Wednesday, January 19, 2022
When the Delta variant dominated, vaccination and prior infection protected against Covid-19, but vaccination was safest, study finds
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/19/health/covid-vaccine-infection-protection-cdc-study/index.html
"Together, the totality of the evidence suggests really that both vaccination and having survived Covid each provide protection against subsequent reinfection, infection and hospitalization," said Dr. Eli Rosenberg, New York state deputy director for science. "Having Covid the first time carries with it significant risks, and becoming vaccinated and staying up-to-date with boosters really is the only safe choice for preventing COVID infection and severe disease."
"If a person who's had natural Covid then gets vaccinated, they have levels of antibody that are much, much higher than after the natural infection itself. And what we know about higher levels of antibody is: one, you usually get a longer duration of protection, and number two, the variety of antibodies that your immune system produces is more diverse. The notion is that you will be better protected against a diversity of variants," said Schaffner, who is a vaccine adviser to the CDC, but was not involved in the study.
Boeing Takes Hit as Its 777, 787 Planes Appear Susceptible to 5G Network
https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-takes-hit-its-777-787-planes-appear-susceptible-5g-network-1670782
Boeing faces a setback as its 777 and 787 planes used by airlines worldwide are particularly susceptible to the new 5G network signals as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced safety concerns.
The FAA said the new 5G signals could interfere with the Boeing 787's and 777's airplanes systems using radio altimeters, which indicate how far a plane is off the ground while in the air, according to a statement Friday.
Altimeters data are used in several systems such as for engines, flight controls, traffic alert, collision avoidance, ground proximity warning, autopilot systems, and detecting dangerous wind shears.
Airlines are concerned because altimeters operate in the 4.2-4.4 GHz range, and the 5G frequencies would operate too close to the same range and affect airplane instruments, Reuters reported.
הממשלה מאשרת שוב את חוק הגיוס שנפל
https://www.kikar.co.il/410490.html
הגנץ לוקח סיכון: פחות מ-48 שעות אחרי נפילת חוק הגיוס במליאת הכנסת, שר הביטחון בני גנץ לחץ והיום (רביעי) הממשלה מאשרת את חוק הגיוס מחדש לקראת הצבעה חוזרת על החוק בהמשך.
אחרי שהחוק יאושר לא יהיה צורך בישיבת ממשלה או בוועדת שרים לענייני חקירה, אלא החוק יונח ישירות על שולחן הכנסת.
כזכור, ביום שני האחרון נפל חוק הגיוס של שר הביטחון בני גנץ, לאחר שחברת הכנסת ג'ידא רחנאווי זועבי ממר"צ הפרה את המשמעת הקואליציונית והצביעה נגד חוק החוק ובמקביל חברי הכנסת מאזן גנאיים ועמיחי שיקלי נעדרו מההצבעה.
Gantz Resubmits Draft Law; Set to Pass Next Week
https://hamodia.com/2022/01/19/gantz-resubmits-draft-law-set-to-pass-next-week/
Ahead of the vote in the Knesset plenum, pressure is expected to be placed on the MKs of the Ra’am party, one of whom abstained from voting on Monday, and also on MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi of Meretz, who opposed the bill in Monday’s vote, resulting in the bill failing to pass. The coalition believes that Zoabi will support the proposal this time around.
The vote on Monday ended in a 54:54 tie after MK Zoabi violated coalition discipline and voted against the law. MKs Mazen Ghanaim (Ra’am) and Amichai Chikli (Yamina) were absent from the vote.
Freed Hostage Rabbi Demanded Israel Drop Sovereignty Plans in the Settlements
In the world of "you can't make this stuff up"... This is my old synagogue, I left due to a few issues, first, the Rabbi called Israel an apartheid state against Islam, and a second, he didn't allow his members (including myself) to be armed during services. Now he is held hostage by a Muslim man with a gun...
Singer Hana Horká Dies of COVID After Catching It on Purpose To Avoid Vaccine
https://www.newsweek.com/singer-hana-horka-dies-covid-after-catching-purpose-avoid-vaccine-1670675
Hana Horká, who was the vocalist for the long-running folk band Asonance, passed away on Sunday at the age of 57, AFP reported, citing her son Jan Rek.
Rek told Czech public radio iRozhlas.cz that his mother had voluntarily exposed herself to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, in order to obtain a health pass that would have allowed her to visit the sauna and theater.
