Transplant program offers greater access to care for liver disease

By: Jason Molinet

A surgical team with the Sandra Atlas Bass Center for Liver Diseases at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) has performed Long Island’s first liver transplant, giving a 42-year-old Brentwood man with just days to live a new lease on life. 

Carlos Rosales, a married father of two, underwent a complex 11-hour transplant surgery on December 4, after spending three months on a waiting list for a liver, which he received from a 19-year-old deceased donor. Mr. Rosales’ model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score was 39 at the time (the worst possible rating is 40), indicating the severity of his progressive liver disease.

“I honestly believe Mr. Rosales would not have survived the week without this incredible gift,” said Lewis Teperman, MD, director of organ transplantation at Northwell Health and vice chair of surgery at NSUH. “He was hospitalized and in desperate need of a liver. It’s a somber moment anytime an organ becomes available, but one person’s sacrifice can result in the gift of life to countless others. In this case, I fully expect 15-year-old Jalynn and 11-year-old Brandon to have their father around for many years to come.”  

Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health system, received approval in June from the New York State Department of Health to operate Long Island’s first adult liver transplant program. The Sandra Atlas Bass Center for Liver Diseases, led by David Bernstein, MD, Northwell’s chief of hepatology and head of the health system’s liver sub-specialty service line, is providing pre- and post-liver transplant services along with care for those suffering from end-stage liver disease to more than 100 patients.

Northwell Liver Disease Investments Help Add Transplant Capacity for Region

Of the more than 10,000 patients currently awaiting an organ transplant across New York State – including 1,100 in need of a liver – nearly half live in Northwell Health’s catchment area. There were more than 8,200 liver transplants across the United States in 2018 – 450 of them in New York alone, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

“Long Islanders affected by liver disease now have a choice for their care,” said Dr. Bernstein. “Quality of life can be as important as the quality of care given, so receiving treatment within a short drive of home matters. Northwell’s liver transplant program offers that and more, increasing the capacity of livers to be transplanted in the New York Metro region.”

Northwell’s liver transplant program will provide world-class care from the outset, utilizing new facilities and medical personnel in which the health system has invested. This year alone, NSUH opened a 13,000-square-foot, $26 million Surgical and Transplant Intensive Care Unit, renovated two existing operating rooms into state-of-the-art surgical transplant operating suites and made 50 additional hires to support the program, including its medical director Sanjaya Satapathy, MD, and transplant surgeon Elliot I. Grodstein, MD.

Back from the brink

Dr. Teperman led the transplant team through the historic first surgery. He was one of five transplant surgeons, two anesthesiologists, two pump technicians, eight OR nurses and scrub techs, two surgical residents and one anesthesia resident on hand during the overnight transplant. 

Livers are typically the size of a human head. But by the time Mr. Rosales’ diseased liver was removed, it shriveled to the size of a fist, Dr. Teperman noted. Initial pathology results indicate iron disease or hemochromatosis, a genetic defect that may explain why Mr. Rosales’ grandfather died from liver disease and his nephew is currently living with it.

“My family has been by my side through this entire ordeal; I couldn’t have done it without them,” Mr. Rosales said. “I’m grateful for this second chance I’ve been given. Thank you to the donor family and the incredible team at Northwell Health.”  

At a recent press conference, Mr. Rosales and his wife, Kenia, encouraged New Yorkers to become organ donors.

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Thanks to initiatives taken by New York City Councilman Mark Treyger, New York City residents can expect to be notified within 24 hours that a violent hate crime has taken place in their neighborhood and communities. On Wednesday, Treyger, a Democrat who represents  District 47 in Brooklyn, introduced this legislation as the city finds itself in the midst of anti-Semitic attacks which occur almost daily. In addition, general hate crimes are on the rise.

The Daily News reported that there were 428 hate crime complaints reported last year, a 20% increase from the 356 incidents in 2018, according to NYPD stats. There were 234 anti-Semitic hate crime complaints last year, a 26% bump from the 186 reported in 2018.

“The rise in hate crimes is unacceptable, and we must look at using every resource possible to make sure to protect New Yorkers,” Treyger said.

