Join our Community

Support ToI and remove all ads

Learn more

English
Français
עברית

Get The Daily Edition
Account
Sign In
- Sign in
- Join our Community

Open Search form

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners

Input search

English
Français
עברית

Latest Articles
Latest Alerts
Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners
Community
- Join our community
- Sign in
- About The Times of Israel
- Advertise on The Times of Israel
- Contact us
- Download our App
  - For IOS users
  - For Android users
- Get the Daily Edition
- Follow us
- © 2026 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved
  
  Terms and conditions Privacy policy Your Privacy Rights

Input search

The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Facebook
Twitter

View previous edition

View next edition

A paramedic of Israel's Magen David Adom national emergency medical service handles a swab to test for coronavirus at a drive-thru testing site in the northern Israeli city of Tamra on March 31, 2020. (Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)

Live updates (Closed)

Coronavirus cases surge to 5,358 in largest single-day spike

Over 660 cases reported since Monday evening; 94 people in serious condition, including 76 hooked up to ventilators

8:42 pm

Night music for a time of coronavirus
8:30 pm

Virus racing through US aircraft carrier, captain says
8:28 pm

Two more coronavirus cases found in Gaza

Tamar Peretz-Levi, 49, of Lod, who died of the coronavirus on March 31, 2020. (courtesy)

Three women – 49, 50 and 90 years old – die of virus, as death toll rises to 18

Hospitals say the women, the youngest Israelis to die of the disease, had preexisting conditions; 484 cases diagnosed in past 24 hours; of 4,831 total, 83 in serious condition

Poriya Hospital in Tiberias. (Courtesy)

Coronavirus patient, 34, jumps out of hospital window

Johnny, the bus driver from East Jerusalem who recovered from the coronavirus, is released from hospital, photo undated. (Maya Tzaben/Baruch Padeh Medical Center)

Bus driver who was Israel’s first serious virus patient makes full recovery

Analysis

Cathryn J. Prince

In the eye of NY’s coronavirus storm, ultra-Orthodox face rising anti-Semitism

Insular NY communities are hard-hit by coronavirus due to communal lifestyle and lack of outside information, but leaders say the public safety message is now spreading quickly

A worker covering in personal protective equipment power washes a school bus that serves an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in the Brooklyn borough of New York, March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

NY governor begs for help amid ‘staggering’ death toll at outbreak’s epicenter

By Jocelyn Noveck, Larry Neumeister and MARINA VILLENEUVE

How would overwhelmed US hospitals decide who to treat first?

By Candice Choi, Lori Hinnant and Nicole Winfield

IDF and US hold F-35 drill, delayed by virus, over southern Israel

By Judah Ari Gross

Prof. Isaiah (Shy) Arkin in his lab at the Hebrew University, March 29, 2020 (ToI staff)

The goal: To inhibit a protein critical to the virus

‘Science will conquer this’: Inside the race for a coronavirus treatment

By David Horovitz

Labs worldwide are testing 6,125 chemicals against the two dozen proteins of COVID-19. A Hebrew University prof takes ToI into one such lab

Some of the anti-coronavirus products available via the Tikkun Olam Movement. (Courtesy TOM - Tikkun Olam Makers)

Israeli-created movement harnesses tech brains worldwide to fight coronavirus

An iPhone running the Health Ministry's HaMagen app, which aims to track the spread of the novel coronavirus and warn users if they have interacted with someone infected. (Sam Sokol)

By voice or location, Israeli apps can determine your risk of coronavirus

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Police patrol the ultra-Orthodox Jewish town of Bnei Brak, on March 30, 2020. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Health minister asks Netanyahu to quarantine virus-hit Bnei Brak

Litzman wants police to control entrance, exit, and provide food, essentials to residents of mainly ultra-Orthodox city with high number of cases due to lack of adherence to rules

Illustrative: Beds at a new coronavirus critical care unit at Sheba Medical Center (Courtesy)

Residents of ultra-Orthodox cities diverted from ER of major Israeli hospital

Illustrative: A mikveh immersion for the purpose of conversion to Judaism. (Mayyim Hayyim/Tom Kates via JTA)

Women’s ritual baths remain open during pandemic, but fail to wash away fears

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men pray outside a closed yeshiva, in the town of Bnei Brak, on March 26, 2020. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Government issues updated restrictions, including ban on outside prayers

Employers told to reduce workforce outside homes to 15% of normal capacity, while employees coming in to work must report their body temperature daily

