03/20 Links Pt2: Israel’s first coronavirus death; Blood Libels, Conspiracy Theories, and Coronaviruses; Heartwarming Applause for Israeli Doctors During Coronavirus ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Man, 88, dies in Jerusalem hospital, Israel’s first coronavirus death

An 88-year-old man died in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital on Friday night from the coronavirus, Israel’s first fatality in the global pandemic, while several other patients were in a critical condition.

The hospital said the patient had been admitted in a very serious condition with multiple preexisting conditions. Despite intensive treatment, including being resuscitated from heart failure, he had deteriorated rapidly in recent hours and died, the hospital said.

The condition of three other Israelis being treated at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon for COVID-19 deteriorated Friday, with all of them in serious to critical condition.

The three patients include a 67-year-old woman with a preexisting medical condition, a 91-year-old woman and 45-year-old man with no past health problems, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

Another 10 people infected with the virus are receiving treatment at the hospital, three of them in moderate condition.

Global virus death toll tops 10,000 as epicenter shifts west

The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 10,000 on Thursday, as the scourge extended its march across the West, where the United States and other countries increasingly enlisted the military to prepare for an onslaught of patients and California’s governor ordered people in the most-populous U.S. state to stay home.

Worldwide the death toll surpassed 10,000 and infections topped 240,000, including 86,000 people who have recovered.

Italy’s deaths from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed China’s on Thursday, infections across the globe passed the 240,000 mark, including some 86,000 people who have recovered.

In Israel, the number of cases jumped to 677, a single day increase of nearly 200, and a Jerusalem woman, 89, was fighting rapid respiratory deterioration to avoid becoming the country’s first fatality from the COVID-19 disease.

The virus has infected at least one European head of state: Monaco’s 62-year-old Prince Albert II, who continued to work from his office. And it appeared to be opening an alarming new front in Africa, where health care in many countries is already in sorry shape.

Record 627 deaths in Italy; military vehicles said used to transport bodies

Italy on Friday reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus and saw its world-leading toll surpass 4,000 despite government efforts to stem the pandemic’s spread.

The Mediterranean country’s daily death rate is now higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan’s Hubei province.

Italy’s previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday. Italy has seen more than 1,500 fatalities from COVID-19 in the past three days alone.

It has now recorded the five highest one-day tolls officially registered around the world.

Italian media broadcast pictures it said was military vehicles brought into the Bergamo area to transport away the hundreds of coffins.

Italy’s total number of deaths now stands and 4,032. Infections rose by nearly 6,000 to 47,021.

The nation of 60 million currently accounts for 36.6 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths after surpassing China’s total on Thursday.

Blood Libels, Conspiracy Theories, and Coronaviruses

For centuries, blood libels and conspiracy theories have played a tragic role in Jewish history, inciting pogroms, and responsible for the torture and murders of countless Jews. These libels have taken on multiple forms, variations on the same theme: Jews as a collective – or, in modern times, the Jewish state as a collective – conspire to kill, destroy or otherwise harm non-Jews for ritual purposes or for monetary gain and power.

Both the medieval blood libels accusing Jews of murdering Christian youth as part of Passover rituals and the similar anti-Jewish conspiracy libels accusing Jews of benefiting from harming non-Jews stem from the primitive superstition that Jews are agents of the devil. Anti-Jewish libels continue to be perpetrated by anti-Semites of all stripes. As Passover approaches and the world is engulfed in a coronavirus pandemic, we can expect more of the same.
The Blood Libel

Medieval blood libels began in 1144 CE when the apparent murder of a young tanner apprentice, William of Norwich, was attributed to the town’s Jews. The tale that developed regarding William, declared a saint, was that he was murdered by Jews during the Passover/Easter period, that Norwich’s Jewish community was chosen by lot to ritually sacrifice a Christian youth in a Jewish Passover ritual, and that the Jewish community managed to bribe local official to look the other way.

