Jerusalem, Israel - May 25, 2020 - It is the week before Shavuos. The Israeli radio has commercial breaks with ads for cheese and dairy products. Photos of cheese products and ingredients to make cheesecakes are at the top of the supermarket flyers found in mailboxes. Lists of speakers for Tikun Leil Shavous are published. This year online, but programs and scheduled for those Israelis who identify as secular have become increasingly popular over the past few years. The celebration of Shavuos illustrates a major difference found in the Jewish world. How many non-Orthodox Jews in the United States know of Shavous, or observe the holiday? Yet in Israel, the holiday of Shavuos is part of the culture.   Recently a nearly full-page newspaper advertisement sponsored by the R...
The latest: - There have been more than 1.6 million coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally. - The U.S. death toll has surpassed 97,000 people, according to Hopkins. - Coronavirus outbreaks at meat processing plants are forcing North Carolina farmers to euthanize 1.5 million chickens, according to a state official. - There will likely be longer air travel security lines as the Transportation Security Administration adjusts staffing with more people taking to the skies, according to Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. - During an unannounced press conference Friday, President Donald Trump said his administration would label houses of worship as "essential" to mandate their reopening. With more sweeping reop...
Two Palestinians storm troops patroling near Amichai, try stabbing them using what the IDF described as "sharp agricultural instruments." Soldiers engage, wounding their assailants. Troops unharmed, wounded terrorists taken to a hospital in Ramallah, the IDF says. Two Palestinian terrorists were shot Monday while trying to carry out a stabbing attack against a group of soldiers operating near a central Samaria settlement, the military said. According to available details, a group of eight Palestinians approached soldiers who were on patrol near Amichai, a settlement northeast of Ramallah. Two Palestinians then stormed the troops and tried to stab using what the IDF described as "sharp agricultural instruments." The soldiers engaged, opening fire at their assailants and hitting them in...
Standard commercial flights out of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport will likely resume in early-to-mid July, airport officials said Monday. Following the sharp decline in the number of new confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Israel, along with the drop in new fatalities, a number of foreign airlines announced plans to resume flights to Israel in June. The airlines included Air Canada, Delta, British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, Alitalia, and Lufthansa. Dozens of other companies have also made preliminary plans to resume operations in Israel, while Israel’s largest airline, El Al, announced last week that it was extending its own moratorium on flights until June 20th. Now, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s primary air t...
Baltimore, MD - May 24, 2020 - Vaad HaRabbonim Of Baltimore: Guidance For Hosting Company for Shavuos 5780 (May 24, 2020). Click here or on the graphic below for a larger, printable copy
Hours before the first day of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahy’s trial was set to begin, Knesset Speaker Yuval Levin on Sunday blasted the indictments, calling them “unprecedented in western democracies.” “This day … will be remembered as one of the lowest points in the Israeli judicial system,” he said in a Facebook post. In a veiled reference to the arguments of American attorney Alan Dershowitz, Levin added, “The indictments against the prime minister are unprecedented in western democracies. Their place, if at all, is in the ethical, not criminal sphere, which is why legal experts in the world are criticizing them so harshly. Israel needs a fair, equitable and impartial law-enforcement system.” He said that the trial about to...
New York Democrat Rep. Max Rose slams Mayor Bill de Blasio’s poor policy on city lockdowns.
A new study from scientists in the United States suggests that a significant majority of the population may already have some level of immunity to the coronavirus, a possible explanation for why so many individuals seem to experience few to no symptoms from the disease. The study, written by researchers in California, New York and North Carolina and soon to be published in the journal Cell, discovered that certain types of cells in blood samples taken from donors in 2015-2018—well before COVID-19 arose—were reactive against the COVID-19 virus. In other words, those blood samples were at least partially immune from the coronavirus even though they had never been exposed to it. “CD4+ T cell responses were detected in 40-60% of unexposed individuals. This ma...
The Chinese lab eyed as a potential source of COVID-19 has admitted having three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site — but insisted none are the source of the global pandemic. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has since 2004 “isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats,” its director Wang Yanyi said in an interview that aired Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Now we have three strains of live viruses… But their highest similarity to SARS-CoV-2 only reaches 79.8 percent,” Yanyi said, referring to the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19. Read more at THE NY POST.
Baltimore, MD - May 20, 2020 - We will all be learning the topic of Birchos HaTorah. Each Kollel will learn with members of its community first, and then we will all join together for an international iyun shiur on this topic. The schedule for this Sunday is as follows: Local Baltimore Shiurim:      HaRav Nesanel Kostelitz, Rosh Kollel - 9:30-10:15 AM      HaRav Eliezer Lachman, Sgan Rosh Kollel - 10:15-11:00 AM Join the local shiurim by teleconference. Phone number 978-990-5346, access code 2317967# International Shiurim:              HaRav Malkiel Kotler, Rosh HaYeshiva, Beth Medrash Govoha - 11:00 Divrei Psicha Followed by      Dayan Chanoch Ehrentrau, Av Bais Din, E...
