Meah Sharim shteibel sign

Fauci

Ex-Harvard Medical School faculty member warns COVID-19 herd immunity is ‘wishful thinking'

https://www.foxnews.com/health/clay-ackerly-coronavirus-herd-immunity-wishful-thinking

A Washington D.C.-based internist and former Harvard Medical School faculty member has claimed the idea that herd immunity may slow the coronavirus pandemic is "wishful thinking" after a 50-year-old patient was infected for a second time with COVID-19.

"During his first infection, my patient experienced a mild cough and sore throat," Dr. Clay Ackerly explained in an opinion piece for Vox. "His second infection, in contrast, was marked by a high fever, shortness of breath, and hypoxia, resulting in multiple trips to the hospital.

"It is possible, but unlikely, that my patient had a single infection that lasted three months," Dr. Ackerly added. "Some Covid-19 patients (now dubbed 'long haulers') do appear to suffer persistent infections and symptoms.

"My patient, however, cleared his infection — he had two negative PCR tests after his first infection — and felt healthy for nearly six weeks."

 

Israeli Data Show School Openings Were a Disaster That Wiped Out Lockdown Gains

https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-data-show-school-openings-were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains

The assessment of Israel’s trajectory has direct bearing on the heated debate underway in the United States between President Donald Trump, who is demanding a nationwide reopening of schools for what appear to be largely political reasons, and health authorities who caution it could put the wider population at risk.

Importantly, on May 17 in Israel it appeared the virus not only was under control, but defeated. Israel reported only 10 new cases of COVID-19 in the entire country that day. In the U.S., the debate often is about reopening schools where the disease is not only not in decline, but surging.

On Sunday, for instance, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, “There’s nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous.” But that is not the case in Israel, where the data from June, the last month for which there is a full set of statistics, appear all too clear.

Galia Rahav, who chairs the department of infectious diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, said in an interview that “what happened in schools is just too much gathering, day after day, and kids come home and infect mom and dad. The top numbers of new infections were in kids.”

Due to the large number of infections among children, she noted, “the average age of an Israeli with COVID-19 has gone down to between 20 and 39,” while infections in citizens over 65 have held steady. In Jerusalem, the Israeli city with the highest rate of infection, most of the people with COVID-19 are under the age of 35.

Article 10: Freedom of expression

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-10-freedom-expression

 Are there any restrictions to this right?

Although you have freedom of expression, you also have a duty to behave responsibly and to respect other people’s rights.

Public authorities may restrict this right if they can show that their action is lawful, necessary and proportionate in order to:

• protect national security, territorial integrity (the borders of the state) or public safety
• prevent disorder or crime
• protect health or morals
• protect the rights and reputations of other people
• prevent the disclosure of information received in confidence
• maintain the authority and impartiality of judges

An authority may be allowed to restrict your freedom of expression if, for example, you express views that encourage racial or religious hatred.

Trump’s Warped Definition of Free Speech

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/trumps-warped-definition-free-speech/612316/

 Palin’s remarks were widely ridiculed at the time. The First Amendment, commentators on the right and the left pointed out, protects the freedom of speech, not the freedom from criticism. You have the right to speak, and others have the right to praise, mock, or ignore you as they see fit.

 

As absurd as it may sound, Palin’s bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment has now been adopted by the president of the United States. On Tuesday, the social-media company Twitter added a label to one of the president’s tweets, which falsely declared that mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent,” urging users to “get the facts about mail-in voting.” Twitter did not ban Trump from the platform, or censor his tweet, although it would have been fully within its rights to do so, and in accordance with its own terms of service. It merely appended additional context showing that the president’s claim was false.

In retaliation, Trump signed an executive order yesterday afternoon directing the federal government to “reconsider the scope” of Section 230, a provision of federal law that shields companies from liability for content posted by their users. The First Amendment was explicitly written to protect the right of citizens to express opposition to their leaders; it says that Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” But to the president, criticism of his falsehoods is a violation of his free-speech rights. This position reverses the purpose of the First Amendment, turning an individual right of freedom of expression into the right of the state to silence its critics.

