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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Thursday, March 12, 2020

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Israeli border police wear protective gear and masks at the Ein Yael Checkpoint, near the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, March 11, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Virus cases in Israel hit 104, including 2 more children, arrivals from New York

An ambulance carrying an Israeli man who returned from Italy and tested positive for coronavirus arrives at Tel Hashomer Hospital, February 27, 2020 (Flash 90)

Emergency room doctor at Israeli hospital diagnosed with coronavirus

$Bat-Galim Shaer (L), Racheli Frenkel (C), and Iris Ifrach (R), light a torch during the main rehearsal of the 71st anniversary Independence Day ceremony, held at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, on April 6, 2019.(Hadas Parush/Flash90)$

Independence Day torch lighting to be held without spectators amid virus threat

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces new restrictions to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus during a press conference at his office in Jerusalem on March 11, 2020. (Flash90)

As virus cases mount, Israel bans gatherings of more than 100 people

Netanyahu says COVID-19 ‘global plague,’ tells Israelis to change daily routines; ban applies to weddings, synagogues; universities may need to teach remotely; 82 cases confirmed

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference about the coronavirus COVID-19, at the Prime Ministers Office in Jerusalem on March 11, 2020. (Flash90)

Israel media reviewLess than one hundred’s a crowd: 6 things to know for March 12

The Israeli Premier League match between Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv at the Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem on February 17, 2020. (Flash90)

Games without fans, weddings without guests: Ban on gatherings cramps daily life

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz at a memorial ceremony marking 24 years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in the Knesset on November 10, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Live updates (closed)

Netanyahu said to invite Gantz for talks on emergency government to combat virus

PM says coalition would ‘fight together to save the lives of tens of thousands’; due to ban on gatherings of over 100 people, Knesset members to be sworn-in in 3 separate groups

7:23 pm

France to close schools to curb spread of coronavirus
7:14 pm

Netanyahu said to invite Gantz for talks on emergency government to combat virus
7:05 pm

NY governor bans gatherings of over 500 people, including Broadway

US President Donald Trump speaks in an address to the nation from the Oval Office at the White House about the coronavirus Wednesday, March, 11, 2020, in Washington. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Trump suspends all travel between US and Europe, except UK, for 30 days

By LISA MASCARO, Andrew Taylor, Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller

In Oval Office address to nation, US president blames EU for not acting quickly enough to address the ‘foreign virus,’ says US clusters ‘seeded’ by European travelers

EU chiefs slam US travel ban for 26 European countries to stem virus outbreak

Locked out: Europeans grapple with new US travel ban

By John Leicester

Can South Korea be a model for virus-hit countries?

By AFP

Real Madrid's midfielder Casemiro (L) challenges Barcelona's forward Lionel Messi during the Spanish League soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid on March 1, 2020. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP)

‘It was worth it,’ says Israeli boy who got virus after El Clásico soccer match

9-year-old Sa’ar Kahane has few regrets about contracting coronavirus following trip to Spain for Real Madrid-Barcelona game

Modiin teacher infected with virus; 174 students and staff sent to quarantine

Airport worker infected with coronavirus in serious condition

Greek tourist who recently visited Israel dies of coronavirus

Israelis take part in celebrations marking 71st Independence Day, in Jerusalem on May 8, 2019. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Op-ed

The day Netanyahu, trying to stop a pandemic, told us to rethink human contact

No handshakes, hugs, kisses. No trips abroad. Caps on weddings, shows, communal prayer. We’re asked to remake the way we interact, but it might be the only way to live through this

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, right, and Health Ministry General Manager Moshe Bar Siman-Tov at a press conference about the coronavirus at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, March 11, 2020. (Flash90)

Full textNetanyahu on beating the virus: ‘We love to embrace, shake hands, kiss. No more’

A Magen David Adom paramedic performs a coronavirus test on a volunteer at the coronavirus national operations center in Kiryat Ono, February 26, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Israel to quadruple coronavirus testing in coming days

What Israelis saw when they saw me: Chinese. Dangerous.