Several months ago, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio created the  Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. The new office is tasked with coordinating city agencies’ responses to hate crimes and developing community-based strategies to prevent them in the first place.

Deborah Lauter, an employee at the Anti-Defamation League for 18 years was introduced publicly as the first executive director of the newly established office in September.

“What motivates someone to take their hate and act out on it?” she said, according to the WABC report. “In this country, you have a right to be a bigot, right? It’s protected. What we’re seeing now is people being emboldened to act out on that kind of bigotry,” she declared.

This new bill would  require this office to offer notification that a violent hate crime has taken place with a day. Moreover, the bill would also make it incumbent on the office to provide information on what the city is doing in response to the incident as well as providing available resources to those affected  by the crime.The Daily News reported that this is intended to ensure the city has an individualized response to any alleged violent hate crime.

“It’s imperative that the rapid notification process, which the city uses in its Cure Violence initiative, apply to hate crimes, which can have a chilling effect on communities,” Treyger said. “Hate crimes require more than just tweets of condemnation, and currently, there’s not enough of a local connection to the response work.”

The mayor, Council speaker, public advocate and the Council member repping the district where a violent hate crime happened would also have to be notified under the measure, according to the Daily News report.

Edited by: Fern Sidman

Dozens of elected officials from the Greater New York region on Sunday joined more than 25,000 New Yorkers at “No Hate. No Fear,” a solidarity march with New York’s Jewish community, across the Brooklyn Bridge. The march was organized by UJA-Federation of New York (UJA) and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY), as well as ADL-NY, AJC-NY, the New York Board of Rabbis, Americans Against Anti-Semitism & Zioness following the violent, anti-Semitic attacks in Monsey, Brooklyn, and Jersey City.

“We do not simply walk over a bridge, we begin building better bridges between all denominations of Jews, and between Jews and non-Jews,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York. “Building bridges means putting aside our differences, religious and political, and calling out anti-Semitism and all forms of hate wherever we see it. The purpose of this march is to loudly and publicly proclaim that an attack on a visibly Orthodox Jew is an attack on every Jew, an attack on every New Yorker, and an attack on every person of good will.”

“The showing on Sunday of over 25,000 people representing the full spectrum of the Jewish community of New York, and many from the non-Jewish community, is a reflection of the seriousness of the plague of anti-Semitism affecting New York,” said Michael Miller, executive vice president and CEO of JCRC-NY. “We will continue to work with our political leadership locally, statewide, and nationally to address this scourge to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish community and all communities in New York.”

Following the march, New Yorkers of all backgrounds gathered in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza where a number of community leaders and heads of faith-based organizations including Cardinal Timothy Dolan spoke about the recent attacks, the rise of anti-Semitism, and the need for people of all faiths to fight injustice. Additional speakers and performers during the program included Eric Goldstein, Michael Miller, Maccabeats, Devorah Halberstam, Jonathan Greenblatt, Gil Monrose, David Harris, Mehnaz Afridi, Janice Shorenstein, Frankie Miranda, Joe Potasnik, Bishop Anthony DiMarzio, Blake Flayton, Matisyahu, Eric Ward, Chaskel Bennet, Rabbi Avraham Gopin, Shulem, MaNishtana, Lawrence Aker, Rev. Que English, Eli Cohen, Amy Bressman, Bari Weiss, and Isaiah Rothstein, as well as a video message from Rabbi David Niederman.

Sen. Chuck Schumer said that he would call on Congress to boost funding to protect houses of worship, allocating $360 million for them to fortify themselves with surveillance equipment, gates and strong doors, according to a NY Post report.

“Houses of worship have become targets, whether it’s a rabbis house in the suburbs of New York or a Christian church in the suburbs of Dallas,” Schumer said, referencing a deadly shooting last week at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also announced that he also will beef up security at New York’s religious-based institutions, doling out an additional $45 million to help protect them against hate crimes, according to the NY Post report.