 

This should be obvious, but if your freedom to speak depends on the president approving of what you say, then you simply don’t have freedom of speech. The Trumpist defense of state censorship of social media is that if you do not want your kneecaps broken, then you should make sure you pay the protection money. Twitter is hardly the first media company to face this kind of extortion from the president; as my colleague David Graham points out, Trump has attempted to use the authority of his office to silence criticism from the Washington Post, CNN, members of the White House press corps, and even ESPN.

Journalist Bari Weiss skewers New York Times in her resignation letter

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-07-14/bari-weiss-new-york-times-resignation

“Bari Weiss never actually got fired, she is in fact quitting because she’s mad that all the people at the Times who don’t like her *didn’t* get fired. But they’ll still turn this into some kind of crusade to protect people from firing,” tweeted comedian Arthur Chu. “Which is at least consistent, because Bari Weiss herself LOVES trying to get people fired.”

“To say I’m against cancel culture is massive understatement but there is a difference between criticism and getting someone fired. @bariweiss quit, she wasn’t fired. She quit because people hurt her feelings. Seems snowflakey to me. You can’t cancel other people’s speech, either,” tweeted “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur.

Judith Miller: Rise and fall of New York Times writer Bari Weiss — a victim of far-left intolerance

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/new-york-times-bari-weiss-judith-miller

Weiss’s departure was quickly hailed by her many critics within and outside of the paper on social media, among them Glenn Greenwald, who has called her a “hypocrite” for her alleged efforts to suppress Arab professors while in college, and for her defense of Israel and some of its controversial policies as a newspaper writer.

TYT Reacts To Bari Weiss' Resignation

Trump Gives Subdued, Rambling Campaign-Style Speech In Rose Garden | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Arizona Teacher Dies As Trump Pushes For School Re-Openings | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Unemployed Should ‘Find Something New,’ Urge Heirs to Fred Trump’s Fortune

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/find-something-new-trump-donald-ivanka-unemployment.html

The White House has started a new campaign urging Americans who have bad jobs or no jobs to “Find Something New.” Ivanka Trump, who has spearheaded this initiative, explains, “There has never been a more critical time for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to be aware of the multiple pathways to career success and gain the vocational training and skills they need to fill jobs in a changing economy.”

Statistically speaking, in fact, you probably will not find something. The labor market is suffering two simultaneous crises: a pandemic that directly prevents a lot of economic activity from taking place and a broader failure of demand rippling through the rest of the economy. The more than 10 percent of working-age adults unable to find regular work are jobless not because they lack the skills for the needed jobs but because there is not enough demand for labor.

 

Ivanka Trump, White House Blasted For ‘Tone Deaf’ Campaign Telling The Unemployed To Find Jobs

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/07/14/ivanka-trump-white-house-blasted-for-tone-deaf-campaign-telling-the-unemployed-to-find-jobs/#63dc86935275

Multiple social media users pointed out that the “Find Something New” campaign launched on the anniversary of Bastille Day, a turning point in the French Revolution that led to the dissolution of the country’s monarchy. Those same users also likened Ivanka Trump’s involvement with the campaign to Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let them eat cake” remark—and the storming of the Bastille was a pivotal event that led to her eventual beheading.

Poway Chabad Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein pleads guilty to tax fraud

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/poway-chabad-rabbi-yisroel-goldstein-pleads-guilty-to-tax-fraud-635092

 The rabbi who lost a finger in a shooting attack on a Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

 

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein pleaded guilty Tuesday in a scheme in which donors contributed to his synagogue but then got most of the money back, enabling the donor to claim a tax deduction. A charging document detailing the scheme was unsealed in federal court in San Diego, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The scheme resulted in more than $6.2 million in fraudulent donations, resulting in a $1.5 million loss to the federal government. Goldstein could face up to five years in prison.

Understaffed and underpaid: Israeli nurses prepare to strike

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/understaffed-and-underpaid-israeli-nurses-prepare-to-strike-635084

 Israeli nurses are preparing to go on a nationwide strike amid a severe shortage of medical workers and an explosion in the number of COVID-19 patients after the country reopened and many people tossed aside their masks.

Israel is in the thick of its second wave of infections and is averaging more than 1,600 new cases daily this week.

