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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Wednesday, March 18, 2020

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An Israeli firefighter wearing protective clothes disinfects a bus station in the ultra-Orthodox town of Kiryat Ye'arim (Telz-Stone), on March 18, 2020, after seventeen of the city's residents were found to have coronavirus. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Live updates (closed)

Defense Ministry takes over buying corona-related gear amid claims of shortages

By Joshua Davidovich and Judah Ari Gross

Decision comes after reports of insufficient protective gear and testing kits; Health Ministry will say what’s needed, while Defense Ministry makes the purchases

9:19 pm

Teachers strike deal with government after being forced into unpaid leave
9:08 pm

Chief rabbi says keep phones nearby on Shabbat in case of lifesaving messages
8:39 pm

Police break up another wedding violating Health Ministry's coronavirus rules

Avi Simhon, the chairman of National Economic Council, at a conference organized by the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon in Jerusalem, December 8, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Interview'We're weighing risks... Spain was where we are 11 days ago'

PM’s top economic adviser: Lockdown will come when we feel we’re losing control

By Raphael Ahren

Avi Simhon explains how Israel’s leadership is deciding on policy; estimates coronavirus crisis could cost economy more than NIS 50 billion but says it will quickly bounce back

Number of Israelis with coronavirus jumps to 433

Partial shutdown set to cost 170,000 independent Israeli workers NIS 3 billion

By Luke Tress and ToI Staff

Public transportation to stop early every night, won’t operate on weekends

Interview

Israeli scientist: You’re not going to see millions of people die from COVID-19

The new coronavirus is ’80 percent identical’ to the 2002-3 SARS, says Prof. Shy Arkin. On the whole it causes a mild respiratory tract infection. But the elderly are the exception

This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the US, emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. (NIAID-RML / Wikipedia)

A firefighter sprays disinfectant in a children's playground in the city of Modiin on March 17, 2020, after Israel barred residents from leaving home for "non-essential" reasons and stopped nighttime public transportation, tightening already strict measures to fight the spread of coronavirus. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

Psychologist: Israel now using ‘national anxiety’ to help fight coronavirus

By Nathan Jeffay

Former Israeli Medical Association president Dr. Leonid Eidelman (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

InterviewComplete lockdown would cause more harm than good, dissenting top doctor claims

By Raphael Ahren

Then-public security minister Gilad Erdan, at a press conference on January 2, 2019. (Flash90)

Police told to prepare for ‘inevitable’ nationwide lockdown

Public security minister says preferable to take tough measures for a short time in order to defeat the coronavirus quickly and prevent deaths

Prisons locked down over coronavirus fears

By ToI Staff and AP

Netanyahu rebukes a complacent Israeli public: This isn’t vacation. Stay home!

IDF, going on war footing to fight virus, expects crisis could last up to a year

An Israeli wearing a face mask walks in the city center of Jerusalem on March 17, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

First quarantine-breaker charged as police seek to keep Israelis at home

Suspect accused of going out on 3 occasions in as many days; over 80 others under investigation; 12 probed for spreading fake news about pandemic

4 arrested after ultra-Orthodox wedding violates coronavirus restrictions

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

More than 150 defy coranavirus orders to attend ultra-Orthodox wedding in Israel

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

100 people test positive for coronavirus in Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood

More than 150 ultra-Orthodox Jews defy Health Ministry coronavirus warnings and take part in a wedding in the city of Beit Shemesh on March 17, 2020 (Screen capture: Channel 12)

Israel media review

Rules are (apparently) meant to be broken: 6 things to know for March 18

After large groups of Israelis are seen congregating countrywide, media outlets join Netanyahu in scolding people into staying home; sadly, some still haven’t gotten the message

Police moving to increase enforcement of social distancing rules

Memorial Day events to be canceled or held without audience amid corona outbreak

By Judah Ari Gross

Virus reaches halls of power: Ministers Deri, Hanegbi and 2 MKs quarantined

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

Elana Stein Hain

Soul and breath: A prayer

In the absence of all the communal gathering that provides comfort and focus, I have written a prayer to help us cope

Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Video communication in the time of Corona

Sure, you may be great in front of a live audience. Connecting with online viewers is different. Here’s how to get your message across

Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer

I can’t visit my son who has autism

On our last routine visit, I didn’t know that it would be the last moment I would be in the same room with him, indefinitely

Back to the sources: Jewish wisdom for a time like this

Unite. Leave no one behind. Pray. Preserve hope. It’s all there in the texts that have always offered sustenance in a crisis

Blue and White MK Yair Lapid speaks at the Maariv conference in Herzliya, on February 26, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Blue and White’s Lapid: Virus response shows Israel ‘no longer a democracy’

Benny Gantz’s No. 2 lambastes government’s closure of courts ahead of Netayahu trial, digital tracking of patients; claims measures being taken by ‘illegitimate government’

AnalysisCan Gantz form a government as Israel fights the coronavirus? Should he?

