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1. Ask about the experience of frum travellers crossing borders who are often suspected of smuggling.
2. Arguably police stereotyping is based on class. Police tend to be respectful of well dressed, well educated, polite persons regardless of race, and tend to beat up poorly dressed, ill educated and especially rude persons no matter what they look like. While this makes perfect sense to a sociologist, a lawyer will point out that under American law the police aren’t allowed to beat up people, even if society thinks they deserve. Stereotyping strangers is normal human behavior, even if it is illegal and unfair to the person be stereotyped.
Actually De Blasio has done an excellent job of getting all New Yorkers to finally agree on something. He has something to hate from every perspective, left wingers, right wingers and even hard core anarchists can all find something to dislike about him. Who would have ever thought he would be such a unifying figure?
Charging money for a gemara shiur? That is definitely a hidush, and not a good one.
Unless the shiur is set up so the visual component being broadcast is of the gemara, perhaps with the piece being discussed (of gemara, Rashi or Tosafos) highlighted, there isn’t much advantage of a gemera shiur being visual as opposed to pure audio. It also means everyone involved needs to dress up nicely and make sure the background of their seating is something you want strangers to see.
And how long did it take to figure this out?????????
The alternative to police is vigilantes. Just imagine Hatzalah with automatic weapons (remember no police, no gun control). And if you get rid of the police, you can save a huge amount of money by closing the courts and getting rid of the lawyers. From a taxpayer’s perspective, anarchy is cost efficient.
Does systematic anti-Semitism exist?
When you see a group of poorly dressed (apparently) African American young males walking down a dark street in your direction, do you get nervous?
Do you feel surprise on encountering an African American profession who seems to be highly competent?
Joseph:
Unless the US is bound by a treaty approved by 2/3 of the Senate, any Trump agreement ceases to be meaningful on Jan. 20. Note the Paris Climate Accords, NAFTA (which was a treaty), etc. Also, aid to Israel is approved annually. And Biden’s “base” sees Israel has a pirate state (similar to Apartheid era South Africa) so expect similar sanctions. Remember these are the guys who approve of vandalizing a shul in Los Angeles since a policeman in Minneapolis fatally beat up someone – bigots don’t need logic, and we should be wary.
We could ask the government to establish a program to provide for mosquito welfare.
Biden is likely to support a return to the pre-1967 borders, and at this point the likelihood is that next January, Biden will be president, with the Democrats controlling the Senate. The Israelis should try to get the best deal they can muster. The Palestinians know this, and have every reason to be supper stubborn, on the assumption that within a year Israel will be cut off from American aid and subject to sanctions for holding on to the West Bank.
It was learned with gemaras that by modern standards were poorly printed, usually without electric lights , and with no electronic options. And that’s how all Yidden were learning since before the Middle Ages. Originally much was oral, which at least made lighting less important, but that had ended by the time of the middle ages (period of the gaonim). And books were radically more expensive before modern printing was invented – when armies pillaged a city they carried off the books since they were among the most valuable, portable, objects around.
Admit it. We are spoiled. If we study was life was like even 100 years ago, we would realize how well off we are.
A lot of shuls skip it, so see what you get: Trump and Biden, Pelosi and De Blasio. As many shuls skip the prayer for the government, and we get fools running the government, does this not prove how important Klal Yisrael is (and why we should resume tefilah be-tzibbur before the world falls apart).
So what? Police are not supposed to murder, or even manslaughter (negligent homicide). They are not supposed to beat people up just because they feel like it. We would complain (and do complain) when police beat up a Yid, even if anti-semitism wasn’t a factor, and even if he “deserved it”. The major difference is we have enough control of the situation to prevent kids from going on a crime spree. And in all fairness, the idiot politicians (elected, so blame the electors) who feel that by encouraging looting and violence they will win votes will probably pay a price for it (remember David Dinkins’ distinguished three terms as mayor).
IF you don’t like Cuomo, vote him out of office. That’s what New Yorkers did to his father (the governor who refused to send the National Guard to Crown Heights).
Your request should be addressed to Governor Cuomo. The only condition under which a president could order the army to attack New York (deploy troops over the state’s objections) would be a finding that the state is in rebellion against the Federal constitution, or if need to enforce a federal law or protect federal property.
like “duh”
and it took you how long to figure that out?An alternative method, which probably requires a VPN, is to have the “censor” block any and all sites until the site in approved. When someone goes to a new site, the program (probably a human is required) looks at the site and according to know rules unblocks it. The first a user (anywhere in the system) looks at a site they get a note saying it is blocked, and asking if they want it unblocked, in which case there is a delay while the “censor” checks it out.
