akuperma

1 and 6.

As it is 90% of people who are “infected” don’t get seriously ill, and the best vaccine’s claim to lower that to about 99% (90% more effective than the placebo). So instead of playing Russian Roulette, you get to play Russian roulette with the provision that you have to have a live bullet in the chamber twice in row to be dead.

#3 makes no sense since the only other “less drastic” treatment is to wear an N95 mask, a hazmat suit, and avoid contact with humans. Doing nothing is “less drastic” but leaves a 10% chance of getting seriously ill. The standard for testing the vaccine was NOT the usual standard used to estimate cases (i.e. testing positive for Coivd-19) but rather the meaningful test of whether one develops symptoms worse than cold or flu (though that still means everyone can spread Covid-19).

How long a vaccine will work will require a longitudinal study which be definition takes time. Computer models are subject to the GIGO rule, and are in this case unreliable.

1. Especially in democracies (and especially the US, which is a federation in which the “reserved powers” belong to the states) there will be debate over whether specific law is valid. American law is much more complex than most, since it it debateable if public health measures are the responsibility of the states or the federal government, and how the protections of the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution (and the state equivalents) apply.

2. If the Rabbanim of the city mandate a lockdown, even if it would be held unconstitutional if done by the government, a strong argument can be made that our law (rather the Dina Malchusa Dina) applies, even if the Rabbanim have been poorly advised.

3. Whether the policies banning religious services but allowing similar events (with many people gathering together, such as left wing political ralles) is constitutional is very much debateable. In the past we often had to decide how to deal with anti-Jewish laws (e.g. close the synagogues) but have rarely needed to worry about general laws directed against all religion (e.g. close down all houses of worship). A similar situation did arise when militantly atheistic socialists took over Russia about 100 years ago, and passed laws against all religions (not just Jews), and I believe most rabbanim held that Dina Malchusa Dina did not apply, and we honor those who refused to obey these laws.

Stop making fun of COMEDIANS. They had nothing to do with the mess the world is in, and the incompetence of those the American people have freely elected is not funny.

and what do you call a Jewish social media news aggregator they subscribes to AP?

Trump is the one who declared an emergency, seized all sorts of powers (probably in violation of the Constitution, since if the Constitution doesn’t assign a job to the president, it goes to the Congress or states). Trump was like any other politician grabbing power (and unlike the Conservative wing of the Republican party, saw nothing wrong with increasing executive power at everyone else’s expense).

Based on death rate changes, age distribution of deaths and people seriously ill, Covid19 was not significantly worse than the “seasonal flu” in a bad year, and bore no resemblance to past pandemics that were the basis for the extreme measures the government introduced (closing schools and politically unfavored businesses, mandatory masks, disrupting transit, confiscation of private property without compensation) – compare Covid19 to Ebola, Polio, Spanish flu, Smallpox, Plague, to get some context. The analogy would be someone who went to a Yiddle League game and thought that was baseball played at its highest level.

Trump had good reason to question the election results since based on exit polls he probably won; the correct response is that the exit polls didn’t take into account that Democrats were more likely to use absentee ballots (usually absentee and normal voting yield similar results). Trump also ignore the Republicans did well in most races, and “ballot box stuffers” never split tickets. But to say that Trump has no basis to suspect fraud is totally wrong.

In foreign affairs, Trump’s populists and Biden’s progressives all tend to be isolationist. Trump initiated the policy that Biden implemented. For obvious reasons, Biden doesn’t want to take credit for Trump’s foreign affairs policy (even though Biden has no problem claiming credit for Trump’s Covid-19 vaccines. By the standards of 1980, Trump is a RINO (and back then, he was Democrat). Expect a conservative running on platform of fiscal responsibility and a strong foreign policy to try to re-take the Republican party, and return to the policies of Ronald Reagan’s administration.