Israeli police evict Palestinian family in East Jerusalem neighborhood
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rjvzfvrpk
Israeli police evicted a Palestinian family from their home in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Wednesday, demolishing the dwelling in a case that has drawn international attention.
Police had withdrawn after the standoff on Monday but returned before dawn on Wednesday, saying in a statement it was enforcing a court-approved eviction order of "illegal buildings built on grounds designated for a school for children with special needs".
In a joint statement with the Jerusalem municipality, police said several people were arrested for questioning on suspicion of violating a court order and disturbing the peace. Witnesses said some 25 Palestinians, including five family members, were detained.
Elderly man suspected of sexual abuse is arrested
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/320753
A Jerusalem resident in his 70s has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing two people, Maariv reported.
According to the report, the individual is suspected of sexually abusing minors in separate instances, which occurred several years ago.
The individual, who is well-respected and considered to be a hasidic leader, carried out sex crimes against a minor female family member, as well as against a minor male.
Calling Omicron ‘Mild’ Is Wishful Thinking
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/01/omicron-mild-severity-immunity/621238/
For weeks, the watchword on Omicron in much of America has been some form of phew. A flurry of reports has encouraged a relatively rosy view of the variant, compared with some of its predecessors. Omicron appears to somewhat spare the lungs. Infected laboratory mice and hamsters seem to handily fight it off. Proportionally, fewer of the people who catch it wind up hospitalized or dead. All of this has allowed a deceptively reassuring narrative to take root and grow: Omicron is mild. The variant is docile, harmless, the cause of an #Omicold that’s no worse than a fleeting flu. It is so trivial, some have argued, that the world should simply “allow this mild infection to circulate,” and avoid slowing the spread. Omicron, as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky would have you believe, is “basically nature’s vaccine.”
In high-enough numbers, any Omicron infection can wreak havoc. Across the country, people are entering isolation in droves, closing schools and businesses, and hamstringing hospitals that can already ill-afford a staffing shortage. In many parts of the country, hospital capacities are already being reached and exceeded, making it difficult for people to seek care for any kind of illness. An overstretched system could also, ironically, mask the extent of Omicron’s tear: When hospitals are full, they cannot accept more patients, artificially deflating recorded rates of severe disease, even as total cases continue to rise. “Omicron may be more mild at the individual symptom level,” Duana Fullwiley, a medical anthropologist at Stanford who has studied how the term mild has affected people’s experience of sickle-cell anemia in Senegal, told me. “But we’re not talking about the severity of Omicron as it’s impacting the system.”
Smartmatic Sues Mike Lindell, Accusing Him of Spreading Election Lies to Sell More Pillows
Lindell, a conspiracy theorist who rose to prominence as a trusted friend of former President Donald Trump, became a lead voice pushing Trump's baseless claims that an unprecedented, nationwide conspiracy of voter fraud "stole" the 2020 election from Trump.
While Lindell has pushed numerous conspiracy theories to explain Trump's loss, he has mainly focused on voting machines from Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. He has alleged that these machines switched votes from Trump to current President Joe Biden.
However, Smartmatic's voting machines were only used in one U.S. county during the 2020 election, Los Angeles County, Forbes reported. Neither Lindell nor anyone else has yet to produce concrete evidence proving that the machines flipped votes during the election.
Leading haredi rabbi: Father can report child's abuse to police
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/320741
Kikar Hashabbat on Tuesday publicized a video of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading Lithuanian-haredi rabbi, in which he can be heard encouraging those whose children were molested to turn to the police.
In the video, which was filmed around twenty years ago, Rabbi Kanievsky is asked, "Unfortunately, I have a cousin in America, whose children were hurt by someone. What should he do? He wants to look into the matter and he is asking if he can involve the police."
In response, Rabbi Kanievsky can be heard asking, "What is the question?" to which the questioner responds, "Someone hurt an 11-year-old boy, and he is asking if he is permitted to turn to the police and complain that there is someone evil there."
"Obviously it is permitted for him to do this, in order to save others - in order to save others it is allowed,"
Rabbi Kanievsky responded.The questioner continued, "He doesn't need to go first to beit din (a Jewish court)?"
"Apparently. The assumption is that it is permitted to save others," Rabbi Kanievsky said.