Over the ensuing years, similar libels were leveled against Jews in England. When a youth went missing or was found dead, the family and local community blamed the town’s Jews, accusing them of victimizing the youth as part of a Jewish ritual. Their accusations were based on a false, defamatory myth that Jews required the blood of a Christian youth for their Passover observance. These blood libels, fueled by medieval superstition and loathing of Jews as the “other”, quickly spread through the rest of Europe.

In 1171, the entire Jewish community of Blois, France was sentenced to death and burnt alive on the basis of a blood libel. In England, the blood libel was soon sanctioned by the highest authorities. When, in 1255, the body of a young boy was discovered in a well owned by a Jew in Lincoln, his death was blamed on the entire community of Jews who were said to have tortured and murdered the boy to mock the crucifixion of Christ. The blood libel made a saint of the drowned victim, who became known as Little St. Hugh, and resulted in the arrest of dozens of Jews who had come to Lincoln to celebrate a wedding. Many of them received death sentences, endorsed by the King of England who confiscated their property.

The blood libel was used as a vehicle by anti-Semites with which to ravage the Jewish communities in their midst and to appropriate the belongings of executed Jews. It always followed the same pattern.

Honest Reporting: Antisemitic Conspiracies Spread Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

With the rise of COVID-19, racists around the world are blaming the Jews and Israel for the pandemic and the suffering it has brought. Humanity needs to work together to fight our common enemies. We need to say no to hate.

Canary Mission: Anti-Semitism and Coronavirus

While the world is dealing with the Corona Pandemic... some see it as an opportunity to attack Israel with lies and anti-Semitic slurs. From BDS activist to far-right conspiracy theorist. Share this video! #coronavirus #anti-Semitism

Melanie Phillips: The burning question of fantasists and realists

Back in a different world, when we were all still going out and about and living normally, I did a long interview with Steven Edginton for “Burning Questions” on The Sun‘s video channel. We discussed the political journey I have made commonly described as “from left to right” (personally, I prefer “from fantasists to realists”), what’s happened to the west over the past half-century (small question!), antisemitism and being a Jew in Britain. You can watch the interview here.

Melanie Phillips: Mining for hate in 'The Plot Against America'

Simon’s highly selective indignation is not directed at the rise of anti-white and anti-Jewish racism in progressive causes such as Black Lives Matter or the Occupy movement.

It is not directed at the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish venom on campus that long predated Trump’s arrival in the White House. It skips over the two decades during which Barack Obama worshipped in the church of the anti-white pastor Jeremiah Wright.

It ignores Obama’s alliance with antisemites such as Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; the high proportion of Judeopobes and anti-Zionists among his advisers; and his hostility towards Israel and ties with pro-Palestinian activists.

And it is blind to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry in the current Democratic Party from members of “the Squad” of four congresswomen who continue to make headlines for their antisemitic rhetoric and actions.

Philip Roth himself never claimed any political analogy for his novel, which was published in 2004. But the narrative does carry echoes of something which American Jews have never subjected to proper critical scrutiny: the troubling record towards the Jewish people of President Franklin D Roosevelt, and the way in which the Jewish community slavishly supported him despite his appalling failure to provide a refuge for European Jews during the Holocaust.

In Roth’s novel, Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, the religious leader of New Jersey Jews and the craven supporter of Lindbergh, resembles if anyone Rabbi Stephen Wise, the community leader who acted as Roosevelt’s cheerleader and thus sanitized his tacit acquiescence in the extermination of Europe’s Jews.

Caroline Glick: Benny Gantz and the pyromaniacal cockpit

Then there is Iran. As the coronavirus rages through Iran, experts warn that the risk of an Iranian strike against Israel rises with the death toll. The theology of Iran's ruling clerics holds that the Shite messiah, the Mahdi, is supposed to return at the end of days. To hasten his arrival, Iran's ayatollahs believe that they need to start Armageddon.

Do the three former IDF chiefs at the helm of Blue and White have any concern over this? Do they have any suggestions for how to handle the threat as Iranians dig more and more mass graves for coronavirus victims?