In the United States, Covid-19 appears to have increased the death rate back to the levels of the 1990s. If you remember the 1990s as a cruel period where life was short, nasty and brutish, you can appreciate the wisdom of the governments policies. Unlike most serious epidemics in the past, but like almost all serious diseases, Covid-19 strikes hardest as those whose lives were already coming to an end meaning that but for the government, the economic impact would have been negligible. The damages on people’s careers and children’s education came from the politicians, not a virus. If there ever is a real epidemic (something similar to Ebola or a new version of smallpox or plague), the measures taken for Covid-19 will prove to be useful, but most people will ignore them (the “boy who cried wolf” phenomena).

While the British still keep their copies of the Enigma intercepts a secret, a US Freedom of Information suit forced the US to declassify the American copies. It is very clear that both the American and British government were fully informed of the holocaust as it was happening, at least on the highest level. This is in addition to other intelligence the Allies received.

So if we want someone to boycott because of the holocaust, start with the United States and the self-governing (during the early 1940s, meaning Canada and Australia as well as Great Britain) portion of the British Empire.

Common Saychel: Do you favor boycotting countries that denied asylum to Jews during World War II. While the American and British governments were fully informed of the holocaust at all times (since they were able to read all of Germany’s “secret” radio transmission due to their breaking the enigma code), ALL other countries knew that very bad things were happening to Jews and that by denying requests for asylum they were likely sending people to their deaths. And if you hold a corporation liable for what was done by the corporation 80+ years ago (even virtually none of the shareholders and employees from that period are still alive), then you pretty much have to boycott any company that existed in the 1930s since they add did business with Nazi Germany prior to the war.

Therefore you are left with a radical zionist response, live in Israel, and refuse to use any imported goods (since even Boro Park based frum companies are still based in a country that sent Jews back to Germany knowing they would be murdered).

“Decree”???? — a bad case of flu that mainly kills old people (and our community are a very low percentage of old people, since we have a high percentage of children). 90% of cases are so minor you might not realize you were diseased unless you went out of your way to get tested. And since most deaths are those older than boomers (in our community, holocaust survivors, an age cohort much reduced by the holocaust), we are less affected than most. An increase in the national death rate from 8 to 9 per 1000 is minor, most industrial countries had a higher death rate before Covid19; the life expectancy fell back to what it was in the dark and horrible period of the 1990s (how did we ever survive).

People and governments freaked out quite on their own. Harsh measures appropriate to smallpox or plague or Ebola were introduced needlessly. Terrified people flocked to hospitals and undermined medical services; people with real health problems avoided doctors and hospitals out of fear. Indeed, people in many places are dying due to the governments’ shutdowns. We choose our politicians, as do most countries (at least indirectly). So don’t blame Ha-Shem for evil decrees of those we put in power. Just look in the mirror.

Sounds like cataracts,in which case you’ll be functional for most purposes after the first operation.

You don’t decide. It happens. You get used to taking Torah and Mitsvos seriously, and one day you realize you don’t really give a hoot about the outside world, since in the long run Torah and Mitsvos matter, and the outside world amounts to no more than a pile of dust.

The Democratic party of people such as Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy or Hubert Humphrey is ancient history. Today’s Democrats are socialists. Even those who claim otherwise have accepted the socialist dogma that the state should have a monopoly on decision making, and individuals should be obedient cogs in the state-run system. SO WHY WOULD THE DEMOCRATS BE CRITICAL OF THEIR FELLOW SOCIALISTS IN CUBA.

Short pants that go below the knee are not really problematic (they were standard until about 200 years ago, and are still common sport wear under American men such as baseball and football players). While some Hasidim still wear them, usually with high socks, they are generally unfashionable in the US.

No one objects to universal access to health care. If you mean a system where there is one national health care and everyone is required to use it, including the politically well connected, that never existed anywhere, even in totally socialist systems such as the Soviet Union (somehow the rich and powerful get better care).

Obamacare is just an expensive set of options towards getting access to health care for those without (which was never a very significant number in the US). For political reasons, they banned many “deplorables” from using inexpensive health insurance (the “deplorables” answered back by electing Donald Trump).

Managed care is a type of health insurance that offers (in theory) lower prices in return for the insurer taking control of what care you are offered (one can negotiate the price and standards).