לפני כעשרים שנה, נשאל מרן שר התורה הגאון רבי חיים קנייבסקי, האם מותר לפנות למשטרה נגד אדם שפגע בילד? והשיב בנחרצות: "מותר, כדי להציל אחרים"; התיעוד מהפסק, נחשף כעת
POSEKIM - e judaica
POSEKIM, a Hebrew term for scholars whose intellectual efforts were concentrated on determining the halakhah in practice (for whom the word "decisors" is sometimes used) in contrast to those commentators who applied themselves to study for its own sake, and in order to facilitate the understanding of the subject under discussion and who are called mefarshim (expositors or commentators). This distinction was already recognized by early authorities who stressed, for instance, that halakhah should not be derived from *Rashi 's commentary on the Talmud – since Rashi did not introduce into his commentary various ancillary considerations without which no practical decision can be arrived at, except perhaps for those few instances where Rashi explicitly states that the halakhah is in accordance with his exposition.
In the early period, especially in Germany, the term posekim was identical with the teachers and leaders of the generation in every locality. It included the heads of the yeshivot, avot battei din, rabbis and talmudic scholars generally, on condition that their statements were made "by way of pesak," on actual cases which arose. The ruling of the posek was binding only upon those subject to his authority, since he laid down the halakhah in accordance with local tradition and for the people who accepted his authority. A ruling was never successfully imposed upon communities outside the area of the jurisdiction of the posek. The authority of the posek during this period depended on his being a competent talmudic scholar, possessing a comprehensive knowledge in every field on his subject, and on the fact that he continued the tradition of his locality and of his teachers transmitted to him while he studied under them. In the course of time this situation gradually changed, as a result of the dissemination of the codes, which afforded easy access to sources necessary for deciding the halakhah. From the second half of the 16th century with the beginning of the spread of the Shulhan Arukh, the character of the works by the posekim changed fundamentally. Henceforth the outstanding posekim hardly engaged at all in theoretical exposition, and to the extent that they did do so their commentaries were generally forgotten and ignored. The posek during this period won general recognition by virtue of the extensive practical experience he accumulated and by gaining the approbation of contemporary scholars, by devoting the whole of his intellectual and physical energy to this goal, and by virtue of "divine aid," the charisma with which he was endowed. For a survey of the posekim and their development see *Codification of Law .
Contempt of beis din - E Judaica
It appears that in talmudic times the administrative, and not the judicial, officers of the court were the main target of contempt of court – demonstrated both in words and violence – and detailed rules were worked out to facilitate the perilous tasks of court messengers assigned to serve summonses and to execute judgments (BK 112b–113a; Maim. ibid., 25:5–11; ḤM 11). The standard punishment for contempt of court messengers is anathema (niddui), after three prior warnings (ibid.); but admonitory lashes were also administered not only for insulting process-servers (Kid. 12b, 70b), but especially for failure to pay judgment debts (Ket. 86a–b). The source for the authority to proclaim anathema was taken to be Deborah's curse on those who did not come to the help of the Lord (Judg. 5:23). One scholar, invoking the wide authority given to Ezra by the Persian king for the punishment of offenders (Ezra 7:26), went so far as to authorize the infliction of imprisonment, shackling, and confiscation of goods (MK 16a), but in practice no such severe measures appear ever to have been adopted. No witnesses were required to prove such contempt: the complaint of the court official was accepted as conclusive – and expressly excluded from the applicability of the rules against slander (ibid., and Maim., and ḤM ibid.).
In post-talmudic times, obedience to the courts had to be enforced by more rigorous means: both admonitory lashes (cf., e.g., Resp. Rosh 8:2 and 11:4) and imprisonment (cf., e.g., Rema and ḤM 97:15; Resp. Ribash 484) were widely used against persons who willfully persisted in disobeying the court. However, such extreme sanctions were resorted to only where previous public admonitions (cf., e.g., Resp. Maharam Minz 38, 39, 101), the exclusion from religious and civic honors, the disqualification from suing and testifying, and similar measures (including the anathema) had been of no avail (S. Assaf, Battei Din… (1924), 118 and passim). It has been maintained that all these sanctions were not punitive in nature but solely designed to execute the judgment of the court or make the adjudged debtor pay his debt (Elon) – a modern distinction which in most cases is rather academic. The talmudic formula, "he shall be beaten until his soul departs" (Ket. 86b et al.), has an unmistakably punitive undertone: compelling the debtor to pay coincides with punishing him for his contempt.
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