A Hasidic man was refused service at a Toyota dealership in New York Monday after being accused of “spreading the virus.” In several videos and voice notes shared on WhatsApp, the man described making an appointment at Johnstons Toyota, in New Hampton, N.Y., and then being asked to leave without having his car serviced, even…
Despite rumors swirling online to the contrary, Israel has not developed and tested a vaccine for coronavirus. The rumor appears to have started with a Facebook post that read, “A vaccine for CoronaVirus has just been approved in Israel. It is being produced in hundreds of thousands as we speak and expected to be in…
(JTA) — The last surviving German recognized as a righteous gentile for saving Jews during the Holocaust died on Monday. Gertrud Steinl, who was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1979 as a Righteous Among the Nations, died a day before her 98th birthday. Steinl’s death was confirmed to the German news agency dpa by Andre Freund,…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than half of a group of 114 students who returned to Israel from a yeshiva near the Chabad world headquarters in New York have tested positive for coronavirus. The Hasidic students returned after the headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn was closed for the first…
NEW YORK (JTA) — Some 38,000 people work at Jewish community centers across North America, staffing preschools, camps, gyms, classes, activities for seniors and more. Because of the coronavirus crisis, a lot of them are going to lose their jobs. “The cuts are going to be painful and deep,” said Doron Krakow, CEO of the…
(JTA) — The supply chain for kosher for Passover food has not been disrupted by the coronavirus crisis, the Orthodox Union kosher certification agency said. “Despite the long lines and panic shopping taking place at grocery stores around the country, there is an abundance of kosher food available for the upcoming holiday,” both in the…
(JTA) — Police in Lakewood, New Jersey, have arrested at least two Jewish men for hosting weddings with more than 50 people present, in violation of state rules designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy last week banned gatherings of more than 50 people, and on Saturday morning he…
Multiple white supremacists have discussed using the novel coronavirus as a biological weapon, Yahoo News reported on Saturday, citing a document from a division of the Department of Homeland Security. An intelligence brief issued Feb. 24 by the Federal Protective Service, which protects federal government buildings, claimed that “White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently…
Hundreds of Haredi Jews protested in Jerusalem on Sunday against the Israeli government’s strict quarantine measures, including the closure of schools and yeshivas. Protesters in the Haredi neighborhood of Mea Shearim threw rocks at police officers who had come to close businesses that had stayed open despite government orders, the Times of Israel reported. Some…
The rabbinic leader of the Kiryas Joel branch of Satmar Hasidism, one of the largest sects of Haredi Orthodox Judaism in the world, has tested positive for coronavirus. Grand Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday after being in isolation for a week. Ezra Friedlander, a Hasidic lobbyist with close ties to the…
A group of at least 200 young men gathered Friday night to pray outside 770 Eastern Parkway, the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters, despite the announcement earlier that day by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that nonessential gatherings of any size were banned as part of a broader effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. A uniformed…
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