city in which the hotel is located, or declared war on the United States.”

Moreover it includes the following: “In the event that the Force Majeure event causes Group (Magen David) to cancel the Event, all monies paid to the Hotel shall be returned to Group.”

The hotel is insisting the event be rescheduled or “proceed as scheduled with whomever was foolhardy enough to travel from New York to Miami Beach for the Passover 2020 event,” according Mr. Blonsky.

The suit also said that the hotel showed an “utter and contemptuous disregard of the health and safety” of attendees and locals due to the inherent dangers of the virus. Mr. Blonsky added that the school hoped to avoid a lawsuit and reach a business resolution, but that it was forced to file suit when the Eden Roc refused to recognize what was happening with the pandemic and claimed that the entire deposit was forfeited when the Force Majeure provision was invoked.

The Jewish Voice has made repeated attempts to contact the Eden Roc for comments on this case but calls have not been returned by Julie Cabaleri of the public relations department or general manager Michael Chin.

According to an unnamed source familiar with the case, the obstinacy on the part of the Eden Roc is emanating from the ownership, which is based in Mexico. The source also revealed that the Eden Roc is an asset of Key International (key-international.com) and is managed by brothers Inigo and Diego Ardid, who are co-presidents. Said the source, “Diego seems to be the one responsible for the Eden Roc. They’re originally from Spain.”

For More Information please go to these links:

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https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/brooklyn-jewish-school-sues-miami-hotel-over-canceled-trip/

Exhaled ‘Aerosols’ Spread Coronavirus Up to 13 Feet, Shoes Carry Virus, Too

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04/22/2020

Young woman with hand made face nose mouth mask portrait, can be — Recent studies show that people infected with the new coronavirus could be spreading "aerosolized" viral particles as they cough, breathe or talk in a 13-foot radius, and viral particles can also move around on people's shoes.

By: EJ Mundell

Recent studies show that people infected with the new coronavirus could be spreading “aerosolized” viral particles as they cough, breathe or talk in a 13-foot radius, and viral particles can also move around on people’s shoes.

But there was also good news from the studies: Standard protective gear appears to effectively shield health care workers from these aerosolized droplets and infection, and even cloth face masks could curb the spread of exhaled droplets.

Reading over the findings, emergency medicine physician Dr. Robert Glatter said they are a reminder that any form of social distancing should help curb new cases of COVID-19.

“The bottom line is that maintaining some distance from others is better than none,” said Glatter, who works at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Six feet is better than 5 feet. In the age of coronavirus, the more the better. It really comes down to the likelihood of viral transmission.”

In one study, Chinese researchers tracked viral “distribution” in hospital wards in Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus pandemic emerged. From February 19 to March 2, “we collected swab samples from potentially contaminated objects in the ICU and general ward,” said a team led by Dr. Zhen-Dong Guo, of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing.

“We also sampled indoor air and the air outlets to detect aerosol exposure,” the researchers explained.

As the doctors noted, when people exhale, heavier droplets (potentially containing virus) tend to drop to the ground because of gravity, whereas lighter droplets can remain suspended in breathable air.

Their tests found that 70% of swab samples from the hospital floor came up positive for coronavirus, “perhaps because of gravity and air flow causing most virus droplets to float to the ground,” the study authors said.

“In addition, as medical staff walk around the ward, the virus can be tracked all over the floor, as indicated by the 100% rate of positivity from the floor in the [hospital] pharmacy, where there were no patients,” the researchers said. “Therefore, the soles of medical staff shoes might function as carriers.”

Not surprisingly, swabs taken of often-touched surfaces — doorknobs, bed rails, trash cans and computer mice — typically came up positive for coronavirus.

And what about the air people breathe? The closer to an infected patient, the more likely an air sample was to come up positive, Guo’s group said. “Virus-laden aerosols were mainly concentrated near and downstream from the patients,” the team reported.

But tiny airborne aerosols could travel farther than the 6 feet now recommended in most social distancing advisories. In fact, “the maximum transmission distance of [coronavirus] aerosol might be 4 meters (13 feet),” Guo’s group reported. They published their findings online April 10 in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The Chinese study did have one good piece of news: Protective gear worn by hospital staff appears to thwart viral infection. “As of March 30, no staff members at Huoshenshan Hospital had been infected,” despite widespread contamination of air and surfaces, the team noted.

Another study of the aerosolization of exhaled droplets was published online April 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine. In that study, a team from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania used “laser light scattering” technology to track the dispersion of droplets from the mouth during normal speech.

The researchers found that droplets were dispersed into the air, but wearing a “slightly damp washcloth over the speaker’s mouth” effectively stopped most of the dispersion.

In a related commentary on that study, Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew Meselson said it “suggests the advisability of wearing a suitable mask whenever it is thought that infected persons may be nearby.”