Is opposition to tyranny justified? Is it coincidence that the places with the strictest rules against businesses (especially small businesses) and against religion are rules by a political party that has become well known for its opposition to both free enterprise and religion? Once the government allows (de facto) gatherings for secular or commercial purposes, but specifically bans religious gathering, it transforms a legitimate (even if misguided) public health policy which falls under the scope of Dina Malchusa Dina, into a specifically anti-religious policy which we can ignore. Once the Democrats in New York moved from public health concerns to using Covid19 to implement broader social and economic policies, the respect owed the sovereign dissipates.
Was it wrong for American Americans, with much help from others, to have engaged in peaceful protests and civil disobedience against “Jim Crow”, rather than engaging in armed resistance (the only other alternative offered)? Would it have better if the zionists had engaged only in civil disobedience and peaceful protests against the British (as did the people in India), rather than in armed resistance (and at the time most gedolim were opposed to armed resistance against the British).
There are no reliable statistics, and since the matter has become highly political there is no way we will get reliable statistics. If you define someone as “having Covid19” based on antibody tests, you get such a high number that it throws into question whether the shutdowns were ever justified. If you base it on testing positive, you have a problem since they only tested people were were sick, or at least exposed even though it has always been clear that many (and according to antibody testing, most) people who are infected don’t get seriously ill. And mortality figures can, or can not, consider someone as having died from Covid19 if they had some other problem that might have killed them regardless.
How does Dina Malchusa Dina apply to civil disobedience. What happens if there is widespread civil disobedience against an unjust law? Do illegal acts of non-violent refusal to obey a law have a special status when it is part of a widespread movement?
No corporation is getting anything close to a trillion. In most cases there are loans, secured by the assets of the company (if they don’t repay, the government seizes the assets). Private citizens are receiving grants, not loans.
One should note that private persons derive their livelihood thanks to corporations and other forms of private business. From the tone of the post it appears the poster is someone depressed over their economic lot in life. I suggest they stop whining and get a job for a corporation so they too can be rich, since that will probably make the person happy.How about, I’m likely to catch it regardless of what I do, and the price of isolating is too high relative to the very small chance of death or serious illness.
If you consider the typical Yid gives up most of his income by deciding on being Shomer Shabbos, and then undertakes a frum lifestyle which takes up virtually all of his disposable income, and he does that not out of fear of a virus, but out of fear of Ha-Shem. And he probably believes that Torah and Mitsvos is not only his raison d’etre, but is the entire reason the universe was created, and is allowed to continuing in existence. So there is a chance of 100 in 100 that if he gives up Torah and Mitvos his world will disintegrate. And then try to scare him with a virus that apparently only makes people sick in 1 in 10 cases (based on antibody and ransom testing data), and only causes serious illness perhaps 1 in 20, and is fatal only 1 in 200, it just isn’t very scary.
Health and ubiquitin: Ten million people will die in the USA under’s Trump’s presidency. In Eretz israel around 40000 people will die this year. Annually, close to 100 Million people die throughout the world. It is sad, especially for those who die. But this is normal Based on the government’s figures, Covid19 will raise the annual death rate in the USA from around 8 per 1000, to perhaps 11 per 1000 – back tgo what it was in the mid-20th century. The “Blue” argument is that for what is basically a very bad flu, we should stop the economy and reduce everyone to poverty. That would be appropriate for a serious public health threat such as a renewed Smallpox or an anti-biotic resistant strain of Bubonic Plague. These are diseases what would see the death rate rise to serious levels (perhaps 500 per 1000). But Covid19 is not in that class. The government was wrong to throw much (perhaps most) of the population out of work and to destroy their life’s savings for a disease that threatened to reduce our lives to the “misery” of those dark ages of the 20th century. Human die. Humans get sick. If you don’t like it, take it up with Ha-Shem — but don’t go around destroying other people’s lives and property since you are paranoid about a virus that is would be more annoyance that disaster, if the government had freaked out and turned terrorist on its own population.
