The WHO did not reverse its position on kids and COVID-19 vaccines

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jun/24/facebook-posts/who-did-not-reverse-its-position-kids-and-covid-19/

 If Your Time is short

• Social media posts falsely claimed that the World Health Organization recently reversed its policy and said children shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID-19.
• The posts were referencing an actual WHO webpage, but the guidance was originally posted on April 8 and reflected the organization's stance that vaccine supply is limited in some countries and children shouldn’t be prioritized over other high-risk groups because COVID-19 disease is milder in kids.
• The WHO updated the guidance for children on its webpage on June 23 based on a recent scientific advisory meeting in which the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was found to be safe for those ages 12 and up.

COVID: Was Israel wrong not to vaccinate children ages 12-15 right away?

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/covid-did-israel-screw-up-not-vaccinating-children-ages-12-15-right-away-672203

 Also on Sunday, the Israeli Pediatric Society published a new position paper reiterating their support for the vaccine, and addressing the issue of possible side effects.

Prof. Tzachi Grossman, the head of the organization, and its colleagues wrote that the risk for a child to develop a severe form of COVID if infected – which stands at 1:3000 – outweighs that of developing a myocarditis – which according to US data for ages 12-17 stands at 1:16,000 (according to Israeli data for the age group 16-19, the occurrence was 1:6,000).

COVID-19 Vaccine: What Parents Need to Know

 https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid19-vaccine-what-parents-need-to-know

 Should I consider getting my child vaccinated for COVID-19?

Yes. Although COVID-19 in children is usually milder than in adults, some kids can get very sick and have complications or long-lasting symptoms that affect their health and well-being. The virus can cause death in children although this is rarer than for adults.

Honig: Don't buy Bill Barr's latest story about the Big Lie

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/28/opinions/bill-bar-election-fraud-big-lie-honig/index.html

 Barr spoke to the Atlantic about his post-election turnabout, which culminated in his December 1, 2020, public statement to the Associated Press that "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election." Barr tells of how he stood up to Trump, invoking Trump's wrath during the frantic post-election weeks when Trump tried desperately to overturn the election's results.

But Barr conveniently omits the crucial fact that, for months before his endgame turnabout, he had been relentlessly parroting and amplifying Trump's most dangerous lies about election fraud throughout the runup to the November 2020 election.

Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/william-barrs-trump-administration-attorney-general/619298/ 

 Donald Trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, but few betrayals have enraged him more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by claiming that the election had been stolen.

Theodor Herzl vs. Rabbi Kook

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/theodor-herzl-vs-rabbi-kook-610614

The notion that there is an intrinsic contradiction between Theodor Herzl’s Zionism and that of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, first chief rabbi of Israel, is prevalent in many national-religious circles. Indeed, Rabbi Benny Lau asserts in “Statehood and spirit” (Magazine, August 30): 

McCaffrey Blasts 'Terrible' FOX News Attacks On Gen. Milley

Bennet and his Arab "supporters"

 https://mishpacha.com/southern-squatters/

But there is an additional price to be paid. To grasp the real total that Naftali Bennett paid for Ra’am’s political support, you need to take a trip south to the Negev Desert, where vast areas have been swallowed in recent years by illegal Bedouin building. Aside from chairmanship of the Knesset’s Interior Committee and of the Arab Affairs Committee, Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas secured a clause stipulating the legalization of three Bedouin villages in the Negev as well as a review of the status of 11 others.

Schumer Intervening in Fixsler Case

 https://hamodia.com/2021/06/25/schumer-intervening-fixsler-case/

 U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer is intervening in the case of Alta Fixsler, a brain-damaged, 2-year-old Jewish girl in the U.K. at risk of being removed from life support by a hospital in Manchester against her family’s will.

Alta’s family has waged a battle to keep his daughter alive. Her mother is an Israeli citizen, and her father an American. If Alta is unable to remain on life support in the U.K., the family is hoping to at least be able transport her to Israel or America for treatment.

Jewish activists have been working on getting the Israeli and U.S. governments involved in the case, to either pressure the British to keep Alta on life support or transport her to one of those countries.

 

Can Vitamin D Help Protect against COVID?

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-vitamin-d-help-protect-against-covid/

 Given the results of Neale’s large-scale study and the modest benefits found in Martineau’s latest meta-analysis, it seems unlikely that vitamin D will prove to be a critical ingredient in fending off COVID-19 or modulating its severity. But these and other new trials may find it is useful in certain doses for certain populations. As Neale points out, “there is data that is suggestive” and enough smoke to indicate that you don’t want to be vitamin-D-deficient in a pandemic.

NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said Orthodox Jews are trying to take over the city

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/308717

 Video from 2018 surfaced this week of Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City, describing Orthodox Jews as a drag on the tax system.

“We’re not talking about poor, impoverished, disabled people who need help, we’re talking about able-bodied men who study Torah and Talmud all day and we subsidize them,” Sliwa says in the video. “And then all they do is make babies like there’s no tomorrow and who’s subsidizing that? We are.

“So are we the shmucks and putzes? Yes.”

Same-sex marriage in New York: A milestone a decade in the making

 https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2021/06/23/gay-marriage-ny-decade-later-same-sex-lgbtq-rights/7604811002/

 Marriage equality is one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s earliest achievements, arriving at the end of the first legislative session of his first term, on June 24, 2011. Cuomo brokered the passage, convincing four Republican senators to cast votes of conscience to pass the bill.

The vote was a nail-biter. Not until Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, rose and gave his support was passage assured.

Israeli embassies fly the rainbow flag for pride month

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/308724

Israel’s embassies around the world have raised the rainbow flag today in accordance with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s directives, including in London, Oslo, and Vienna.

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem raised a rainbow flag last Tuesday, and Foreign Minister Lapid said: "For the first time ever this morning, I ordered the Foreign Ministry to fly the pride flag for pride month events. The Foreign Ministry and its employees carry a message of tolerance and freedom."

It should be noted that Yair Lapid's deputy in the Foreign Ministry, Idan Roll, belongs to the LGBT community and lives with his partner, singer and songwriter Harel Skaat.

 

This is what we know about those missing in the Miami condo collapse

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/24/us/miami-building-collapse-victims-missing/index.html

 Jewish community members missing, rabbis say

Some members from The Shul of Bal Harbour synagogue are among the 99 people unaccounted for, Rabbi Sholom Lipskar told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"This is something that transcends our capacity for understanding," Lipskar said about the collapse. "It's a reality, we accept it and we have to learn as we do in our culture of resilience to move forward."

The outpouring of support has been unprecedented, Lipskar said.

"There are way more volunteers than we can use. Our synagogue big hall, which is a giant space, is filled with blankets, pillows, microwave ovens, chargers, food. It is an extraordinary outpouring and it's real and it's sincere," he said.

"The only thing that helps in these times is kindness and empathy and togetherness, because you can't take away the reality," Lipskar said, and for each family member waiting for news from a loved one, there are about five or six community members with them, giving support.