 

Katyal: Trump Botched His Attempted Erasure Of The Mueller Investigation With Stone’s Commutation

Trump administration rescinds rule on foreign students amid pressure from colleges

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-rule-foreign-students-online-classes

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it is withdrawing a proposed rule that would have forced foreign students to return home if the college courses they were enrolled in were to be held entirely online when colleges reopen in the fall.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced last week that those on F-1 and M-1 student visas would need to leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools offer classes entirely online when they reopen in the fall. If they do not, they could face deportation proceedings.

In a statement to students, Harvard President Larry Bacow said that the policy “came down without notice -- its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness.”

“It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others,” he said.

Fox News McEnany: Coronavirus has little effect on kids, they're not driving transmission cycle

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany discusses push to reopen schools with Harris Faulkner on 'Outnumbered Overtime.'

http://a.msn.com/09/en-us/BB16JfeO?ocid=scu2

Israeli virus numbers

https://datadashboard.health.gov.il/COVID-19/?utm_source=go.gov.il&utm_medium=referral

this is the official page of the Israeli heath department

Israel peaks again: More than 1,600 new coronavirus patients in one day

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/israel-breaks-daily-record-again-with-1681-new-coronavirus-cases-634987

 At the meeting, the National Security Council offered its recommendations: Summer camps should return to a capsule system or close entirely if they cannot manage to do so; synagogues, yeshivas, pools and workout centers – even at hotels – should be shut down; restaurants should revert to takeout only; and gatherings should be limited to 10 people.

 

Heckler shames Florida governor during Covid-19 press conference

The Pandemic Could Get Much, Much Worse. We Must Act Now.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/coronavirus-shutdown.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

By John M. Barry

Mr. Barry is the author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”

To understand just how bad things are in the United States and, more important, what can be done about it requires comparison. At this writing, Italy, once the poster child of coronavirus devastation and with a population twice that of Texas, has recently averaged about 200 new cases a day when Texas has had over 9,000. Germany, with a population four times that of Florida, has had fewer than 400 new cases a day. On Sunday, Florida reported over 15,300, the highest single-day total of any state.

The White House says the country has to learn to live with the virus. That’s one thing if new cases occurred at the rates in Italy or Germany, not to mention South Korea or Australia or Vietnam (which so far has zero deaths). It’s another thing when the United States has the highest growth rate of new cases in the world, ahead even of Brazil.

To reopen schools in the safest way, which may be impossible in some instances, and to get the economy fully back on track, we must get the case counts down to manageable levels — down to the levels of European countries. The Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal funds from schools that don’t reopen won’t accomplish that goal. To do that, only decisive action will work in places experiencing explosive growth — at the very least, limits even on private gatherings and selective shutdowns that must include not just such obvious places as bars but churches, also a well-documented source of large-scale spread.

Existing drug may downgrade COVID threat to common cold level — Jerusalem study

https://www.timesofisrael.com/existing-drug-may-downgrade-covid-threat-to-common-cold-level-jerusalem-study/

 

An existing medicine can “downgrade” the danger-level of coronavirus to that of a common cold, a Jerusalem researcher is claiming, after testing it on infected human tissue.

Prof. Yaakov Nahmias says that his research shows that the novel coronavirus is so vicious because it causes lipids to be deposited in the lungs, and that there is a solution to undo the damage: a widely-used anti cholesterol drug called fenofibrate.

America shuts down again -- choosing reality over Trump's false claims

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/politics/donald-trump-states-economy-coronavirus/index.html

While President Donald Trump obsesses about his reelection hopes in his White House bubble, state and local leaders are frantically reversing state reopenings that he demanded, which turned America into the world's biggest coronavirus hotspot.

As emergency rooms filled and the virus quickened its relentless march across southern and Western states, Trump stuck to the fiction that the worst is already over: "We had to close it down; now we're opening it up," the President said of the economy at the White House, patting himself on the back for saving "millions of lives."

As new cases of the disease reach 60,000 a day nationwide, many leaders, including those who supported Trump's aggressive approach, now have little choice but to prioritize science over politics, leaving the President looking out of touch with reality.

 

You won't believe what Donald Trump just said about coronavirus testing

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-testing/index.html

On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump was asked about his insistence that the only reason that coronavirus cases are spiking across the South and Southwest was an increase in testing. His answer was, uh, something else.

Here's the exchange:

Reporter: President Trump, you've said many times that the number of coronavirus cases is going up because testing is increasing.

