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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Friday, April 3, 2020

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Illustrative: A nursing home for the elderly in Jerusalem, April 15, 2008. (Anna Kaplan/Flash90)

Live updates (closed)

Health Ministry said to admit it’s incapable of handling nursing homes outbreak

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

Home Front Command gears to take over country’s 700 old age homes as government seeks to deal with second threat caused by virus in Haredi communities

8:16 pm

Number of worldwide coronavirus fatalities climbs to 58,433
8:04 pm

US stocks end lower after dreary March jobs data, Dow -1.7%
7:48 pm

France reports record 588 more coronavirus deaths

Israeli police officers remove ultra-Orthodox men from the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, as part of an effort to enforce a lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, on April 2, 2020. (Flash90)

Coronavirus crisis

Cabinet declares Bnei Brak ‘restricted zone,’ will do same for other epicenters

Ministers also approve measure requiring those returning from abroad without a place to self-quarantine to lodge in state-funded isolation sites for 2 weeks

Police set up temporary checkpoints at the entrance to the city of Bnei Brak, April 3, 2020 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Israel media reviewThe siege of Bnei Brak: 7 things to know for April 3

By Joshua Davidovich

Israeli police officers remove ultra-Orthodox men from the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, as part of an effort to enforce a lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on April 2, 2020. (Flash90)

Military to evacuate 4,500 elderly Bnei Brak residents to quarantine hotels

Health Ministe Yaakov Litzman (left) at an election campaign opening event for his United Torah Judaism party in Bnei Brak on May 30, 2019. The party slogan on the banner behind him reads 'At the moment of truth.' (Flash90)

Op-ed

Litzman’s worst failure – to explain the pandemic’s horrors to his own community

The principal reason ultra-Orthodox politicians exist is to safeguard the well-being of their insular constituents. When that became a life-or-death mission, they let us all down

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, on March 12, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90/File)

Health Minister Litzman’s cellphone tracked to alert those he may have infected

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

Then-deputy health minister Yaakov Litzman in 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

Going viralVirus-infected ultra-Orthodox health minister has internet installed

Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman at the ceremony for the opening of a new branch of his Agudath Israel party, ahead of the upcoming elections, in the northern city of Safed, July 4, 2019. (David Cohen/ Flash90/File)

Infected health minister accused of flouting rules, endangering Israel’s leaders

Yaakov Litzman’s positive test has forced Netanyahu and most of the top Israeli officials tackling pandemic into quarantine; he denies claims he ignored ban on group prayer

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference about the coronavirus at the Prime Ministers office in Jerusalem on March 25, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Netanyahu, Mossad chief, top finance officials test negative for virus

Then-health minister Yaakov Litzman at a press conference about the coronavirus at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, March 11, 2020. (Flash90)

Center, left MKs demand Litzman’s ouster amid allegations he flaunted guidelines

An IDF soldier visits an elderly Israeli woman as part of a military effort to assist the country's at-risk population during the coronavirus outbreak on April 2, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

As cops enforce Bnei Brak lockdown, IDF tasked with ‘civil assistance’ in city

By Judah Ari Gross

Military not responsible for enforcing ‘restricted zone’ order in ultra-Orthodox city near Tel Aviv; troops to help evacuate sick and elderly, but will not use force

Israeli police officers, dressed in protective outfits, arrive at a yeshiva in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak on April 2, 2020, to ensure that social distancing measures imposed by Israeli authorities meant to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus are being respected. (JACK GUEZ/AFP)

Police deploy in force as virus-struck Bnei Brak becomes ‘restricted zone’

An IDF officer helps police run a checkpoint during the coronavirus outbreak on April 2, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

IDF to send paratrooper division into virus-stricken Bnei Brak to help residents

By Judah Ari Gross

The director of the epidemics service, Dr. Karina Glick, checking a patient's monitor while wearing protective clothing, during a press presentation on hospital services for future patients with coronavirus at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, on March 16, 2020, in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod. (Jack Guez/AFP)

22-year-old Israeli virus patient put on life support as condition deteriorates

Man, who had no previous health issues, had recently traveled to US; is the youngest person in the country in serious condition from coronavirus

Illustrative: Magen David Adom workers and a Shaare Zedek hospital medical team, wearing protective clothing as a preventive measure against the coronavirus in Jerusalem on April 2, 2020. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

With three more deaths, virus toll climbs to 39, with 7,030 infected

A Magen David Adom ambulance service testing site in Bnei Brak on April 1, 2020. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

Israeli coronavirus fatalities are mostly elderly men, average age 79.8

By ToI Staff and AP

From the blogs

Go ahead, have a shvach seder

You’re living through an international pandemic – you just don’t need to obsess about creating that inspirational, unforgettable Passover experience

French Rebbe Philippe Haddad prepares the Shabbat service for visioconference to address congregation members at the Copernic Synagogue in Paris on March 28, 2020, on the twelfth day of a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) in France. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

Online Kaddish, Shabbat burials: Jewish legal authorities grapple with pandemic

Abi Hartuv and family wave to their neighbor. March 2020 (courtesy)

Times of Israel PodcastsLISTEN: Alone together with Fiona — from the WhyWhyWhy! podcast

By Miriam Herschlag

Investigative report

Plagued by failure: ‘The Yom Kippur War of the Israeli health system’

Experts say Health Ministry has long suffered a lack of coordination, planning and oversight, leaving it woefully unprepared for coronavirus despite strong signs disaster loomed

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish boy receives a COVID-19 test by a medical personnel wearing protective gear as part of the government's measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the orthodox city of Bnei Brak, a Tel Aviv suburb, March 31, 2020. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Virus testing sites reportedly close early due to shortage of lab materials

A lab test for coronavirus. (Tomer Neuberg/ Flash90)

Israeli labs said close to running out of reagents for virus tests

Rachel Sharansky Danziger

No man is an island

I have closed our doors to friends, and washed and scrubbed whatever we brought through them, but grief enters unhindered; I don’t try to make it cleaner or less messy to the touch

Rochel Stoklasa

An olah’s Dayenu

You gave us the dream of return, the clarity to leave, the strength to cross oceans, the aleph-bet, family and a home — dayenu!