Discrimination and racism and anti-Semitism is repugnant to every value that New Yorkers hold dear and is repugnant to every value that this country represents,” Cuomo told the crowd. “Racism and anti-Semitism is anti-American.“

But Cuomo said he was “heartened to see this amazing show of support in solidarity,” adding that Sunday’s demonstration was “New York at her best.”

“What is happened in Monsey and what is happened in Brooklyn, New York, is an attack on every New Yorker,” Cuomo said.

Internationally renowned author, scholar and feminist icon Phyllis Chesler said of the “No Hate, No Fear” march in an article that she recently penned for the Arutz Sheva web site: “The Jews are not the ones who have to reject “hate.” It is those who are hating Jews who must do so. It is the community of black Americans, both Christian and Muslim, and their leaders, who must renounce their Jew hatred. It is those blacks who have culturally appropriated Jewishness, namely, the black Hebrew Israelites, who actually believe that they are the only real Jews. It is the Muslims who believe that Jews have “stolen” Jerusalem and other lands from Arab Muslims—and that therefore, Orthodox and Haredi Jews in America deserve to die.”

USA Today reported that the multicultural crowd included a contingent from Ohio and a bishop from Brooklyn, as well as Jews from across North Jersey and New York’s Rockland County, sites of two mass anti-Semitic attacks over the past five weeks.

“An attack on any house of worship is an attack on all houses of worship,” said Ismael Claudio, bishop of the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ in Brooklyn, who was at Cadman Plaza. “I’m standing with my Jewish brothers and sisters. Today it’s them: tomorrow, might be us.”

“We are here to send a clear message,” Devorah Halberstam told the crowd on Sunday. “We are proud of who we are. Today, we are all Monsey,” said the Chabad-Lubavitch mother of Ari Halberstam who was murdered in anti-Semitic attack on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994.

Mrs. Halberstam’s reference to Monsey is in reference to a most recent attack in which five Chassidic Jews were stabbed at a celebration of the seventh night of Chanukah at a rabbi’s home in Monsey.

An African-American male named Grafton E. Thomas, 37, of Greenwood Lake, New York burst into the residence of the Kossoner Rebbe, Rav Chaim Leibush Rottenberg, on Forshay Road in Monsey after 10 pm on the seventh night of Chanukah. He then took a machete out of a holder and began slashing Jews in an overtly anti-Semitic attack. All together, five Jews were rushed to area hospitals. Monsey is about an hour north of New York City.

It was later reported that Thomas was indicted by federal authorities for committing a hate crime which carries a longer prison term. Thomas was driven to violence because of virulent anti-Semitism that he was imbibing on a regular basis on pro-Nazi web sites that he visited quite frequently, according to an Israel National News report.

INN reported that officials examining his cell phone found that Grafton was looking for information on Nazi culture, swastikas, anti-Semitic ideas, locations of Jewish synagogues around him, and also asked the question: “Why did Hitler hate the Jews?”

Reaction to the most recent attack by local officials was immediate. “Orthodox Jews are being regularly assaulted, menaced, stabbed and murdered in increasing numbers,” says a letter that was signed by NYC councilmen Chaim Deutsch and Kalman Yeger, plus state Sen. Simcha Felder and Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein. It was delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday morning. “Simply stated,” it continued, “it is no longer safe to be identifiable Orthodox in the State of New York. We cannot shop, walk down a street, send our children to school, or even worship in peace.”

“With respect to the local DAs, what they are doing isn’t helping,” Deutsch told The New York Post, a reference to changes to the bail laws that are allowing those arrested for antisemitic and other crimes to walk free without bail. “When anti-Semitic attackers are released just hours after they are arrested, it sends a message that New York City doesn’t take hate crimes seriously. With no visible consequences, what’s preventing others from attacking us?”

Fox News reported that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said Saturday night’s attack was the 13th anti-Semitic attack in New York since Dec. 8 and endemic of “an American cancer on the body politic.”

“This is violence spurred by hate, it is mass violence and I consider this an act of domestic terrorism,” Cuomo said. “Let’s call it what it is.”