For the same reasons many people are increasingly angry at the government over Covid19. The antibody testing, and occasional attempts to randomly test people (rather than testing only those with serious symptoms) suggest that perhaps 90% of all people who “get” Cover19 do not get sick, and that among the small percentage of those getting symptoms who die, most are already very old or very ill. The two characteristics, that only a small number of those infected become ill, and that most deaths are among the elderly and unhealthy are RADICALLY unlike past epidemics such as smallpox or bubonic plague. The correct response would allow for voluntary social distancing and enhanced teleworking, and would encourage the sick and elderly to “cacoon” , but wold have avoided the unreasonable measures that have stripped billions of people (whose lives were never at risk) of their livelihoods and of their hard earned assets, not to mention suppressing Limud Torah and Shmerias Mitsvos (which unlike Covid19, does put our continued existence at risk).
In all situations, the term is “relative” and subject to constant change.
Trump never should have bought the media story about this being a dangerous plague. They had a panic over ventilators, then it turned out they are more likely to kill than heal. He bought the line that this is a hard to catch plague (meaning lockdowns would be effective), but one that was very bad if you caught it. Now they they can look for antibodies, it turns out to be easy to catch (meaning lockdowns won’t help much), but 90% of the “victims” don’t get sick enough to worry about testing (and meaning the death rate instead of being something similar to the Influenza of 1918 or Smallpox or Bubonic plague, is closer to the annual flu that kills thousands ever year. — Meanwhile he deliberately crashed the economy, robbed people of their savings, undermined their livelihood, and doomed many people (albeit not in the US) to a horrible death due to starvation caused by a breakdown in world trade. — In his defense, he did admit to be paranoid about germs (which explains his overreaction), and he is not as nuts as the Democrats who seem to consider destroying everyone’s economic means of existence to be a good thing. Trump may be a fool, but the Democrats are totalitarian wannabees.
To: anonymous Jew
It is interesting that Chabad pioneered in frum home schooling for far-flung Chabadniks. A leading producer of home schooling among the goyim (used by many Yidden who are home schooling as well), started out with a major audience being “missionaries” in far flung locations wanting an American education for their children.
Covid19 could result in facilitating Jews leaving New York City (apparently the world center of Covid19, probably because of the inherent problems of forcing so many people into such a small area).
Regardless of whether history ends up seeing the Covid 19 crisis as a medical crisis, or an example of government overreaction and unjustified panic, the impact of increased use of the internet for teleworking and distance education will remain. Increased telework opportunities may prove very significant for frum Jews (e.g. ability to live in our preferred area regardless of where the job is, not having to interact with co-workers who are intolerant of frum lifestyles, etc.), and distance education offers many other opportunities (e.g. access to Torah education regardless of where you live, possibilities of getting secular studies without going through the yeshiva world). This is the true long term impact of Covid19.
Dear Health,
Should we have been having a lockdown every winter for four months during the annual flu season? It would save some lives as well, mostly of older persons and persons with serious medical problems. Tens of thousands of people die every year from flu. Covid19 contrary to sensationalist mass media, does not make most people sick – perhaps only 10% of people who “catch” it get sick enough to need to consult with a doctor (and get tested) – of the serious cases, perhaps only one in twenty die – that means Covid19 is only a bit more dangerous than the regular flu, but is in no way similar to the mass killing epidemics in the past (that are cited as evidence for how halacha looks at epidemics).As most frum families have lots of little people running around, I suspect that it will be necessary to develop mini-offices with sound-proof cubicles, either in homes or perhaps as a business outside the home, to support teleworkers. The same might hold for teachers and perhaps for students. There also is the issue of bandwidth, since if one has six children each doing different programs, one needs six computers with adequate broadband.
One needs to remember that independent studies of how many people have antibodies, as opposed to how many people tested positive for Covid19, suggest that in over 80% of cases, the person has has the disease does not get sick enough to notice (a cold, or nothing at all). This suggests that the lockdowns (and cancellation of davening and learning Torah) were based on “junk science”. Covid19 is worse than the annual flu, but not radically so. It bares no resemblance to smallpox or black death or even the 1918 influenza. Those most at risk should take special precautions (as with the annual flu), but the destruction of the economy (equivalent to the Great Depression) was uncalled for. The politicians (and the rabbinicial organizations, and the medical profession) goofed and need to take immediate measures to restore their credibility.