Styles are like that. If you look at clothes over time you see changes reflecting a mix of what the goyim are doing (which we sometimes ignore, but not always), as well as halacha, and dynamics within our own community. For example, goyim switched from long suits to short suits (for “business wear”) because King George V did, and gave up hats because President John Kennedy misplaced his top hat and walked bare headed at his inauguration parade – we weren’t impressed and kept wearing kapotes and fedoras. Whereas goyim look at their politicians and media celebrities, we look at our rabbanim, who tend to be proper and dull on matters of fashion (which in fact, are largely irrelevant to the survival of the world). However the frum community is influenced by the goyim (note that pants are worn universally by males, which clearly would not have been the case 400 years ago, and that many frum people wear neckties which wasn’t the case 200 years ago).

But note the changes in other areas of clothing such as shoes. Non-leather shoes, and even sneakers, are increasingly worn whereas once only formal leather shoes were acceptable. Polyester and other artificial fabrics have increasingly become common in the frum community. When wearing a short (i.e. normal length suit), we tend to follow the goyim’s styles but about 10 years late (so double breasted suits are becoming much less common). And except for the requirements of married women covering their hair and all women covering up much of the rest of their bodies (which is contrary to the goyim’s minhag in western countries), women’s fashions closely follow those of the goyim.

In defining OTD I suggest that one line is in total non-observance of Shabbos (including yuntufs) and Kashrus. To be on the “other” (assimilated, non-frum) side of the line, one must be working at one’s job on Shabbos and in no way making “Shabbos” special (e.g. if you make a festive meal on Friday in honor of Shabbos, you aren’t totally off the derekh even if you go to work on Saturday morning). Not fasting on Yom Kippur and not going to hear Shofar on Rosh Ha-Shana, and not going to some sort of seder on Pesach probably indicate you are “gone”, but if you take off on Yom Kippur, have matsa on Pesach and shake a lulav now and then on Sukkos, you are still not totally OTD.

This suggest that to study the problem, one needs to have a scale reflecting both halacha and how various halachot are understood socially (e.g. many totally un-frum people still make a special meal on Shabbos, or take off on Yom Kippur, or attend a seder), and one needs to ask if someone is truely OTD if they have gone from frum to some level at which they while be strictly not “orthodox”, are still acting in ways that are clearly unassimilated.

If there is “real” pandemic (not a bad case of flu), we will be dealing with all ages (not just the sick and elderly) becoming seriously ill, and with a most people who become infected become seriously ill or dying (rather than 90% getting nothing worse than cold symptoms, if that much), and with the death rate increasing by tens of percent rather than tenths of percent (not thousands dying, but tens of millions).

The measures that were regarded by many people as excessive for Covid-19 would then be appropriate, however the public health people and the various mass media (including YWN) have the “boy who cried wolf” problem and won’t be believed. In the false alarm of Covid-19, communities that didn’t take the established media seriously (in the USA, these tended be “red”, meaning conservative and deplorable) fared no worse, and perhaps better, than those who bought the story (the “blue” and elites) that we were dealing with a horrific pandemic that threatened the existence of society. In a real epidemic, that will not be the case.

Ha-Shem creates viruses and germs, and it is not for us to argue or question Ha-Shem. However Ha-Shem is not responsible for creating power-grabbing politicians, political correct scientists, or mass media drumming up circulation with fake news.

Vowel shift. Common among all living languagues. Also remember that most English speakers of Hebrew are descended from Yiddish speakers, and Yiddish since it was largely an oral language (Yidden spoke Yiddish, but wrote in Hebrew) was more likely to have vowel shifting.

Note that Ha-Shem and Moshe refrained from including International Phonetic Alphabet notation, and did not include a sound recording of how Hebrew is supposed to be pronounced.