Figures offer cautious hope that restrictions may be curbing coronavirus spread

By Nathan Jeffay

Health Ministry readying orders requiring masks be worn in public

Knesset fights Bennett’s proposal to let IDF and NSO Group track virus patients

By Judah Ari Gross

From the blogs

A night like one other night

This year, just as on that first Passover, disaster lurks nearby; and now, as then, there’s comfort to be found in rules and rituals

Dr. Martin Zand (left) works with Jiong Wang, B.Med, M.S., research assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. (Courtesy University of Rochester Medical Center)

Interview

US expert: Israeli response to coronavirus crisis is ‘right on target’

By Rich Tenorio

Compared with the decentralized health system in the US, the Jewish state’s reaction to COVID-19 has been relatively swift and well-organized, says data scientist Dr. Martin Zand

This handout photo provided by the Magen David Adom (MDA) national emergency service on March 24, 2020, in Beersheba shows two paramedics praying outside an ambulance of the American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA): a Jew from Beersheba facing Jerusalem, and an Arab from Rahat facing Mecca (MAGEN DAVID ADOM)

Arab and Jewish medics together on frontline of Israel’s virus fight

By Majeda El-Batsch

The potentially virus-busting UV-light system developed by IAI to fight the coronavirus (Courtesy)

From swords to plows: IAI seeks to battle coronavirus with UV-light tech

By Shoshanna Solomon

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon participating, via videoconference, in a UN Security Council discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, March 30, 2020 (courtesy Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN)

Pandemic and annexation on agenda as UN meets virtually to discuss peace process

By Raphael Ahren

Security Council’s first-ever videoconference debate on Israeli-Palestinian conflict focuses on coronavirus; France warns annexation of Jordan Valley ‘would not pass unchallenged’

Palestinians receive their financial aid as part of $480 million in aid allocated by Qatar, at a post office in Gaza City on May 19, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

In first since virus emerged in Gaza, banks deliver Qatari grants to poor

Palestinian health workers handling a coronavirus test sample of Palestinian workers as they cross back from Israel at a checkpoint in Tarqumiya on March 25, 2020. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

PA intelligence secures 10,000 virus testing kits from China

An election poster hung by the Blue and White party shows their candidate Benny Gantz and Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu on February 18, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Analysis

Haviv Rettig Gur

Win-win coalition? Both Netanyahu and Gantz can make case for victory in talks

PM relinquishes his right-wing agenda for political stability and personal immunity, while Gantz secures a veto on conservative policies while backing off long-term policy goals

AnalysisNetanyahu seeks to draw out unity talks, as Gantz’s hand weakens

By Raoul Wootliff

Some claim Gantz, Netanyahu closer to deal, but stumbling blocks unresolved

Chairing his first full Knesset session, Gantz faces assaults from former allies

A restaurant owner outside shuttered shops in the Old City of Jerusalem, on March 30 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Treasury unveils NIS 80 billion rescue plan for virus-stricken economy

Announcing retirement, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon says NIS 60 billion of largest-ever package to help businesses and others affected by pandemic; protesters push for more

Closed stores in the empty Mamila Mall in Jerusalem, March 23, 2020. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Nearly a quarter of Israel’s workforce unemployed due to virus outbreak

(RomoloTavani/iStock/Getty Images)

InterviewPandemic compounds challenges facing divorced and separating couples — mediator

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)

Analysis

Despite self-quarantine, for Netanyahu it’s mostly business as usual

Few limits on PM’s work, except perhaps having to do his own hair and needing to avoid top secret matters in video conferences; octogenarian president, too, continues with routine

A billboard shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, Avigdor Liberman, center, and Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, wearing masks in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan on March 29, 2020. The text urges them to take off the masks, because "the people want unity." (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

Netanyahu tests negative for virus, but will remain in quarantine

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a televised statement at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem on March 30, 2020. (Screen capture/ YouTube)

Netanyahu says cabinet set to ban gatherings of more than 2 people

Protecting Akiva in a pandemic

Questions of triage and whom to save if the medical system becomes overloaded terrify and infuriate me; my son has Down syndrome

Ariel Jerozolimski

PHOTO ESSAY: Jerusalem in lockdown

How that city sits, isolated, where it had been full of people

Medical team members at the Barzilay hospital, in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, wear protective gear as they handle a coronavirus test sample on March 29, 2020. (Flash90)

New research shows danger posed by coronavirus to people in their 40s and 50s

By ToI Staff and Agencies

British study contends that 4% of infected people in their forties require hospitalization, and double that among those in their fifties

Spain sees record death toll with 849 dead in 24 hours

Europe’s hospitals among the best but can’t handle pandemic

China’s virus hotspot Wuhan slowly reopens, though many stay inside

By Joe McDonald and ng han guan

Barry Sonnenfeld arrives at the LA premiere of 'Nine Lives' at TCL Chinese Theatre on August 1, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Interview

The ‘Men in Black’ and ‘Addams Family’ director wrote an extremely Jewy memoir

By Stephen Silver

Join The Times of Israel Community!