Trump: That's right.

Reporter: Do you acknowledge that it's going up for other reasons too; for example, that it's actually spreading? And what are you going to do to stop the spread?

Trump: Well, you know that we have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere. If you know, [former Vice President Joe] Biden and [former President Barack] Obama stopped their testing; they just stopped it. You probably know that. I'm sure you don't want to report it. But they stopped testing. Right in the middle, they just went, "No more testing," and on a much lesser problem than the problem that we have, obviously with respect to -- this is the worst thing that's happened since probably 1917. This is a very bad -- all over the world. It's 188 countries right now.

 

Ukraine to bar Israeli visitors to Uman this Rosh Hashannah

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/283539

Israeli visitors to be barred from flying to Ukraine for annual Uman pilgrimage, says Ukrainian government, citing coronavirus spike.

 

Commutation Of Roger Stone Is Unconstitutional, Says Law Scholar | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Obama admin shut down H1N1 testing, complicating Biden's attacks on Trump's coronavirus screening

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flashback-obama-admin-halted-state-h1n1-testing-complicating-bidens-attacks-on-white-house

Joe Biden is stepping up his attacks on the Trump administration's coronavirus testing management, saying Wednesday that "the crisis in Arizona is the direct result of Donald Trump's failure to lead and his desire to 'slow the testing down,' and Americans are suffering the consequences."

Biden specifically called for the White House to "immediately resume operating federally-managed community-based testing around the country and establish multiple sites in Arizona." And, in recent weeks, Biden has demanded that Trump "speed up the testing" nationwide, saying Trump has been "putting politics ahead of the safety and economic well-being of the American people."

However, during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the Obama administration suddenly told states to shut down their testing, without providing much in the way of explanation. And, Biden's top advisor at the time has acknowledged that the Obama administration didn't do "anything right" to combat that pandemic, before walking back those comments.

The record seemingly complicates Biden's claims, in advertising and speeches, that he would have handled state-level coronavirus testing more effectively than the current White House.

 

Trump's bizarre COVID-19 claim: 'Biden and Obama stopped their testing'

https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-bizarre-covid-19-claim-205429254.html

President Trump on Monday defended the nation's coronavirus testing record and rising case numbers.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, you know that we have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere. If you know Biden and Obama stopped their testing-- they just stopped it. You probably know that. I'm sure you don't want to report it.

But they stopped testing. Right in the middle, they just want, no more testing, and on a much lesser problem than the problem that we have, obviously, with respect to-- this is the worst thing that's happened since probably 1917. This is a very bad-- all over the world. It's 188 countries right now.

But now we are-- we test more than anybody by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we've created cases.

Trump's White House Tries To Discredit Fauci As COVID-19 Surges | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

White House’s Attempt To Discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci Poses Long-Term Risk - Day That Was | MSNBC

President Trump Is Working to Undermine Dr. Fauci Even as Coronavirus Cases Spike

https://time.com/5866602/trump-white-house-anthony-fauci/

 With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House is working to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as President Donald Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November.

The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now spiraling. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his reelection chances.

Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, once the host of TV’s “Love Connection,” claiming that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19. Woolery’s tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most doctors “that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election.”

At the same time, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound.

Brooklyn child-molest monster ‘got away with it’ after fleeing to Israel

https://nypost.com/2012/06/03/brooklyn-child-molest-monster-got-away-with-it-after-fleeing-to-israel/

But in 2010, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Mondrowitz was grandfathered and exempt from the revised treaty. He was freed for good.

Weiss, now 45, a married father of three in Highland Park, N.J, is one of dozens of Mondrowitz’s known Jewish victims, advocates say. He and others came forward too late to press charges because of the statute of limitations on sex-abuse claims. Some abused drugs and committed suicide to escape the pain, he said..

“It totally stinks to know that this guy has escaped justice and is entitled to live a stable life smack in the middle of a Jewish community that ought to know better. It’s a failure of an entire society that is paralyzed to take action action, Weiss said.

“I believe he will one day answer to his maker — and that time is coming.”

Mondrowitz: Lawyer alleges cover-up

Five Towns Jewish Times

Abraham Mondrowitz can be known as the man with nine lives. How so?