For his part, Glatter said that “while 6 feet is certainly ideal based on recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we are now learning that aerosolized droplets from coughing or sneezing, which may then be carried by currents indoors and outside, may make this distance less than ideal.”

Still, he said, the science on all of this continues to evolve.

“The truth is this: We don’t know what it truly takes to get infected with the virus, including the amount of virus necessary to actually initiate an infection,” Glatter said. “In fact, it may not require infected surfaces or droplets after all, just aerosols. We just don’t know. Research on this concept continues to expand and evolve.”

Glatter stressed that other factors — including how deeply into the lungs viral particles penetrate, and the strength of a person’s immune system — are also involved in the infection process.

Dr. Eric Cioe Pena directs global health at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y. Reading over the Chinese study, he agreed that “the potential for this virus to spread via aerosols is particularly scary, because it’s essentially a hybrid between an airborne and a droplet virus, and that the droplets are able to hang out in the air for an extensive period of time and potentially infect other people.”

(HealthDayNews)

Trump says he’ll help New York’s Cuomo boost virus testing

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04/22/2020

By JONATHAN LEMIRE, MARINA VILLENEUVE and ZEKE MILLER (AP)

Setting aside their differences for at least an afternoon, President Donald Trump and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed in an Oval Office meeting to work to double coronavirus testing in the hard-hit state over the next few weeks.

“We will work together to help them secure additional tests,” Trump said after Tuesday’s meeting. “And we hope that this model will work with the other states as well.”

Flicking at the hot-and-cold relationship between the two politicians, Cuomo said of their meeting: “It ends the whole back-and-forth and the finger-pointing in a very fair and smart way.”

The meeting marked a sharp shift in rhetoric from just days earlier, when Trump had called on Cuomo to work harder to secure testing material for his state and the Democratic governor had pushed back that the president should turn off his television and get back to work.

Cuomo, who described the meeting as “effective and functional,” said he told Trump a rapid increase in testing was a crucial “benchmark” that his state and others need before they can safely reopen their economies and help communities return to a semblance of normalcy.

Trump and Cuomo have parried through the media throughout the pandemic, a routine that has included insults, sharply contrasting views on the role of the federal government and some moments of mutual admiration.

The meeting Tuesday was their first face-to-face interaction since the global crisis began. New York, with more than 14,000 deaths, has been the hardest-hit state in the country.

Before their meeting, Cuomo told reporters that Trump was right in saying that “states should take the lead” on testing, but that the federal government needs to manage the flow of supplies from abroad while governors are “trying to put together their testing protocol in their state.”

“I think in many ways we’re talking past each other,” Cuomo said.

Despite well-documented shortages of testing supplies, Trump and White House aides have insisted that states have enough test capacity to move ahead with the first phase of efforts to reopen their economies.

For all the past drama, though, Trump said Tuesday that New York officials had “been terrific to work with.” He added that he and Cuomo agreed that the 1,000-bed U.S. naval hospital ship that had been dispatched to alleviate stress on the city’s hospitals was no longer needed in New York.

“We have a very good understanding,” Trump said.

Cuomo suggested they put aside past hard feelings.

“The president is communicative of his feelings, and I’m communicative of what I think,” Cuomo told MSNBC shortly after his meeting with Trump. “But, look, I think for the president and for myself, this is not about anyone’s emotions about anyone else. I mean, who cares, right, what I feel, what he feels. We have a tremendous job we have to get done. ”

Through daily briefings and scores of media appearances, Cuomo has in many ways emerged as the Democratic face of the response to the pandemic. With the party’s likely presidential nominee, Joe Biden, largely sidelined at his Delaware home, Cuomo has become one of several governors thrust into the spotlight as the pandemic has forced a reordering of American life.

As Cuomo conducts briefings from New York, he has vacillated between being Trump’s foil and his unlikely ally. The two Queens natives — they grew up just a few neighborhoods apart — have traded barbs on Twitter but have also consulted in late-night phone calls.

Asked if he’s had to walk a “fine line” in dealing with the president, Cuomo said: “Life is a fine line.”

“He has no problem telling me when he disagrees,” Cuomo told reporters Tuesday before departing for Washington. “And he tells me when he agrees. I have no problem telling him when I disagree and when I agree.”

Cuomo, according to aides, has deliberately used both the carrot and the stick in dealing with a president who is extremely sensitive about his media image and how governors respond to him.

At times, he has made a point of thanking Trump — resulting in video clips that the president has eagerly showed off in the White House briefing room in recent days.

But at other moments, Cuomo has shown no hesitation to lace into the president, including during a recent monologue in which he urged Trump to stop watching television and to “get back to work” safeguarding American lives during the pandemic.

Trump often catches at least some of Cuomo’s daily briefings and has expressed annoyance to aides at the positive press that the governor has received, according to advisers. He has reveled in the bits of praise he has received from Cuomo — and other Democratic governors.

Cuomo and other governors are also pushing for $500 billion in unrestricted aid from the federal government for states to offset revenue shortfalls resulting from the outbreak.