On December 11, two African Americans murdered four people in Jersey City, New Jersey in yet another anti-Semitic attack. The couple, David Anderson and Francine Graham had hijacked a van to carry out their depraved crimes. They first shot a Jersey City police officer named Joseph Seals, 40, a father of five young children.

The shooters then raced over to a kosher grocery store on Martin Luther King Drive and fatally shot three people; two Orthodox Jews and one non-Jewish grocery store employee. The Orthodox Jews were identified as Mindel Ferencz, who with her husband owned the grocery, and 24-year-old Moshe Deutsch, a rabbinical student from Brooklyn who was shopping there at the time. The Ferencz family had moved to Jersey City from Brooklyn.

At the end of December, it was reported a woman accused of slapping three Orthodox Jewish women in Crown Heights in another anti-Semitic attack was charged with attempted assault as a hate crime, according to a report on the Vois Es Nais web site.

Tiffany Harris, 30, was then released without bail following her arraignment before a Brooklyn judge on 21 menacing, harassment and attempted assault charges.

Police said Harris slapped, punched and cursed the three Jewish women, ages 22, 26 and 31 in the face and head after encountering them on a corner in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights area, according to the Vois Es Nais report. The victims sustained minor injuries.

According to a New York Post report, Harris shouted at the victims “F-U, Jews!” “Yes, I was there,” Harris later admitted to cops, according to the criminal complaint against her. “Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews.”

In New York City in the last weeks of December, fourteen anti-Semitic attacks were reported and one of them resulted in an actual physical injury. A 65-year-old Jewish man was brutally punched and kicked at East 41st Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, according to a NYP report. The victim of the midtown Manhattan attack told the NYPD that his attacker shouted, “F–k you, Jew bastard!” The victim was checking his cell phone when the attacked occurred.

A suspect was apprehended by police in the hours subsequent to the attack. The suspect was identified as Steven Jorge, 28, from Miami, Florida. He was arrested with no bail pending, according to the Post report, pending a psychological examination.

The NYPD reported 166 anti-Semitic incidents from January through September this year, according to a CNN report. The vast majority of the crimes do not involve assault, but rather acts of vandalism, with graffiti or swastikas being scrawled on places that include synagogues, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said in September, when he was the department’s chief of detectives.

In Israel, it was reported by the Tazpit Press Service that a simultaneous rally against anti-Semitism and religious hate was held in Jerusalem on Sunday.

The event, which attracted hundreds of Israelis took place in The Jewish Agency’s courtyard in Jerusalem. The march in New York began in lower Manhattan and continued across the Brooklyn Bridge, as some 25,000 New Yorkers walked through the city streets under the slogan of “No Hate. No Fear.”

TPS reported that the Jerusalem rally, held in parallel with the march in New York, was organized by The Jewish Agency for Israel, World Zionist Organization (WZO) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

According to a statement by the Jewish Agency, the Israeli solidarity event was intended to “send a clear message of support to US Jews, particularly following the most recent attacks in Monsey and Jersey City.”

In December, perpetrators attacked a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, killing four innocent people, two of whom were Jewish. Later that month, an attacker broke into a rabbi’s home Monsey on the seventh night of Chanukah and stabbed people with a machete, wounding five.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Sunday that Israel stands with its “brothers and sisters” in New York in their battle against anti-Semitism.

“We stand with the many thousands of our brothers, sisters and friends in NYC marching against the rising anti-Semitism. We will not waver in our battle against anti-Semitism and hate,” he said.

Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Isaac Herzog, warned that Jews in the US are no longer safe after hundreds of years of relative safety.

“Jews are no longer as safe on the streets of the US as they were over the past hundreds of years. We are here in Jerusalem standing together with them in solidarity declaring: No Fear! No hate!” he said.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon suggested a change of strategy in the battle against anti-Semitism, offering a more active stance, and a move to “offense.”

“While anti-Semitism continues to rear its head in the United States and throughout the world, we must move from defense to offense. We will not be silenced when Jews are murdered in synagogues and will not be ignored when those who wear kippahs are being killed in the street. We must join hands and stand as a wall against the wave of hatred,” he said.