1. Twenty five years ago, he was somehow able to elude any charges being pressed by the young men that he counseled in his role as a therapist working for Yeshivas.

2. He was able to avoid any repercussions to his ability to be hired by yeshiva after Yeshiva.

3. He managed to elude prosecution in the United States while living here.

4. He managed to flee the United States and live in Israel when finally facing an indictment by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. [...]

Child abuse - Mondrowitz ABC News

ABC News reports:

Oct. 11 2006

Retired New York Police Department Det. Pat Kehoe still remembers a phone call she got more than 20 years ago, from a person making allegations that a rabbi was sexually abusing children in his neighborhood.

"I never received a call like that in my whole career in the New York City Police Department. Never," Kehoe told Cynthia McFadden in a recent interview.

"I'll never forget it because unfortunately it was my birthday, November 21 1984. I was working in the Brooklyn Sex Crimes squad and I received an anonymous call from a male who started to say that there was a rabbi and gave the name and he was abusing people on this block," she said.

Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz, as he called himself, lived on a tree-lined block in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Kehoe and her partner, Sal Catafulmo, went out to the neighborhood where Italians and Hasidic Jews lived side-by-side.

At one of the first addresses they tried, she says a resident told her "Everyone knows Rabbi Mondrowitz. He's good to all our children. He buys them bicycles and takes them away on weekends and things."

That might sound like a recommendation, but not to Kehoe. "With that information I got very scared," she said. Kehoe's background in an NYPD pedophilia squad taught her to recognize the signs of pedophilia."Pedophiles have a pattern with children to get their confidence and send their so-called love, you might say, and buy them things," she said. What she heard from the children themselves only confirmed her gut feelings.

"We brought them in without their parents," Kehoe said. "They started to tell us, 'The rabbi is our friend. He takes us away,' and things like that. As the questions became more difficult for the children -- 'Did anything ever happen? Did anything sexual ever happen? Are you aware of it happening to anyone else while you were there?' -- they all broke down and cried, each one separately."[...]

Supreme Court refuses to extradite Mondrowitz

YNET

The Supreme Court determined Thursday that Abraham Mondrowitz, who is accused of committing severe sex crimes against minors in the US up to 25 years ago, will not be extradited.

Mondrowitz, a psychologist by trade, resided in the US until 1984, when he immigrated to Israel. A few months after his arrival he was indicted in his home country on charges of sexual abuse of minors.

Mondrowitz :Who protected the monster from deportation?

Times of Israel   There is a monster in Jerusalem as well. No one has ever laid a hand on him either. But this one is definitely real. His name is Avroham Mondrowitz.

Mondowitz is a paedophile who molested up to 300 boys in Brooklyn in a mainly ultra-Orthodox section of the city — we’ll never know the real number of victims — and then skipped out to Israel in 1985 where he twice fended off efforts to send him back to face justice. Mondowitz, who presents himself as an ordained rabbi and Columbia-trained psychologist, and is neither, lives free as a bird in the neighborhood of Nachlaot in central Jerusalem.

The US twice sought his extradition from Israel, in 1986 and again in 2008. The first time the two states discovered incredibly that their extradition treaty covered only sexual abuse crimes against females and not males. The second time they worked with a revised treaty. A lower court ruled for the extradition. The Supreme Court nixed that saying that Israel had 20 years to get this guy hiding in plain sight and to come along after such an extraordinary period of time violates his civil rights. You can’t make this stuff up.

He may gone off the radar in Israel but they have not forgotten Mondrowitz in New York. Just last month the Post ran still another article on how the man they call “New York’s most notorious child molester … got away with it.”

Ultra-orthodox rabbis are renown for spending their entire lives memorizing a multitude of precepts produced by a multitude of sages down their ages and then applying them to every situation in their waking lives so that every minute of every day they will always be doing the right thing. But when it comes to paedophiles in their community somewhere along the line they reached outside the box for their guiding precept. They adopted it from Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru. These are Japanese monkeys. Their names mean see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In an amazing triumph for the ecumenical movement it turns out that Catholic prelates adopted the exact same precept in regard to paedophiles among the ministers of their faith. Some like the Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia, who got up to six years for “child endangerment,” are now in prison. The judge convicted him of shielding, protecting and aiding “monsters in clerical garb.” Mondrowitz got help along the way too up to and including illegal acts of obstruction of justice but we’ll never learn from whom. The Catholics operate in a strict hierarchical system. There but for the grace of decentralization go our child endangerers. [...]