Which brings us back to Washington: Three weeks ago, I traveled to Washington to speak on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – the largest conservative gathering in America. Most of the discussions were related to U.S. domestic issues. But Israel is so important to conservatives that organizers chose to hold a panel devoted to Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

There were no calls for the partition of Jerusalem and the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria either on the panel or from the audience. On the contrary, the sentiment shared by the audience and the panelists alike was that Israel should assert its sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria wherever it deems necessary.

This salutary state of affairs will be turned on its head if the Democrats win the presidency in November. In that event, Israel will find itself under assault from a hostile president who heads a party hostile to Israel. How would a Blue and White government handle such a challenge? Dependent on the Joint Arab List – which openly seeks Israel's destruction as a Jewish state – for its survival, there can be little doubt that Blue and White would surrender to even the slightest pressure emanating from Washington.

Gantz, Lapid, Yaalon and Ashkenazy are not ideologues – unless detesting Netanyahu with the single-minded venom of a rabid dog is an ideology. They accuse Netanyahu of caring only for himself and pledge to put the country first. But we see that, as Netanyahu labors to save the country from medical and economic collapse, all they can think about is destroying him. Even at the expense of torching Israel's relations with the U.S., endangering the lives and financial stability of its citizens, and disregarding strategic threats and opportunities. They accuse Netanyahu of destroying democracy as they contemptuously ignore Knesset rules in order to pass laws that would nullify both the rule of law and the votes of 2.5 million citizens.

So no, Gantz and his colleagues aren't ideologues.

They are pyromaniacs.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Why Netanyahu must not step down

The coronavirus has largely overshadowed all other topics in the media and almost completely displaced any mention of Netanyahu’s upcoming legal challenges.

Bibi must be complicit in COVID-19 outbreak…
Indeed, upon reflection, perhaps the strangest element of the media coverage of the looming epidemic is that no one has seriously suggested that the entire COVID-19 outbreak is a fiendishly cunning ploy by Netanyahu to deflect public attention from his imminent trial, set to open in the coming weeks.

After all, what better proof could there be that Bibi must be complicit in the global pandemic than the fact that it has eclipsed any almost any and all media coverage of the Prime Minister’s impending trial? (Ed. note: They are, of course, saying that he is taking advantage of the situation, ed.)

As far-fetched as this tongue-in-cheek barb might appear, it does help convey just how outlandish the proportions to which the “Any-One-but Bibi” syndrome have grown and the unscrupulous lengths to which Netanyahu’s chronically Bibiphobic political adversaries are willing to go in their anti-democratic efforts to remove him from office.

Indeed, flummoxed and infuriated by their inability to dislodge him from power via the ballot box and by their failure to find a candidate capable of displacing him on his/hers electoral merits, his political opponents have embarked on a sustained, seemingly obsessive effort to remove him from office by any other means they can concoct/conjure up.

If they were to succeed in this egregious endeavor, it would inflict a mortal blow on the fabric of Israeli democracy. But more on that somewhat later.

Benny Gantz opens door to unity government under Netanyahu

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is willing for the first time to sit in a national-unity government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a rotation in the Prime Minister’s Office, he said Thursday night in an interview with Channel 12.

Gantz was repeatedly asked about the possibility and explained why his campaign promises not to sit under Netanyahu no longer apply during the national emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic. He said he would “do what is needed under the circumstances” and would “have to match the election results with the current situation.”

“It would be irresponsible of me to not consider alternatives and to only stick to statements I made here and someone else made there," Gantz said.

“At this moment, all options have to remain on the table,” he said.

Asked about the possibility that sitting under Netanyahu could break up his party, because MKs Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon would not join such a coalition, Gantz said: “In Blue and White, we know how to conduct political discourse. When the time comes, we will discuss, and we will know how to make the decision.”