By: David Ben Hooren

Harvey Weinstein, 67, has been indicted in Los Angeles on charges of raping one woman and sexually assaulting another in separate incidents over two days in 2013.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced Monday that Weinstein has been charged with one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint.

The announcement came after the first day of Weinstein’s New York sex crimes trial concluded.

“We believe the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims and then commit violent crimes against them,” Lacey said in an official statement. “I want to commend the victims who have come forward and bravely recounted what happened to them. It is my hope that all victims of sexual violence find strength and healing as they move forward.”

“On Feb. 18, 2013, Weinstein allegedly went to a hotel and raped a woman after pushing his way inside her room. The next evening, the defendant is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a hotel suite in Beverly Hills,” reported USA Today. “Prosecutors are recommending bail be set at $5 million. If convicted, Weinstein faces up to 28 years in state prison.”

Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson argued in his formal application for bail in the amount of $5 million that the disgraced mogul represents a flight risk because of his sizeable personal fortune.

The trial in the New York case is expected to begin properly in about two weeks. Weinstein “has said all his relationships were consensual but admitted that he had ‘caused a lot of pain,’” BBC reported. “His lawyers have vowed to mount an aggressive defense against the allegations he faces, which spurred the #MeToo and Times Up movements against sexual impropriety.”

LA County prosecutors charged Weinstein with “allegedly raping one woman and sexually assaulting another in separate incidents over a two-day period in 2013,” BBC added. “On 18 February 2013, Mr. Weinstein allegedly went to a hotel and raped a woman after pushing his way inside her room, prosecutors said. A day later, they said, Mr. Weinstein sexually assaulted a woman at a hotel suite in Beverly Hills.”

In all, NPR noted, “eight women came forward in Los Angeles County alleging they had been sexually assaulted by Weinstein, according to Lacey. But, she explained, three of the alleged incidents took place outside of the statute of limitations.”

By: Jared Evan

The controversial bail new bail reform laws are under fire already, as moderate NY Democrats have started to make this their central part of their 2020 campaigns, The NY Post reported.

The new bail law that took effect on January 1 in New York, eliminated pretrial detention and cash bail as an option in an estimated 90 percent of arrests. For the remaining cases, judges will maintain the option of setting cash bail.

New York City mayor and failed 2020 presidential candidate Bill de Blasio was sweetening the deal, The Daily Wire pointed out, by giving the convicts free Mets tickets, gift cards, and movie passes to entice them into showing up for their court date.

This program quickly became the butt of jokes in New York City, especially on social media. When stories are posted online about local crimes, thousands of people have responded with jokes about Mets tickets.

“We took discretion away from judges,” said state Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island), who told The Post the string of attacks against observant Jews is weighing heavily on legislators.

The New York Post reported that the bail reform was tucked into the state’s massive budget bill last year, meaning that no separate vote was held on one of the most controversial changes to the state’s criminal justice system in years.

A local New York Facebook Group called “Repeal Bail reform” has highlighted some of the criminals who were released into the general public without bail and simply a promise that they would show up in court.

A local member of the group David Friedman pointed out the following:

A Bronx heroin/fentanyl dealer facing 100 years released and shouted “Cuomo for President” on his way out the door.

A Brooklyn woman assaults three Jewish women, is charged with a hate crime and released. Assaults a second person and is arrested and released again, she than assaulted the social worker assigned to her and finally ordered held on mental health order.

A driver hits and kills a pedestrian on New Year’s Eve while drunk. Charged with Manslaughter and released.

A Monroe man charged with felony drug sales is released despite a criminal history which includes shooting a Rochester Police Officer in 2009

A Long Island woman held on burglary charges is released and then is arrested twice the next day and released again! Then breaks into an elementary school and intentionally sets off the fire alarm.

An Albany Man man charged with bank robbery released despite having committed three prior bank robberies.

Moderates — like Savino and the Long Island Democratic delegation — now want to give judges more leeway to impose bail in cases where the defendant is deemed a potential public safety threat, the Post reported.