By Raoul Wootliff

Another Blue and White MK said to oppose minority government

Renegade MK files breakaway request from Labor-Meretz after U-turn on Joint List

An Israeli security guard measures the temperature of a woman at the entrance to a retirement home in the Ramat Efal district of Ramat Gan in Israel, on March 17, 2020. (PJACK GUEZ / AFP)

Explainer

The ‘Big Brother’ surveillance that may put you in quarantine… or keep you out

Netanyahu won’t be reading your WhatsApp messages, but the government will know exactly where you’ve been, and who you were with, as a result of new tracking

High Court to discuss petition against tracking virus carriers’ phones

Knesset speaker to okay parliamentary oversight of virus response amid outcry

Apocalyptic surpriseIsraeli ‘Big Brother’ cast finally being told about extent of pandemic

By Gabe Friedman

As coronavirus spreads, many Israeli seniors stuck at home, isolated and afraid

By Simona Weinglass

Those in nursing homes are under lockdown and at risk of contagion, while those at home pass the time as best they can cut off from family, friends and activities

Amid fears of coronavirus, senior citizens in Tel Aviv sit two meters apart on March 15, 2020. (Simona Weinglass/Times of Israel)

During the coronavirus, the Israel went virtual; here, curator Shirly Ben-Dor Evian at Emoglyphs Picture-Writing from Hieroglyphs to the Emoji at the Israel Museum (Courtesy Sophia Kartavtzeva)

Israel’s museums go online for immersive experience amid pandemic

By Jessica Steinberg

Idan Raichel played a concert onstage, and alone for the Zappa Group, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as the clubs offered free, online concerts of well-known Israeli musicians (Zappa Group)

Israeli promoters and theaters go online to offer at-home entertainment

By Jessica Steinberg

Ofer Levy heads the Precision Vaccines Program (PVP) at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he is working on a coronavirus vaccine. (Courtesy Ofer Levy)

Interview

Racing for a coronavirus vaccine, Boston scientist hopes someone beats him to it

By Rich Tenorio

FILE - Palestinian laborers enter Israel to work through a checkpoint between the West Bank city of Hebron and Beersheva while carrying blankets and mattresses on March 18, 2020, as for the first time they have to stay for one to two months inside Israel amid the coronavirus pandemic. (HAZEM BADER / AFP)

Coordinating with Abbas, Israel puts virus closure on PA-ruled West Bank areas

By AFP and Adam Rasgon

Palestinians who work in Israel have until Friday to decide whether to stay home or remain in Israel for 1-2 months

PA puts Bethlehem-area village on lockdown after 3 more coronavirus cases

PA says movement between Israel and West Bank to be cut off in three days

Officials step up Arabic-language virus news, though Hebrew info more detailed

Kent Lundin, 73, a retired ambulance driver from Kolback, Sweden, has cancer. He lost hundreds of thousands of Swedish crowns to Milton Group (Alexander Mahmoud/Dagens Nyheter)

Israeli-run scam in Kyiv shows how binary options industry has mutated

By Simona Weinglass

John Turturro as a rabbi and supporter of Charles Lindbergh in 'The Plot Against America.' (Michele K. Short/HBO/via JTA)

Interview

David Simon didn’t like Philip Roth’s ‘The Plot Against America’ — until now

By Curt Schleier

Trucks are jammed in the early morning on Autobahn 12 in front of the German-Polish border crossing near Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, March 18, 2020. (Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)

World virus infections hit 200,000; borders jammed in Europe

By David Rising and Chris Blake

Global death toll from COVID-19 tops 8,000, as new measures cause miles of traffic near European and Southeast Asian borders

Political leaders failed to grasp magnitude of virus crisis, EU leader says

By AFP

Huge disruption as EU shuts borders; nations try to slow virus, help economies

By David Rising and Tim Sullivan

New York City considering stay-at-home order within 48 hours

By AFP

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More Headlines

A person films Israel from the buffer zone between Syria and Israel in what the IDF says was an effort to prepare for a sniper attack, as seen in a surveillance photo released by the military on March 17, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF says Hezbollah, Syrian army behind attempted sniper attack on border

By Judah Ari Gross

The empty departure hall at Ben Gurion International Airport, March 11, 2020. (Flash90)

El Al cuts passenger flights to 4 per day, puts most workers on unpaid leave

2020 Abel Prize winner, Prof. Hillel Furstenberg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Yosef Adest / Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Hebrew University professor awarded ‘math Nobel’

Volunteers sort produce at the warehouse of Leket Israel, the country's largest food-rescue organization. (Ben Sales/JTA)

Food charities call on government to chip in during virus crises

By Stuart Winer and ToI Staff

Checkmarx's Founder and CTO, Maty Siman, left, and CEO Emmanuel Benzaquen, right

Israeli cybersecurity firm Checkmarx to be acquired for $1.15 billion

Barak Ben-Ami, center, arrives for a court hearing at the Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court on March 8, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Father suspected of murdering daughter: ‘I don’t know what happened to me’

Illustrative: Another couple, Nina Abrahams and Amit Bigler, had to get creative when coronavirus affected wedding. (Nadav C.J. Photographer via JTA)

Undeterred by virus, couple plans wedding in Israel in less than 24 hours

By Josefin Dolsten and Cnaan Liphshiz

The Varsity Theater, home to concerts, used the marquee to address the need for washing hands due to the coronavirus, the disease that is caused by the new coronavirus, March 16, 2020 near the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Disney postpones Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Black Widow’ as US cinemas close

By AP and ToI Staff

Daniella Goldberg (left), with Culture Minister Miri Regev, inspects the damage caused by a large stone that dislodged from the Western Wall in Jerusalem Old City on July 23, 2013, at the mixed-gender prayer section. The boulder fell close to where Goldberg was praying. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Work to secure Western Wall stones in egalitarian area completed

Former US Vice President Joe Biden participates in a Democratic presidential primary debate at CNN Studios in Washington, March 15, 2020. (AP/Evan Vucci)

3 more Biden victories increase pressure on Sanders to quit

By Will Weissert and BRIAN SLODYSKO

US rapper Jay Electronica performs on stage on Day 2 of the 2018 Governors Ball Music Festival on June 2, 2018, in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images via JTA)

Rapper sparks anti-Semitism outcry with Rothschild, ‘synagogue of Satan’ lyrics

By Gabe Friedman

Tablets of ibuprofen. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

Avoid taking ibuprofen for COVID-19 symptoms, says World Health Organization

By AFP

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