Earlier, Gantz and Lapid denied a report that Gantz is willing to break up Blue and White, calling it “cynical spin.” Lapid called it “another failed attempt at political spin by Likud in an attempt to break us up.”

Gantz said his party broke off talks with Likud, there were no meetings to negotiate on Thursday, and no agreements had been reached.

But Channel 13 reported that negotiations between Likud and Blue and White continued Thursday in long and very specific conference calls that made progress, including on the length of Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister in a rotation.

Sources in both Likud and Blue and White said both sides are still fighting over the Justice portfolio. They said they set an artificial deadline of Monday because that is when the Knesset will reconvene and decide which of the two parties will control the post of Knesset speaker and the leadership of key Knesset committees.

Netanyahu called again for a unity government with Blue and White in a statement he delivered at his Jerusalem office on Thursday night.

AnalysisWhy Arab Israeli parties backing Gantz for prime minister is historic twist

Amid all the justifiable focus on the coronavirus and its consequences, there was major political news in Israel this week: Benny Gantz, the Blue and White party leader, was tapped by the president to assemble a government coalition — bringing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu closer to an ouster than he’s been in 11 years.

Buried in the development is a history-making nugget: The Joint List of Arab-dominated parties was among those that recommended Gantz to President Reuven Rivlin as the man they wanted to form a coalition. Its 15 votes provided the necessary majority of 61.

It makes obvious sense: The Arab parties want to oust Netanyahu, whose ministers have reviled their lawmakers as traitors. But the referral heralded a breakthrough of integration that has vexed Jews and Arabs since before the state was established more than seven decades ago.

Here’s what drove the Joint List to recommend Gantz for the prime ministership and what it could mean for Israel.
Why is this historic?

Gantz may not form a government in the next three or so weeks, and if he does, it may be a national unity sharing arrangement with Netanyahu necessitated by the coronavirus that would exclude the Joint List.

In any case, the Joint List would only support the government from outside a coalition — meaning that sometimes it would vote with Gantz and others in the bloc but not officially join the group in name.

There’s no guarantee that will happen. Last week, a key party outside Gantz’s bloc that had pledged support and two others already in his camp threatened to leave the coalition group over Gantz’s negotiations with the Joint List.

But before all that theoretical stuff happens, just the Joint List’s referral, and Gantz’s embrace of it, means an Arab Israeli voice at the national table has taken a leap from unimaginable to inevitable.

Direct Polls: Netanyahu Defeats Blue&White, Forms 62-Seat Coalition in 4th Election

Less than three weeks since the end of the last election campaign and the beginning of the coronavirus crisis in Israel, the two major political trends as the country concludes one of the grimmest weeks in its recent history, are: Netanyahu and the Likud have settled on 40 Knesset seats in a future election; and Benny Gantz is approaching the most critical moment in his fledgling political career, according to Direct Polls.

Gantz managed to do what no other left-leaning candidate had been able to do for nearly two decades: receive the legitimacy and support of more than five rightwing mandates who believed his views were sufficiently rightwing to justify moving behind him and abandoning a declining Netanyahu.

In less than six months after entering politics, Gantz took the reins of the center-left bloc, pushing out of the way his competitors – Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, as well as Avi Gabay, Tzipi Livni and a slew of other qualified and popular Labor politicians.

The secret for being able to attract voters with seemingly contradictory points of view was Gantz’s strategy of agenda ambiguity, which he and the Blue&White campaign team have perfected, attracting the bulk of “anyone but Bibi” voters across the political map. The new party was comprised of so many contradictions, that its four leaders (“The Cockpit”) were making irreconcilable statements every day, and it worked, because, above anything else, they promised to unseat Netanyahu.

Incredible video by @HusseinAboubak about his journey from hating Jews to supporting Israel.

Thank you for standing up for the truth!