“I believe it is important that this session we . . . assess how the bail reform legislation is impacting communities and take appropriate corrective measures where warranted,” said state Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-LI).

Even the mayor who formally championed this law along with Governor Cuomo seems to be walking it back:

“They did some very good reforms, but there’s also things that need to be done, particularly empowering judges to determine if someone poses a threat to the surrounding community and giving judges the power to act on that,” The N.Y Post reported de Blasio stating recently.

By: Emil Paprovksy

A full 75 years after World War II ended, the destruction wrought by the Nazis is still being felt in ways great and small.

Case in point: the pathetic tug of war still being waged over ownership of a looted $8 million masterpiece.

A pair of heirs of Holocaust victims, one of whom is 98-year-old Eva Zirkl, continue to wrestle with the wealthy Lehman banking family over artwork.

The prize: a 1917 watercolor by Austrian painter Egon Schiele titled “Portrait of the Artist’s Wife.”

“The work is currently owned by the Robert Lehman Foundation — part of a fine art collection amassed by the late founder of Lehman Brothers — and was purchased in 1964 by the banker’s son Robert “Robin” Owen Lehman in London, according to court papers. It was to be put on the auction block in 2017 at Christie’s,” reported The New York Post. “But, as part of its due diligence, the auction house had alerted Jewish authorities in Vienna, seeking more information about the provenance.”

The painting “came to the attention of the rival claimants in 2016 after Lehman transferred ownership to his foundation with the intent of selling it at auction to raise funds,” according to theartnewspaper.com. “The Robert Owen Lehman Foundation consigned the watercolour to Christie’s in New York in 2016 and that April the auction house alerted the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG)—Vienna’s official Jewish orthodox community—to the work. That organization responded that the picture had belonged to Karl Maylaender, a Jewish businessman in Vienna who gave his art collection to a companion, Etelka Hofmann, before he was deported to Lodz, Poland in 1941, and was killed in Auschwitz.”

The family of another Holocaust victim, Heinrich Rieger, “who was Egon Schiele’s dentist, believe the watercolor belonged to Mr Reiger before he was killed,” noted The Daily Telegraph in London. “The Lehman Foundation now faces two separate claims from the Rieger and Zirkl families’ respective trusts in New York. Lawyers representing Mr Lehman tried to settle the dispute in “good faith” outside of the courts, but claim that neither parties were willing to meet in person to discuss their positions.”

Thaddeus Stauber, a Nixon Peabody lawyer in Los Angeles who is representing Mr Lehman in the case, told the Daily Telegraph: “We are trying to establish whether either of these claimants have a legitimate claim. Based on what they have submitted at the moment, we don’t believe either of them do. I reached out to all the parties individually and invited everyone to New York to try and reach an agreement in good faith. But for the past three years they have refused to talk to each other.”

By Tom Robino

A report is circulating that the New York City Council is working with a transportation consultant with the goal of drafting legislation aimed at discouraging cruising for rides by Uber and Lyft drivers in Manhattan’s central business district.

Crain’s New York Business cites unnamed sources who say respected transportation analyst Charles Komanoff has been drafting a study in concert with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. The result would an outline of the most effective way to control so-called trawling – searching for customers under 96th Street as they wait to be assigned a pickup. The aim is to cut down on traffic congestion.

“Komanoff, a longtime advocate for congestion pricing, testified before the council a year ago on ways to cut congestion, and he suggested a per-minute fee—or “time-based surcharges”—on Uber and Lyft rides within the central business district and on cruising. At that time, he was working as a consultant for a taxi company,” Crain’s reported. In fact, he went to work on ways to limit congestion in the central business district.”

Komanoff was “a prime mover in the campaign that passed a congestion pricing plan for New York City, both as creator of the spreadsheet model used by state government and transit advocates to evaluate different toll plans, and as proponent of balancing transit investment with traffic-pricing. He also directs the Carbon Tax Center, a clearinghouse for information, research and advocacy on behalf of robust and transparent carbon-emissions pricing to address the climate crisis. A math-and-economics graduate of Harvard and father of two grown sons, Komanoff lives with his wife in lower Manhattan,” according to his web site.