Coronavirus patients stop being infectious 11 days after contracting the disease — even if they still test positive for COVID-19 on day 12, according to a new study. Singaporean infectious disease experts said they found that the virus “could not be isolated or cultured after day 11 of illness,” according to a joint paper from the country’s National Center for Infectious Diseases and the Academy of Medicine. Researchers looked at the “viral load” in 73 COVID-19 patients to measure whether the bug was still viable and could infect anyone. “Based on the accumulated data since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the infectious period of [coronavirus] in symptomatic individuals may begin around 2 days before the onset of symptoms, and persists for a...
Baltimore, MD - May 24, 2020 - Light Up for Kids got started when I was sitting at home one day during this 'unplanned vacation' and I decided to write a newsletter for my family. I sat down, gathered some world news, and some family happenings, and put it together in about a half hour. The next day, I found out that my cousin Sari Zolty from Toronto, had also put together a magazine for our family. I thought it would be fun for all of us to work together, and we can make something nice and meaningful. And here we are. I do a lot more work than I thought I would be doing, since I have taken over as the editor- but I enjoy the responsibility. To subscribe please email lightupforkids@gmail.comClick here or on the graphic below for a larger, printable copy ...
 Baltimore, MD - May 24, 2020: Click here or on the graphic below for a larger, printable copy
Baltimore, MD - May 21, 2020 - Last year's ELITE Shavuos Symposium, delivered to a packed house, was an incredibly uplifting experience that would be hard to match, but it looks like it will happen yet again this Monday Night May 25th at 8:15 PM. Joined by Mrs. Chani Juravel, Mrs. Miriam Lapides, and Mrs. Esther Kokis via zoom, the inspiration will be delivered straight to you! We invite Post Sem young women to register for this event by visiting www.eliterisebaltimore.com  While Covid-19 has impacted us all and social distancing has prevented in- person gatherings, ELITE's myriad shiurim continue remotely. Find out more by clicking on the chaburah tab on our website.
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx warned that even though states are beginning to reopen, with some beaches being made available to the public over Memorial Day weekend, people must still maintain social distancing precautions and wear masks where appropriate. The U.S. death toll is expected to surpass 100,000 in the coming days, going well beyond an April projection of 60,000 total deaths and more in line with earlier predictions that expected the pandemic to yield casualties in the six-figure range. "[T]here’s clear scientific evidence now by all the droplet experiments that happen and that others have done to show that a mask does prevent droplets from reaching others," Birx told "Fox News Sunday," recognizing that Americans will...
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Just prior to his appearance in court, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Holocaust survivors who came from all around the country to express their support for him. One of the survivors said that she was praying for him like she prayed for her sister in the forest when she was wounded and sick. Another person wished him good health at a time “when all the wolves want to devour you.” One of those present said that 1000 survivors wanted to come and support him and signed a petition of support but in the end three buses had come to support him. A deeply moved Netanyahu thanked the survivors for all of their support.
A renowned epidemiologist told the “The Ingraham Angle” on Monday that a video he posted on YouTube questioning the effectiveness of widespread lockdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic was removed for violating “community standards.” Dr. Knut Wittkowski, an epidemiologist who was the head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at The Rockefeller University's Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Host Laura Ingraham noted that his video was viewed nearly 1.5 million times and asked Wittkowski why he thinks “there is so much pushback to your line of thinking?” “Because I think so many people have invested so much of their ego and so they have a problem acknowledging t...
The US could finally be free of the coronavirus in late September, and the whole world can expect to put the pandemic behind them in December, say scientists in Singapore. The rosy forecasts are from the Singapore University of Technology and Design, where researchers are using artificial intelligence to continually update their charting of the pandemic’s “life cycle” by country. At the end of April, predictions showed that the US would be virus-free by Sept. 20 and the UK could see the end of the coronavirus by Aug. 27, Metro.co.uk reported yesterday. But the group has since taken down its country-by-country charts from its website — instead posting a disclaimer that the research was strictly for educational purposes and may contain error...
A new study from scientists in the United States suggests that a significant majority of the population may already have some level of immunity to the coronavirus, a possible explanation for why so many individuals seem to experience few to no symptoms from the disease. The study, written by researchers in California, New York and North Carolina and soon to be published in the journal Cell, discovered that certain types of cells in blood samples taken from donors in 2015-2018—well before COVID-19 arose—were reactive against the COVID-19 virus. In other words, those blood samples were at least partially immune from the coronavirus even though they had never been exposed to it. “CD4+ T cell responses were detected in 40-60% of unexposed individuals. This ma...
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