He used the boys sent to him as sex toys, In ultra-Orthodox culture members of the flock are expected to choose a rabbi. When they need guidance in any matter not excluding their personal lives, they seek it from their rabbi. What he tells them is binding. From empirical evidence it appears that all the rabbis on the subject of paedophilia imposed “omerta,” an Italian word meaning a code of silence. No one reported Mondrowitz to the authorities. Then he got careless. He lived in a mixed neighborhood. Mondrowitz developed an appetite for boys of Italian extraction. Their folks were not bound to any omerta. Parents of four boys went to the police. Two cops came round to arrest Mondrowitz. They were too late. He was already en route to Canada and from there headed to the Promised Land. [...]

Unmolested

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/unmolested

Most people have never heard the story of Avrohom Mondrowitz, which has received only a smattering of headlines in the Jewish media. A charismatic and eloquent member of the Ger Hasidic sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews, the 63-year-old claimed to be both a rabbi and a Columbia-trained psychologist. Though he was neither, for years he ran a psychology practice out of his basement, as well as a school for troubled youth. He is also alleged to be one of the worst sexual predators in Brooklyn history.

 

Lawsuit Revives Victims’ Hopes That Alleged Abuser Will Face Justice

https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/lawsuit-revives-victims-hopes-that-alleged-abuser-faces-justice/

The suit alleges that during their mandated counseling session, Mondrowitz — who at the time had a popular radio show and was revered by many within the charedi world as a talented psychologist despite having faked his credentials — molested Zuckerman. After the incident Zuckerman says Mondrowitz took him to a bookstore and bought him an expensive set of young adult books he wanted, written by the 19th-century German rabbi and author, Marcus Lehmann.

The teacher took him to the office of the school’s spiritual supervisor, Avrohom Leizerowitz, who, Zuckerman claims, “berated him for his ‘dirty mind’ and instructed him that he would be required to receive counseling” from the very man in the basement, Avrohom Mondrowitz.

(In 2006 Leizerowitz fled to Israel after allegations surfaced that he had molested boys. A post on the website of the now-defunct Awareness Center reported that a civil suit was filed against him alleging that he improperly touched a boy during a one-on-one help session in his office.)

The complaint, filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court, takes advantage of a law passed last year allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse a limited window of time in which to pursue abuse claims even if the statute of limitations has run out. Zuckerman also asserts in the complaint that after he reported the abuse to Leizerowitz he was expelled from the yeshiva, which is affiliated with the Ger chasidic sect; the expulsion came, he told The Jewish Week, via a letter written to his parents explaining that he “didn’t fit the school and they should find another school.”

Longitudinal evaluation and decline of antibody responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1

 This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Antibody (Ab) responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in most infected individuals 10-15 days following the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. However, due to the recent emergence of this virus in the human population it is not yet known how long these Ab responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from re-infection. Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 days post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 RT-qPCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, we show seroconversion in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses when sampled beyond 8 days POS. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the nAb response is dependent upon the disease severity, but this does not affect the kinetics of the nAb response. Declining nAb titres were observed during the follow up period. Whilst some individuals with high peak ID₅₀ (>10,000) maintained titres >1,000 at >60 days POS, some with lower peak ID₅₀ had titres approaching baseline within the follow up period. A similar decline in nAb titres was also observed in a cohort of seropositive healthcare workers from Guy′s and St Thomas′ Hospitals. We suggest that this transient nAb response is a feature shared by both a SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes low disease severity and the circulating seasonal coronaviruses that are associated with common colds. This study has important implications when considering widespread serological testing, Ab protection against re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the durability of vaccine protection.

 

Immunity to Covid-19 could be lost in months, UK study suggests

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/12/immunity-to-covid-19-could-be-lost-in-months-uk-study-suggests

People who have recovered from Covid-19 may lose their immunity to the disease within months, according to research suggesting the virus could reinfect people year after year, like common colds.