Part 1: pic.twitter.com/HKI3iETaFl
— ~Legacy~ נפתלי בן מתתיהו (@Immort4l_Legacy) March 19, 2020

Part 3 and source: https://t.co/0SIq49euhl pic.twitter.com/bXcsQzRFWw
— ~Legacy~ נפתלי בן מתתיהו (@Immort4l_Legacy) March 19, 2020

A former Palestinian terrorist talks. If you watch one video today - watch this one.
Mohammad Massad opens up about the incitement and corruption behind the terrorism. h/t @reservistsduty https://t.co/unWhy23fXj
— David Collier (@mishtal) March 19, 2020

Anti-Israel Democrat Upsets House Incumbent; Neo-Nazi Fails in Republican Primary

While Newman has expressed support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she wrote on her campaign website, “I support the right of the Palestinian people and their supporters to use non-violent means to oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza, including the First Amendment right to pursue the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, popularly known as BDS, and I will oppose any federal, state, or local legislation to make it illegal or criminalize their First Amendment rights to support boycotts, divestitures or sanctions.”

In 2018, when Newman narrowly lost to Lipinski, an advertisement that has since resurfaced features attacks on her opponent for his support of AIPAC and his stance against the BDS movement.

In the resurfaced ad, Edwards Realty Company president Edward Hassan says Lipinski “was the first one that signed to outlaw the BDS,” referring to the Protect Academic Freedom Act, which the congressman introduced in 2014 with then-Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). The legislation would have prohibited federal funds towards institutions that participate in boycotting Israeli institutions or scholars.

“I make no apologies for being opposed to BDS and standing strong to condemn antisemitism in every form it takes. As co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Caucus, I remain focused on eradicating anti-Semitism and religious intolerance of any kind,” Lipinski told JNS last month. “It speaks volumes about my opponent that she would make this divisive ad, and that her campaign chair would make such inflammatory statements.”

Regarding Jones’s defeat, Strauss said it was expected; still, RJC is “very pleased to see that Jones got crushed,” as he “isn’t a Republican, he didn’t belong in our party’s primary, and he has no place in polite society.”

Tariq Ramadan holds a Qatar-funded Islam teaching post at Oxford & was a media favorite. Less known: he failed his 1998 Ph.D. examination, but his guru Jean Ziegler—longest-serving @UNHumanRights expert—pressured Geneva university to graduate him anyway.https://t.co/Xbp2WzOhqE
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 19, 2020

Wow! This faculty petition @columbia against #antisemitism has only been open for signature a few hours & already it’s gaining steam. Signatures are coming in from prominent members of the faculty (@ the Law School, Business School, Medical School, School of Journalism & more). https://t.co/DEzZ6bF5pA
— Miriam F. Elman (@MiriamElman) March 19, 2020

Does the BBC know the difference between government and state?

The Israel Antiquities Authority (founded in 1990) is a partly government funded body which is classified as an independent government authority and which is responsible for implementing the 1978 Antiquities Law which states that:

“When an antiquity is discovered or found in Israel after the coming into force of this Law, it shall within boundaries fixed by the Director become the property of the State.”

So where did the BBC get the idea that “[t]he majority [of the scrolls] are held in a collection by the Israeli government” rather than by the Israel Antiquities Authority?

Perhaps the answer to that question can be found in the Wikipedia entry for the Dead Sea Scrolls which states:

“Almost all of the Dead Sea Scrolls are currently in the collection of the Government of the State of Israel…”

Apparently the BBC journalist who wrote this report does not understand the difference between government and state.

While the rest of us try to pull together to get through the crisis...

YouTube Is Letting Millions Of People Watch Videos Promoting Misinformation About Coronavirus

Including by David “Jews are secretly lizards” Icke 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

This is a problem.https://t.co/49Vy1oCwOa
— Rachel Riley 🍊 (@RachelRileyRR) March 19, 2020

Washington state man arrested for alleged antisemitic threats to neighbor

A Washington state man was arrested on suspicion of making antisemitic threats against a neighbor who took in his 13-year-old child when the teen needed a place to live.