Traffic congestion is no mere annoyance. As DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg noted in a report several months ago, “Our roadways are more congested than ever. The number of cars entering Manhattan’s central business district continued to drop, but empty for-hire vehicles (FHVs) circling the area brought no relief from congestion. Meanwhile, vehicle registrations Citywide have increased, while freight traffic and home deliveries also continued to rise.”

It has also been the topic of wide discussion. According to a recent piece On Curbed New York, “You’re not imagining it: New York City’s streets are more congested, and slow-moving, than ever. That’s one of the results of the NYC Department of Transportation’s latest mobility survey, which looked at how New Yorkers are getting around the city—on foot, public transit, in cars, and more.

“One big takeaway: It’s taking longer than ever to get around Manhattan,” Curbed New York added. “Both citywide bus speeds and the average travel speed within the borough’s central business district (the area south of 60th Street) are the slowest they’ve been in decades Buses average 7.58 miles per hour—it was 8 miles per hour in 1990—while the travel speed in Manhattan is now just over 7 miles per hour, down from 9 miles per hour in 1990. (It’s even worse in the “Midtown Core,” where speeds average a paltry 4.9 miles per hour.)”

By: Rochelle Winzelberg

Not many people were impressed with Iran’s later Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani when he was alive. And now that he’s been blasted to smithereens, local jewelers say they aren’t very impressed with the ring that was found on his cold, dead finger.

“Dealers believe the distinctive ring worn by Soleimani is either a red carnelian stone — believed by some Middle East Muslims as able to bestow “blessings”– or possibly an inexpensive ruby that would cost a few hundred bucks,” according to The New York Post. “From the photo, it looks like it’s a carnelian stone — it’s not a ruby; it comes from Africa,” said Maykel Rieth, a professional cutter for R Gems Inc on West 48th Street.

“The ring is made out of silver,” he continued. “It could be white gold, but it looks like silver — and whoever made a stone like this is not going to put it in gold because it’s not an expensive piece.”

Another jeweler told the Post (for the full story, see https://nypost.com/2020/01/04/its-no-hope-diamond-nyc-jewelers-not-impressed-by-ring-that-ided-soleimanis-corpse/) that, “From the looks of it, it doesn’t look like an expensive ring because it’s made out of silver, it’s not gold. From the photo the color of the ruby is dark. The brighter the ruby the more expensive, so this ring here doesn’t look that expensive,” he said, “although it’s very difficult to get an exact price from a photo.”

Democrats were quick to side with Iran in blasting Trump for the attack that killed the general. But those without a political axe to grind were elated. According to nationalinterest.org, “Qassem Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any terrorist leader since Osama Bin Laden. No one should mourn his death. In Iran, however, and certainly without moral equivalence, he was a revered figure like former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, a man who advocated for the troops and was not afraid to mix with them. Inside Iran, he pulled as the most popular or second most popular figure over the course of years. As successive U.S. administrations repeatedly dropped the ball on any informational strategy to accompany the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military approach, he filled a vacuum which capitalized on Iranian nationalism.”

“Relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Soleimani’s popularity and mystique grew after American officials called for his killing. A decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran’s most recognizable battlefield commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but growing as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership,” reported AP.

“The warfront is mankind’s lost paradise,” Soleimani said in a 2009 interview with AP. “One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise. … The warfront was the lost paradise of the human beings, indeed.”

Edited by: TJVNews.com

A 71-year-old man who was critically injured in last Saturday night’s anti-Semitic stabbing attack at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey might never fully recover, his family said, according to a Fox News report.

In a statement released by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, he doctors attending to Josef Neumann are not optimistic that he will regain consciousness, his family said. Five people were hospitalized for stab wounds, including Neumann.

Josef Neumann was one of five people hospitalized after a man used a large blade in a stabbing rampage in the Monsey home as hundreds gathered for a Chanukah celebration, according to the Fox News report.

JTA reported that the attacker’s knife penetrated Neumann’s skull and cut into his brain, according to the statement. Because of his condition, doctors have not been able to operate on his shattered right arm.