‘CORONAVIRUS’ someone screamed. I turned around, and saw a teenager snickering at me. What can we learn from this?

Shmuly Yanklowitz

A rabbi’s prescription for the coronavirus

I’ll leave physical healing to the doctors. For spiritual inspiration, my guidance includes: be compassionate, be patient and, yes, be afraid

Get this Nazi out of Canada now

Lawyers for this member of a notorious death squad appallingly claim he’s too feeble to be deported. His victims had no such protection

Howard Goldsmith

Jewish geography and Cuomo’s New Rochelle mistake

The governor’s arbitrary one-mile containment policy disregards the Orthodox community’s social patterns and endangers local children

A robot cleans the hall of empty check-in counters at the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

El Al to suspend 80% of workforce, cancel most flights as virus guts business

Union offers to suspend most pilots without pay to help Israel’s flag carrier weather storm, calls on government to aid virus-hit company

The closed off duty free shopping area at the Ben Gurion International Airport on March 11, 2020. Flash90)

Israel announces $2.8 billion rescue package for companies battered by virus

A stock market ticker screen in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, March 9, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, global markets plunge after virus declared pandemic

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Workers wearing protective gears disinfect as a precaution against the new coronavirus at the subway station in Seoul, South Korea on March 11, 2020. (Kim Sun-woong/Newsis via AP)

With virus spreading, WHO declares COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic

By Nicole Winfield, Colleen Barry and John Leicester

In using charged word that it had previously shied away from, UN health agency intent on shaking more lethargic countries into taking more aggressive steps against contagion

A worker from a Servpro disaster recovery team wearing a protective suit and respirator peers out a window as he waits to exit the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, for a break from cleaning the facility, March 11, 2020 (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

World walls off as leaders warn viral pandemic will worsen

By Matt Sedensky and Jamey Keaten

French lab scientists in hazmat gear inserting liquid in test tube manipulate potentially infected patient samples at Pasteur Institute in Paris, February 6, 2020. (Francois Mori/AP)

Defense Ministry denies ‘breakthrough’ on vaccine for COVID-19

By Judah Ari Gross

Shas party chairman Interior Minister Aryeh Deri addresses supporters at the Shas party event for the Jewish new year in Jerusalem on September 24, 2019. (Flash90)

Shas’s Deri calls for ‘national emergency government’ to tackle coronavirus

By Raoul Wootliff

Blue and White’s Lapid says Netanyahu doesn’t want unity: ‘He has made a decision to go to 4th elections’

Blue and White MKs Ofer Shelah (L) and Avi Nissenkorn hold talks with Joint List MKS Mtanes Shihadeh, Ahmad Tibi, Aida Touma-Sliman and Mansour Abbas in the Knesset on March 11, 2020. (Courtesy)

Joint List holds talks with Blue and White on giving Gantz nod for PM

Activists and supporters of the Druze community in Israel protest against the national-state law recently passed by the Knesset for its ostensible discrimination against the community, at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on August 4, 2018. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Support for Joint List increased in all Druze villages but one, results show

Muslim worshipers perform prayers at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, September 12, 2016. (Sliman Khader/Flash90/File)

PA lambastes US for calling East Jerusalem Palestinians ‘Arab residents’

Abbas spokesman says State Department’s annual human rights report is ‘falsifying history’

An ultra-Orthodox man walks near a Likud party billboard for Israel's upcoming general elections on February 17, 2020, showing the portraits of (L to R) Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White political alliance and Ahmad Tibi, Knesset member for the Joint List, with a caption reading, 'Gantz has no government without Tibi.' (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

US chides Likud campaign for ‘promoting hatred’ against Arab Israelis

By Raphael Ahren

Palestinians shopping in the market in Jerusalem's Old City on November 22, 2019. (Sara Klatt/Flash90)

US calls East Jerusalem Palestinians ‘Arab residents’ or ‘non-Israeli citizens’

Empty shelves at a supermarket in Tel Aviv. Israelis are stockpiling food as the government takes stricter precautions against the Corona virus, March 10, 2020. (Yossi Zamir/FLASH90)

Amid virus, Israel has enough food available for foreseeable future — officials

Despite pandemic wreaking havoc on supply chain, country will have plenty of supplies through Passover and beyond by relying on produce grown here, according to agriculture experts

Illustrative: Shipping containers at the Haifa port, November 14, 2011. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90.)