In the first longitudinal study of its kind, scientists analysed the immune response of more than 90 patients and healthcare workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust and found levels of antibodies that can destroy the virus peaked about three weeks after the onset of symptoms then swiftly declined.

Blood tests revealed that while 60% of people marshalled a “potent” antibody response at the height of their battle with the virus, only 17% retained the same potency three months later. Antibody levels fell as much as 23-fold over the period. In some cases, they became undetectable.

“People are producing a reasonable antibody response to the virus, but it’s waning over a short period of time and depending on how high your peak is, that determines how long the antibodies are staying around,” said Dr Katie Doores, lead author on the study at King’s College London

Trump on private border wall segment: ‘It was only done to make me look bad’

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/12/trump-border-wall-make-me-look-bad-357706

Saying it was done to embarrass him, President Donald Trump on Sunday said a reportedly defective section of his new border wall should not have been built by a private company.

ProPublica and the Texas Tribune reported Thursday that a segment of the wall along the Texas-Mexico border was showing dangerous “signs of erosion“ only months after being completed. The section was constructed by Fisher Industries of North Dakota, whose owner called the design a “Lamborghini.” It cost $42 million.

 

Health Ministry chief: 2,100 cases in just over 36 hours

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-health-ministry-chief-2100-cases-in-just-over-36-hours-1001335671#utm_source=RSS

Prof. Hezi Levi feels people do not understand the extent to which Covid-19 is spreading in Israel.

Ministry of Health director general Prof. Hezi Levi has been trying to explain the severity of the growing spread of Covid-19 in Israel. "Yesterday there were 1,221 new people who tested positive and today since midnight there has been 900 more. There are more than 40,000 confirmed cases in Israel and divided by age 25% are under 18 and 8% over 65. There are currently 525 people hospitalized, of whom more than 100 are seriously ill and 54 people are on ventilators. 354 people have died. The infection rate is growing and rising, and the number of daily tests we are conducting is increasing. We are performing about 28,000 of which about 6% are positive."

Trump spreads conspiracy from ex-game show host Chuck Woolery

Acosta to McEnany: Why not have the guts to trash Fauci with your own names?

How Pandemics Wreak Havoc—and Open Minds

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/how-pandemics-wreak-havoc-and-open-minds

The plague marked the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a great cultural renewal. Could the coronavirus, for all its destruction, offer a similar opportunity for radical change?

 

1 – The Mitzvah of Settling the Land of Israel

https://ph.yhb.org.il/en/05-04-01/

The reason the Rambam does not include this mitzvah in his count of the 613 is that it is beyond the regular “value” of mitzvot; therefore, it is not included in their detailed enumeration. This coincides with the rules the Rambam lays down at the beginning of Sefer HaMitzvot, stating it is inappropriate to reckon commandments that encompass the entire Torah, as he writes in Mitzvah #153 [that settling the Land of Israel is all-inclusive]. Besides which, it is implausible to say that the mitzvah of Yishuv HaAretz is only rabbinically ordained today [and that that is why the Rambam leaves it out of the count]. After all, Chazal’s statement that settling the Land is equal to all the mitzvot of the Torah was made after the destruction of the Second Temple. Now, it is unlikely that they would say such a thing about a rabbinic mitzvah. Moreover, it is improbable that the Rabbis would dismantle a family (see above regarding divorce), and allow one to violate a shevut, merely for the sake of a rabbinic mitzvah (see Rabbi Zisberg’s Nachalat Ya’akov, Vol. 1, pp. 201-249).

Public Health And Teaching Experts Weigh In On Plans To Safely Reopen Schools | MSNBC

Where we went wrong: Expert says these 3 blunders caused new Israeli COVID chaos

https://www.timesofisrael.com/where-we-went-wrong-expert-says-these-3-blunders-caused-new-israeli-covid-chaos/

 

When schools reopened in early May, children studied in small groups, smaller than regular classes, as a measure to stop the spread of the virus. But this so-called capsule arrangement was quickly stopped, and regular class sizes were restored.

According to Barbash this was a major mistake. “Schools should have either stayed closed or allowed only 15 kids in classes,” he said. “Kids who are above nine should be treated like adults, and shouldn’t gather in groups of more than 10 to 15.”

Chris Hayes: Tucker Carlson's Racist Writer Is No Surprise | All In | MSNBC