According to the criminal complaint against Matthew Douglas Kane, he posted personal information about his neighbor online and threatened to harm her on multiple occasions in January, the Justice Department said in a statement. It also said that “Kane posted anti-Semitic comments and threatened to harm state Child Protective Services workers, members of law enforcement and Jews.”

Kane, 48, identified himself as a white nationalist and used a screen name and images involving Nazi symbols. He indicated in several posts that he manufactured guns and ammunition. A search of his home and vehicle did not recover any firearms.

Kane was charged Tuesday in US District Court in Tacoma with cyberstalking and two counts of interstate threats. Both charges are punishable by up to five years in prison.

The FBI is investigating the case.

‘Miss Hitler’ and accomplices convicted of membership in banned far-right terrorist group National Action

A woman who entered a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant in order to attract new members to the neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, has been found guilty of membership in the proscribed organisation following a retrial in Birmingham Crown Court.

Alice Cutter, who is 23 years old, used the name “Buchenwald Princess” to enter the online ‘National Action Miss Hitler 2016’ contest in June 2016, weeks after her now ex-partner, Mark Jones, visited the execution room of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Ms Cutter was described as a “central spoke” of the banned group, exchanging hundreds of messages, including racist and antisemitic material, attending meetings with group leaders despite the ban, posing for a Nazi salute outside Leeds Town Hall in 2016 and attending a demonstration in York in May 2016.

Mr Jones is reportedly a “leader and strategist” of the organisation, as well as a former member of the British National Party’s youth wing. The court heard that he held “feelings of admiration” for Adolf Hitler and had a special wedding edition of Mein Kampf. He also gave a Nazi salute on his visit to Buchenwald’s execution chamber.

Also convicted were Garry Jack, 24, who reportedly self-identifies as a Nazi, and nineteen-year-old Connor Scothern, who was apparently a practicing Muslim and activist with the extreme anti-fascist group, Antifa, before joining National Action.

Another defendant, Daniel Ward, 28, pleaded guilty to being a member of National Action last year. He was jailed for three years.

Coronavirus: Jews deliver food to Poles who saved Jews during Holocaust

As a teenager in Warsaw during the Holocaust, Krystyna Kowalska helped save a Jewish family of four who hid at her family’s bakery.

She does not remember being afraid, even though if they had been discovered her whole family would have almost certainly been shot dead on the spot along with the Jews they hid.

But now, at the age of 88, Kowalska is fearing for her life because of the coronavirus, the fatality rate of which is especially high in individuals older than 70.

“It’s a scary time for me to be outside as I see the impact of this virus on my age group,” said Kowalska, a widow whose son has died and who lives alone in a third-story apartment without an elevator.

Across the world, people from her generation have minimized their interaction with the outside world to avoid contracting COVID-19.
For rescuers of Jews in Warsaw, that task became considerably easier this week.

Birthright Excel alumni launch drive to deliver food, medicine to elderly

Birthright Excel, the entrepreneurship, leadership and business program of Birthright Israel, has encouraged its alumni community across North America and Israel to develop new initiatives to overcome the new challenges caused by the spread of the coronavirus and help those in need.

The elderly are among those who are most vulnerable to the outbreak. Some of them are isolated, in self-quarantine, unable to leave their homes and need help to purchase food and medicine. To support them, Birthright Excel alumni Lior Avisar and Maya Klein launched the 'Door to Dor' project.

Through the initiative, volunteers who sign up purchase medicine, food and any other products that elderly people in their communities need, and drop them off at their front door. There are no not physical contact between volunteers and the elderly, and volunteers have to wear protective gear. After leaving the building, volunteers call to ensure that everything was delivered.

'Door to Dor' was launched this week and has already recruited over 1,000 volunteers. The door2dor.co.il website, available in English and Hebrew, allows people to fill out forms to either ask for help or become a volunteer.

"As Fellows in the Birthright Excel Community, Birthright's Entrepreneurship and Leadership Program, we were called on last Thursday to develop a social initiative and assist those in need," Lior Avisar and Maya Kelin, the founders of 'Door to Dor' said.