Israel’s exports more vulnerable to virus crisis than its imports

Passengers at the Erez border crossing that is used by Gazans coming for medical treatment in Israel. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)

Defense Ministry extends Gaza, Bethlehem closures due to virus outbreak

Masbia kosher supervisor Pesach Gittleson assembles boxes containing food for people who may be quarantined or unable to obtain food due to the coronavirus outbreak. (Alexander Rapaport via JTA)

Analysis

Josefin Dolsten

Preparing for ‘worst-case scenario’: US Jewish aid groups scramble amid outbreak

Kosher soup kitchens work to feed families whose needs might grow as quarantines, school closures and work cancellations become more widespread

Illustrative: People wearing face masks at the Ben Gurion International Airport on March 10, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/ Flash90)

2,000 Israeli national service women to return from overseas amid virus outbreak

By PHILISSA CRAMER and Ben Harris

Rabbi Dov Singer at a playground in Jerusalem, on April 5, 2016 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israeli rabbi found to have virus said to have visited Ohio, Florida, NY

Robert Neumark-Jones as Jesse and Asha Reid as Alex in Stephen Laughton's 'One Jewish Boy.' (Courtesy)

Interview

Hot-button play about mixed-race interfaith couple opens in London’s West End

By Curt Schleier

Eden had her braid measured to see if it was long enough to donate at Ophir Hashmonai's salon in Jerusalem (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)

Israelis keep donating hair for cancer charity’s wig project

By Jessica Steinberg

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More Headlines

Harvey Weinstein arrives at a Manhattan courthouse for his rape trial, February 24, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape, sexual assault

By Michael R. Sisak, Tom Hays and Jennifer Peltz

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to reporters on March 11, 2020, in Burlington, Vermont. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Defiant Sanders vows to press on with primary bid despite Tuesday losses

By Steve Peoples, WILSON RING and Will Weissert

A Kuhl’s pipistrelle bat. (CC BY-SA, Salix, via Wikipedia)

Farmers should turn to bats to combat destructive pests, Israeli researchers say

Police and investigators look at what remains of the flight deck of Pan Am 103 in a field in Lockerbie, Scotland, December 22, 1988. (photo credit: AP)

Family of man convicted of Lockerbie bombing can appeal

By AFP

Donald Trump addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, DC, December 3, 2015. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

After Trump cancels amid virus, Republican Jewish Coalition conference postponed

By ToI Staff and Agencies

The ruins of gas chambers and crematoria at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau, January 28, 2020. (Yaakov Schwartz/ Times of Israel)

Auschwitz closes to visitors over coronavirus fears

By JTA and ToI Staff

Tom Hanks, left, and Rita Wilson arrive at the Oscars on February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson test positive for coronavirus

By AP

Iranian firefighters disinfect streets and alleys in southern Tehran to halt the spread of coronavirus on March 11, 2020 (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran seeks billions in loans to fight virus, as death toll rises by 75

By AFP

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with banking industry executives at the White House, in Washington, March 11, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP)

US Congress seeks to curb Trump’s ability to launch military action in Iran

By Matthew Daly

Illustrative: Coalition forces train Iraqi soldiers during a military exercise at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, Iraq, March 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

US, UK troops among 3 dead in Iraq rocket attack

By AFP

A boy visiting the Kazerne Dossin Holocaust museum in Mechelen, Belgium, on December 22, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)

Historians quit Belgian Holocaust museum over honor for anti-Israel activist

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Gilbert Chikli giving an interview in Israel at his Ashdod home, December 29, 2015. (Courtesy of i24 News/ via JTA)

French court jails Franco-Israeli pair who posed as top minister in scam

By AFP

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