He was a general, then he became a politician (clearly guilty of that), and had politically incorrect view (also a serious crime as least as far as the “deep state” civil servants are concerned, and worst of all he was a known associate of the devil incarnate (as any Democrat will tell you). Clearly guilty of all three counts.
1. Blue states tend to be based on large urban areas. In New York, for a example, the virus was not a serious issue in counties located too far away that a daily commute to New York is unrealistic. This suggests that a suburban or rural lifestyle with heavy reliance on private cars is healthy, and an urban lifestyle is not.
2. It isn’t clear how “deadly” the virus is until they compare total death rates. Roughly three million Americans would have died in 2020 given the normal death rate, and so far the virus seems to have only been a drop in the bucket. Historic plagues cause massive increases in the death rate,
3, Literature and mass media are big on “apocalyptic” themes, which may explain the massive overreaction, Note the frum organizations and media also overreacted.
A major factor is age. Except for frum Yidden, New Yorkers have very few children, and while children become infected they generally do not get very sick. Not only to frum Israelis have lots of children, but even the secular Israelis of Jewish descent, as well as Israel goyim (largely the Palestinian Arabs) have a birth rate that while lower than the frum community’s, is radically higher than in any of the other developed countries.
So you can see a lower death rate either as a quirk of demographics, or due to Ha-Shem rewarding those communities that observe the mitzvah to be fruitful and multiply.
English grammar and spelling are rapidly changing. One factor is that oral and visual communications are much easier now (Skype, Zoom, Webex and Google hangout, are “in”, long thoughtful letter writing is “out”). Another factor is that while English has become the universal global language, most English speakers are not native speakers. “Texting” requires quick terse comments, now ones based on careful grammar and spelling.
Skill at writing and reading English is becoming a specialized, and marketable, skill. But it is probably a fool’s errand to expect the average Anglophone (frum or not) to takes the rules of grammar and spelling seriously.
Telework will be more common. This is good for frum Jews, since telework is good for flexible hours, good for women (and men) not wanting to be forced to work in a goyish workplace, and people who don’t like frum Yidden can’t see you on the internet.
Distance education will be good. This offers opportunities for frum Jews both for getting secular education without having to go to a goyish school, and for Torah education (especially for those not living in the heart of Boro Park or Lakewood). We’ll probably have to get rid of relying on “filters” and look into our own VPNs.
Outside of New York City, it appears that the Covid-19 only made a small percentage of infected persons sick, and very few became seriously ill other than the elderly and those who were seriously ill to begin with. This will have political implications for the places where the lockdowns were not needed. It may encourage people to move out of New York City for health reasons, resulting in significantly lower housing prices in New York (good if you rent, bad if you own). Both parties will be blamed for the lockdowns and the economic hardship caused, opening the door for possibly new and radical political movements, and in general, Jews do better under established and boring governments rather than new and radical ones.
Antibodies does demonstrate the person had the disease, so it does show that if you get the Coronavirus, the odds at 10-1 you will not get seriously ill (meaning the estimates of death rates is needs to be divided by a factor of 10). The most recent news is they decided that having antibodies makes you likely to be a false positive, which sounds reasonable. The drug companies challenge is to get a drug in use while demand is high, and mindful of the illegality of them “pushing” a drug’s unapproved use (e.g. they can sell you a drug if it is approved for something, but they can’t suggest using it for something other than what the government has approved it for).
If one considers that 1% of the population dies every year (in the US, that means roughly three million, in New York City, about 70,000 per year), if the press covered each and every death as they did Coronavirus deaths, it would clearly cause panic. In historic plagues (e.g. “Black death” or “Smallpox” in a place that never had it before), the death rate would be much higher (for example, in a typical Boro Park apartment building, at least one or two people would die daily, and after a few months, the building be largely empty) – but that isn’t happening (even if the mass media prefer to look at the current virus in apocalyptic terms).
It is unlikely that a “new” drug will be developed in time. Even with lockdowns, most people will already have had Covid19 long before anything “new” is ready for commercial use (a concept sometimes called “herd immunity”). Remember that the figures such as those released last week by Governor Cuomo indicate that perhaps for every one person who tests positive for Coronavirus (and is usually only tested when they have symptoms), between five and ten others have antibodies indicating they already had the disease but didn’t get sick. Once the percentage of people with antibodies reaches a certain point (longer in lockdown areas, faster elsewhere), the need for a drug will decline.