"We immediately focused on the elderly who are in much risk from the virus and locked in their homes, and realized that all they needed was a courier. Our plan fell into place and we knew how to help. We have built a large team of hard-working volunteers and together with Birthright, we have couriers serving the elderly across Israel. We know that this is only the beginning of the project and look forward to a more secure and positive future," they added.

24 New Olim to Israel Arrive From US on Group Flight

Twenty-four people hailing from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Thursday to start new lives in Israel through an aliyah flight and program organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh, in cooperation with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund-USA.

The new immigrants (olim) included 10 families and singles ranging in ages from a 9-month-old to a 73-year-old, and two sisters who decided to make aliyah together.

Nefesh B’Nefesh has set up a dedicated hotline for the new arrivals during this time in order to maintain as close contact as possible and lend any support needed. In addition, special funding has been allocated for this purpose in order to offer any additional assistance needed at this time.

The two-dozen individuals will move directly into quarantine for 14 days in cities across Israel, including Jerusalem, Beersheva, Holon, Modi’in, Netanya, Ra’anana, Tzfat and Yad Binyamin.

Among the olim who landed this morning were Aviva and Tzvi Karoly with their two young children.

“When we first learned that we would likely be put in mandatory quarantine upon arrival, I was a bit freaked out,” acknowledged Aviva Karoly in a goodbye letter to her community of Washington Heights, NY. “However, within minutes of my posting on a Facebook page for the community, I was inundated with volunteers offering to bring us groceries, toys, books and anything else we might need. Complete strangers were literally lining up to help us.”

National Library offers free audiobooks amid coronavirus closures

The National Library of Israel announced this week that due to the recent closures of schools and educational facilities to contain the spread of the novel COVID-19, it will be offering free audiobooks as part of "Pocket Library," an initiative to make books readily available.

The initiative was taken up by the library's Israel National Center for Humanities Education, in partnership with the Education Ministry.

The initial books offered are those for children and youth written by well-known Israeli authors, such as The Morroccan Boy's Love by Dorit Orgad and Uncle Arie's Adventures in the Tibetan Ocean by Yannets Levi.

The books will be available through the iCast app with the authors' consent.

The initiative has been offering over 50 audiobooks with enrichment activities attached to over 5,000 schoolkids participating across the country.

Idan Raichel to give special online live performance on Sunday

On Sunday, March 22, world renowned Israeli artist Idan Raichel will give a special online live performance from his living room. In partnership with the Jewish Agency, the event will be live-streamed at 4 pm EST / 10pm Israel time. The concert is open to all and hundreds around the world are expected to connect.

"Idan Raichel has performed throughout the globe promoting his belief in the power of music to uplift and unite people. In these challenging times, The Jewish Agency is delighted to bring the music of Idan Raichel into homes around the world, enabling all to join together and share in a message of love and hope from Israel," said the Jewish Agency in a statement.

We expect the singer to perform some of his most famous songs, including 'Shevet Ahim Veahot'.

While many events and concerts had to be cancelled due to new restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, many Israeli artists have turned to live-streams to share their music.

Churches in Haifa ring bells in parallel to public applause to medical team across the country pic.twitter.com/ro2Mb1qDIX
— sami abed alhamed سامي عبد الحميد (@samiaah10) March 19, 2020

Just beautiful! From their windows, balconies and porches all across #Israel tonight, people came out to show their support and appreciation for our amazing doctors, nurses & medical teams fighting the #CoronaVirus! 🙏 👩‍⚕️ 👨‍⚕️ 🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/9pKovbwoSI
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 19, 2020

Heartwarming Applause for Israeli Doctors During Coronavirus

In a stunning display of solidarity today, thousands around Israel stood and loudly applauded the healthcare & medical professionals working tirelessly against #COVID19 to save lives.

Wherever you are in the world, take a moment to applaud those keeping you safe and healthy.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.