Coffee Addict – If you count all the Likud break-aways (Likudniks who didn’t get along with Bibi), the “Greater Likud” has 60+ seats, and if Bibi drops out of the picture (perhaps a deal not to throw him in in jail in return for accepting an unpaid decision as a senior statesman), the question then is who is best positioned to take over the Right-Center bloc, and as long as he doesn’t burn bridges, that’s Bennett. The people who broke away from Likud all left because of Netanyahu, and in general have no ideological disputes, so coming back, either in an alliance or formally rejoining Likud, is no big deal. By virtue of being Prime Minister, Bennett is poised to take over leadership of the Right-Center of the Israeli spectrum in a post-Bibi environment.

If it was impossible to make a living in Israel, you would not see an ever increasing number of Jews living in Israel. You also would not see Israel’s standard of living steadily rising from the ranks of underdeveloped countries 70 years ago to the one of the most prosperous countries. Some individuals may have a problem and based on the comments, one might suggest the typical problems include: 1) immigrating to Israel without being fluent in Israeli Hebrew and with a “skill set” designed for America rather than Israel; 2) trying to duplicate an American lifestyle in a totally different country rather than adapting one’s lifestyle to the Israeli economy (note that many things that are expensive in America are cheap in Israel, such as education and health care, whereas other things are relatively more expensive such as a single-family house in an urban center or private cars)

Changes in fertility probably resulted from a decline in infant mortality (in the past, wanting two to four children who lived to adulthood, required ten or more pregnancies). Antibiotics and improved surgical techniques (e.g. ability to do a ceasarian other than to rescue a baby whose mother had just died) meant humanity can survive without women having to spend their entire adult lives producing children. Combined with a collapse in maternal morality (formerly the leading cause of death for adult women), this lead to a greater number of women getting jobs and a willingness to invest in women’s education (since they were now surviving childbearing). This has been true in all countries, though is more obvious in the ones that industrialized first since it takes a few generations for birth rates to fall. It is hard to say if it will be good or bad in the long run, since more educated women (and education for women became cost effective when their survival became the norm) arguably make better mothers.

The frum community has hardly rejected the overall trend. In the period before industrialization most women received minimal education. They could read books such as “Tzena u-reina” but that’s about it. The average Bais Yaakov girl is on a vastly higher level than the average frum girl of 250 years ago (not to mention she is likely to survive childhood, childbearing and live to old age, something was exceptional back then). Also note that 250 years ago very few frum women were unemployed since they usually supervised large households, helped run business or if they were poor, worked as servants (remember most housework done today with appliances was previously done by servants, and anyone middle class probably had servants, and for obvious reason Jews were preferable as live-in servants). Unless you favor banning antibiotics, anesthesia and electric appliances, there is no going back to the “good old days”.

A few language have national government agencies to regulate the language. For example, France issues official lists of French words to use rather than English words, and in theory government employees can get in trouble for not using words on the list. In general, “standards” issued by government agencies are totally ignored by everyone except their own staff.

Someone tried to invent a “standardized Yiddish” about 100 years ago, in part combining aspects from different dialects (vowels from one, consonants from other, syntax from a third). Thanks to the German, onlyoone dialect of Yiddish now is common (southeast dialect, as used by Orthodox Jews). All attempts to standardize English have failed though some historical events have tended to promote standardization (e.g. the southern dialect has been considered “wrong” since 1865, and for the most part the mid-western dialect is “correct”, note who did what at Appomattox for an explanation how that happened).

However living languages by definition have ever-changing vocabulary and grammar, and Yiddish is unusually flexible since many native speakers feel free to “borrow” words from other languages without thinking twice. The grammar also evolves (anyone notice that the 2nd person formal form is dying out, probably since Hebrew and English lack one, e.g. using “DU” to mean you is no longer ruden when talking to a person who thinks they are more important than you).

Without Carter, there may never have been a Reagan.

Originally the rich would buy the poor as slaves, or feel somewhat sad if they starved.

Over time, the goyim picked up the idea that the rich need to help the poor. They got the idea from us. Also we never had strong central institutions (even kings of Beis David were far from absolute).
The Christians combined our ideas of charity with the Roman idea of a powerful government, and you get a powerful government that gives lots of charity with other people’s money (while governments get money from many source, taxes seems to be the easiest way to get hands of money).