Help support our journalism and enjoy the site ADS FREE - for as little as $6 a month

JOIN US

More Headlines

Police officers enforce coronavirus restrictions in Mea Shearim, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, on March 30, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/ Flash90)

700 IDF troops, mostly unarmed, to join police in enforcing partial lockdown

By Judah Ari Gross

Israeli troops pack boxes of food as part of the military's preparations to support the country's supply lines in light of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF gearing up for larger role in fighting virus in case of widespread outbreak

By Judah Ari Gross

The entrance to Kiryas Tosh, Canada, March 30, 2020. (Screen grab/Twitter)

Hasidic community in Canada placed under lockdown after 20 diagnosed with virus

By AFP and ToI Staff

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks to the media and tours a newly opened drive through testing center for the coronavirus on March 13, 2020, in New Rochelle, New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

Attorney sues Cuomo over NY ban on large gatherings, says it hurts Jewish faith

By JTA

Illustrative: Construction of the new Tel Aviv Light Rail, on Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on February 25, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/File)

Near empty roads allow government to accelerate infrastructure projects

Amnon Shashua, CTO, co-founder and chairman of Mobileye. May 27, 2015. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

High-tech mogul to present pandemic exit strategy to Knesset committee

AnalysisWhat Iran’s severe virus crisis might mean for its threat to the region

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a statement on Iraq and Syria, at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, December 29, 2019, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

US extends Iran nuclear cooperation sanctions waivers

By AP

Members of 'Zehu Ze' gathered for a reunion show, now during the coronavirus (Courtesy Zehu Ze)

That's it!Cast of classic comedy ‘Zehu Ze’ reunites to poke fun at virus

By Jessica Steinberg

Illustrative: Media members wearing protective masks film outside the Young Israel of New Rochelle synagogue on March 10, 2020, in Westchester County, New York. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP)

Man at center of New Rochelle coronavirus outbreak released from hospital

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for the plenary session of the Parliament in Budapest, Hungary, on March 30, 2020. (Zoltan Mathe/MTI via AP)

Hungary’s parliament approves sweeping powers for Orban, raising alarm

By Pablo Gorondi

Moroccan Jews mark Hannukah in Casablanca, December 22, 2019. (Courtesy/Chabad.org)

Three members of Morocco Jewish community die of COVID-19

View Edition by Date

February	March 2020					April
Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

The Times of Israel

Daily Edition

Free to Your Inbox

The email is either missing or invalid.

By signing up, you agree to our terms You hereby accept The Times of Israel Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and you agree to receive the latest news & offers from The Times of Israel and its partners or ad sponsors.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
podcasts
video

terms and conditions
privacy policy
Your Privacy Rights
about us
advertise with us
Jobs at The Times of Israel
contact us

Community

Join our community
Sign in

Get the Daily Edition

Enter your email address

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on X Follow us on Youtube Follow us on Telegram Follow us on Threads Follow us on Bluesky

© 2026 The Times of Israel, all rights reserved

Concept, design & development by

Developed by

Powered by

Never miss breaking news on Israel

Get notifications to stay updated

You're subscribed

Register for free
and continue reading

Registering allows you to manage your newsletters and alerts and helps us improve your experience. It takes just a few seconds.
Already registered? Enter your email to sign in.

Email address

Please use the following structure: example@domain.com

Or Continue with

By registering you agree to the terms and conditions. Once registered, you’ll receive our Daily Edition email for free.

Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition

Register to continue

Email address

Or Continue with

Log in to continue

Email address

Something went wrong.
Please try again in a few minutes..

Sign in or Register

Email address * Password *

Incorrect password. Please try again or choose an option below.

I forgot my password / Send me a sign in link

Or Continue with

check your email

Check your email

We sent an email to you at .

It has a link that will sign you in.

Click the link in that email to complete your registration.