Since the drug companies are using “old” drugs already approved for other purposes, their marginal costs are very low. Remember, the cost of drugs is not the actual manufacture, but the research to develop it. They already did all the development work and research and testing, and the drug has proven “safe” already (and effective for some purpose, not necessarily for Coronaviruses). The companies will anxiously offer drugs to doctors for free in the hopes that the drug will work against Coronaviruses, thereby enabling the company to start charging outrageous prices for the drug. Under existing law, the companies aren’t allowed to sell (especially at outrageous prices) a drug if they are promoting it for a use for which it has not been established as being “effective”.
If he was a comedian on late night TV, it would have been considered just another funny joke in poor taste. Consider if Don Rickles held public office and didn’t change in delivery. Only a fool would have thought that was a “straight line”, but unfortunately the media and much of the Democratic party tend to be fools.
Perhaps Americans will decide they prefer a dull politician who never says anything unless it has been reviewed by his handlers as reflecting what the audience wants to here, and about whom we will never know what he really thinks, but at least he won’t insult anyone.
Our day schools, even the “rich” ones, already underpay our teachers, and have administrations that while bloated compared to what yeshivos had “in the old country” in the “good old days” (when most people were happy to have two almost square meals on most days, if they were lucky), they are actually unbloated compared to the public schools. Just think for a minute, if you were a goyish bank loaning money at interest (and expecting to be repaid), and someone known to you as a yeshiva rebbe walked in the door, would you jump to greet him or would you look the other way and hope he wasn’t there to ask for a loan.
It might be possible to put the teachers on unemployment insurance, which is being supplemented, but that’s it.
Hasn’t the government banned haircuts (at least they banned barbershops as non-essential).
He’ll manage. His businesses (all corporations, even if he owned all the stock) have often gone bankrupt in the past. The exception is if there is a question of vote fraud (e.g. Democrats win through massive “vote harvesting” rather than people casting ballots in a traditional way). Then one can assume massive Republican resistance that will make the Democrats resistance seem like loyal opposition.
The Democrats will blame the Republicans, and the Republicans will blame the Democrats. Trump will blame the Chinese and point out the Democrats objected when he wanted to ban them from coming to the US. The Democrats will quote early Trump statements saying this wasn’t a crisis. The Libertarians will say the economic collapse was not necessary since outside of a few cities, the virus appears to only kill sick and elderly, and that the focus should have been on isolating the vulnerable rather than crashing the economy.
No hiddushim should be expected.
Trump endorsed it, making it politically incorrect to prescribe it, and in blue state, political correctness matters. If Trump had denounced it, it would be mandatory to give it to any New York who tests positive even without serious symptoms.
The worst danger is if this turns out to be unnecessary. While one won’t know for a while, it is quite possible that almost everyone will be exposed to COVID 19, and 80% will develop immunity without getting so sick they need to see a doctor or go to the hospital, and that the death rate when recalculated based on everyone who had the virus (rather than everyone sick enough to get tested and/or hospitalized) will turn out not to be much higher than the regular flu, and concentrated among the sick and elderly (similar to regular flu).
The kinyan (exchanging a pen or gartel or whatever) is just a way of making it clearer. There is no inherent reason why one can’t make a contract over the internet (or through the mail), either by halacha or the goyim’s law. The only issue if proof of identity (ask for a moment if in the past you had to show your passport or drivers license or ID card when selling hametz).
Don’t blame Ha-Shem. The virus is a a bad case of flu. The goyim over overreacted, perhaps since their literature and culture loves “end of the world” stories, and perhaps since no one remembers what real epidemics were like. The damage is self-inflicted. In a rational world, they would allow more teleworking, but wouldn’t close anything, and would tell the sick and elderly to be careful, just as they do in flu season.
If as the alarmists claim, Covid 19 spreads fast and is easy to catch, then we should be relieved when look at Wuhan where only 1% of the population became seriously ill, meaning 99% didn’t catch the virus or had symptoms treated with over the counter medicines, or less. The figures from Italy and Korea, both of whom probably are not lying, suggest a disease that is usually not all that serious unless you are in poor health to begin with (similar to the winter flu). The focus should be on isolating those at risk, rather than attempting to stop the spread of what is similar to a regular cold (making it a fool’s errand to stop the spread). The economic and social disruption is not justified by the disease itself.