“Our father’s status is so dire that no surgery as yet been performed on his arm,” the family said.

Even if Neumann does recover partially, “doctors expect that he will have permanent damage to the brain; leaving him partially paralyzed and speech-impaired for the rest of his life,” according to the statement.

“We urge fellow Jews across the United States and around the globe to please share on social media their own experiences with anti-Semitism and add the hashtag #MeJew,” the family said. “We shall not let this terrible hate-driven attack be forgotten, and let us all work to eradicate all sorts of hate.”

Fox News reported that the family said Neumann has seven children, many grandchildren, a great-grandchild, as well as brothers and sisters.

At the home of suspected attacker Grafton Thomas, police has discovered handwritten journals expressing anti-Semitic views, including references to Adolf Hitler and “Nazi culture,” and drawings of a Star of David and a swastika. Police said that the suspect had used his phone to look up information about Hitler, hatred of Jews, and the location of nearby synagogues, according to the JTA report.

Federal authorities have indicted Thomas on hate crime charges this past Monday, just a day after he pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges filed locally.

Thomas’ family and attorney said this week that the Orange County man, who lives with his mother, has a “long history of mental illness,” and that he had no history of similar violent acts and no prior convictions.

In a related development, CNN reported that Rabbi Shmuel Gancz said that one of the survivors of the stabbing attack was hit in the side of the head by the suspect’s machete and doctors had to use three staples to close his wounds.

Shloime Rottenberg, the son of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, had just finished the ceremony of lighting the menorah at his father’s upstate New York home when the attack started, Gancz said.

“They are grateful for what they deem a minor injury considering where else the machete could have hit him, such as his eyes,” Gancz said of Rottenberg and his family.

By: Mike Mustiglione

Lev Parnas has been given the green light by a federal judge to hand over papers to Congress as part of the ongoing effort to impeach President Donald Trump.

Judge Paul Oetken of U.S. District Court in Manhattan said Lev Parnas – a one-time Rudy Giuliani associate — could hand seized data and assorted papers to the House intelligence committee.

“Parnas’ attorney said in a court filing he expected to receive the materials from the U.S. Justice Department this week,” Crain’s New York Business reported. “Parnas and Igor Fruman played key roles in efforts by Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, to launch a Ukrainian corruption investigation against Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Parnas and Fruman were indicted in October on federal campaign finance violations related to a $325,000 donation to a group supporting Trump’s re-election. They have pleaded not guilty.”

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee requested records from Parnas and Fruman in October 2019. “The two men are under indictment on allegations of campaign finance violations, and both reportedly played a key roles in assisting Giuliani in his efforts to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine. Both have pleaded not guilty,” reported ABC News.

On Monday, a lawyer for Parnas, Joseph Bondy, “wrote a letter to U.S. Judge J. Paul Oetken in New York asking the court’s permission to share records obtained by the government with House investigators pursuant to the subpoena,” ABC noted. “The records include “documents seized from Mr. Parnas’s home … and the complete extraction of Parnas’s iPhone 11, seized from Mr. Parnas upon his arrest on October 9, 2019,” Bondy wrote.”

Parnas was born in 1972 in Odessa, Ukraine, when it was still part of the USSR. His family brought him at the age of three to the U.S., first to Detroit, and then a year later to Brooklyn. He was a student at Brooklyn College, according to Wikipedia. He also worked at Kings Highway Realty, where he sold Trump Organization co-ops.

“In 1995, Parnas moved to Florida, where he worked in several businesses. He became a broker, working with such organizations as Euro-Atlantic Securities, Mammoth Bullion and Monolith Bullion, and founding his own company, Parnas Holdings. After being involved in a failed film project, he partnered with Igor Fruman in an energy related venture. The Miami Herald maintains he “left a long trail of debts in Florida and beyond,” the Wikipedia entry noted.

“In 2019, Parnas served as a translator for a legal case involving Dmytro Firtash, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarchs with self-admitted mob connections, who is fighting extradition to the U.S. to face bribery charges. Firtash has lived in Vienna for five years.”