The Senate on Tuesday approved a nearly $500 billion coronavirus aid package for small businesses, including additional help for hospitals and virus testing. Cuomo said that he was disappointed it didn’t include direct aid for states but that Trump seemed “very open and understanding” on the need to include more aid for states in the next round of assistance.

Trump Bars new Immigration Green Cards, not Temporary Visas

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04/22/2020

By JILL COLVIN, ELLIOT SPAGAT and BEN FOX (AP)

President Donald Trump announced what he described as a “temporary suspension of immigration into the United States.” But the executive order would bar only those seeking permanent residency, not temporary workers.

Trump said Tuesday he would be placing a 60-day pause on the issuance of green cards in an effort to limit competition for jobs in a U.S. economy wrecked by the coronavirus. The order would include “certain exemptions,” he said, but he declined to outlined them, noting the order was still being crafted.

“By pausing immigration we’ll help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs as America reopens, so important,” Trump said at the White House. “It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad.”

An administration official familiar with the plans, however, said the order will apply to foreigners seeking employment-based green cards and relatives of green card holders who are not citizens. Americans wishing to bring immediate family will still be able to do so, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the plan was announced. About 1 million green cards were granted in the 2019 fiscal year, about half to spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens.

By limiting his immigration measure to green cards, Trump was leaving untouched hundreds of thousands of foreign workers granted non-immigrant visas each year, including farm workers, health care workers and software programmers. The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that some 110,000 green cards could be delayed during a two-month pause. Trump said he would consider extending the restrictions, depending on economic conditions at the time.

Trump has long advocated restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and has raised concerns for years about foreigners competing with American citizens for jobs.

But he denied he was using the virus to make good on a longstanding campaign promise during an election year. “No, I’m not doing that all,” he said. The president has also used the crisis to push other stalled priorities, from tax reform to dramatic border restrictions.

Trump has often pivoted to his signature issue of immigration when he’s under criticism. It’s one he believes helped him win the 2016 election and one that continues to animate his loyal base of supporters heading into what is expected to be a brutal reelection fight.

Much of the immigration system has already ground to a halt because of the pandemic. Almost all visa processing by the State Department has been suspended for weeks. Travel to the U.S. has been restricted from much of the globe. And Trump has used the virus to effectively end asylum at U.S. borders, including turning away children who arrive by themselves and putting a hold on refugee resettlement — something Congress, the courts and international law hadn’t previously allowed.

Criticism of Trump’s announcement was swift, especially his timing during the pandemic. Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum, noted that thousands of foreign-born health care workers are currently treating people with COVID-19 and working in critical sectors of the economy.

Andrea Flores of the American Civil Liberties Union said Trump seemed “more interested in fanning anti-immigrant flames than in saving lives.”

But Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower rates of immigration, said before the announcement that eliminating millions of work permits and visas would “instantaneously create” new jobs for Americans and other legal workers — even though most businesses are shuttered because of social distancing dictates and stay-at-home orders.

She was less enthusiastic after Trump outlined the plan, tweeting a single word: “Yawn.”

Indeed, Carl Shusterman, who has practiced immigration law since the 1970s, said a 60-day pause would have little impact because the government effectively stopped processing green cards in March.

“The embassies are not open anyway, so this is like nothing new,” said Shusterman. “This announcement doesn’t really change anything unless the embassies were to open up next week or in the next 60 days.”

Trump first announced his intentions in a vague tweet Monday night. Across the country, those who could be impacted waited in suspense through the day. Chicago immigration attorney Fiona McEntee said she had been inundated with calls, emails and social media messages, including from company executives hoping to expand their business in the U.S., a person applying for a fiance visa and wondering about their wedding plans, artists seeking “extraordinary ability” visas and foreign students.

“It has created absolute panic,” said McEntee. “These are people’s lives. … It is irresponsible and cruel to put out something like that without any consideration.”

As is often the case, Trump’s tweet also caught many across the administration off-guard.

Trump has already used the crisis to take dramatic steps to limit immigration. Last month, the administration effectively ended asylum, relying on a rarely used 1944 law aimed at preventing the spread of communicable disease. U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada have also been closed to tourism and recreational travel. Commercial traffic and a wide range of “essential” workers are still allowed to travel freely.

The U.S. is now reporting more COVID-19 cases than any other country in the world, with almost 800,000 Americans infected, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 42,000 have died.

Trump had been expected to use his authority to slash the number of foreign workers allowed to take seasonal jobs in the U.S. Before the outbreak, the administration had planned to increase the number of H-2B visas, angering people who favor more restrictive immigration policies, including some supporters of the president who view foreign workers willing to accept lower wages as unfair competition to American labor. The Department of Homeland Security later put that plan on hold.

US Anger at China Grows; Class Action Lawsuits Filed for COVID-19 Damages

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04/22/2020