I am not my underlying medical condition

Attaching the ’elderly’ or ’preexisting illness’ label to coronavirus deaths helps many people feel safer — it terrifies me

Noam Zion and Mishael Zion

A coronavirus seder planner

To supplement our popular haggadah, ‘A Different Night’ — or any other haggadah: Tips to help you connect, while apart, for a socially distant meaningful, memorable Passover

A Hasidic family, dressed up for the jewish holiday purim, crosses the street on March 10, 2020 in the Williamsburg neighborhood Brooklyn, New York. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images via JTA)

Analysis

For some US Jewish communities, serious outbreak linked to mass Purim parties

‘I would have canceled,’ says rueful manager of band that performed for 300 people in Crown Heights, who said he looked for guidance from the CDC and rabbis, but found none

Medical workers wait for patients at a special coronavirus intake area at Maimonides Medical Center in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn which has seen an upsurge of coronavirus patients, April 2, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

New York races to add hospital beds as mayor urges all to wear masks outside

By Jennifer Peltz

A patients is helped from an ambulance as they arrive at St Thomas' Hospital, one of may hospitals that are in the front line of the coronavirus outbreak, in London, March 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Global coronavirus cases cross one million, with more than 50,000 deaths

By AFP and ToI Staff

Labour's first leader, Keir Hardie, speaking in Trafalgar Square in 1908. (Public domain)

Author says Labour always had anti-Semitic seam, but new leader could reboot it

By Robert Philpot

Palestinian medical employees disinfect Palestinian workers who came back from working in Israel at the entrance to the West Bank village of Hussan, on March 29, 2020, in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Amid shortage, Palestinian university develops homegrown ventilator prototype

Al-Quds University president says that, if approved, the school will manufacture the devices to help West Bank and Gaza, where there are fewer than 350 breathing machines

80-90% of ventilators in West Bank and Gaza already in use, WHO official says

Israel arrests Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs for fourth time

By AP

Hamas chief threatens Israel over ventilators for coronavirus patients

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett (L) of Yamina speaks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting with leaders of right-wing parties at the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 4, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Analysis

Haviv Rettig Gur

Unity government nears completion as Yamina threatens to bolt

Likud, Blue and White may have found a solution to their standoff over West Bank annexation: Let Trump decide

President Reuven Rivlin, center, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz shake hands at the memorial ceremony for the late president Shimon Peres at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on September 19, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

People of the PodLISTEN: NYT Jerusalem chief vents about the bumpy road to new Israeli government

New Right MK Ayelet Shaked speaks during the Israel Social Cohesion Summit in Airport City on November 5, 2019. (Avshalom Shoshoni/Flash90)

Shaked: If Netanyahu breaks up bloc, we’ll be ‘combative right-wing opposition’

By Raoul Wootliff

A woman shops for matzah at a supermarket in Jerusalem on March 31, 2020. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90/File)

Consumer council finds massive price differences in Passover products

With large price gaps between supermarkets for matzah and Passover items such as potato starch, consumers advised to compare prices, which, overall, are similar to last year’s

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More Headlines

International Space Station (ISS) crew member, NASA's US astronaut Jessica Meir waves as she boards the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft before its blasts off for the ISS, on September 25, 2019 at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (Maxim Shipenkov/Pool/AFP)

QuarantipsJewish astronaut in space gives Israelis advice on isolation

People wearing protective clothing carry the body of a victim who died after being infected with the new coronavirus at a cemetery just outside Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Biden urges sanctions relief for Iran amid virus crisis

By AFP

An El Al Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Ben Gurion International Airport. (Flash90)

El Al brings hundreds of stranded Israelis back from Melbourne in 17-hour flight

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the alleged mastermind behind Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's kidnap-slaying, appears at the court in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 29, 2002. (AP/Zia Mazhar)

Accused killer of US journalist Daniel Pearl to stay in prison as case appealed

Police officers close synagogues and disperse public gatherings in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Beit Shemesh on March 31, 2020 (Yaakov Lederman/Flash90)

Beit Shemesh man indicted for assaulting cops enforcing virus lockdown measures

These online resources will help navigate the solo-seder experience. (Vlad Fishman/Getty Images/ via JTA)

Online exodusHaving a solo Passover seder? There are plenty of guides for you

By Gabe Friedman

The assembly line at Empire Kosher Poultry’s plant in central Pennsylvania is the largest kosher one of its kind in America, with 240,000 chickens and 27,000 turkeys passing through every week. (Uriel Heilman/JTA)

Empire Kosher closes chicken plant for 2 weeks after employees contract virus

By JTA

Settlers from Homesh hurl stones at Palestinians on March 26, 2020. (Yesh Din)

Virus season brings rise in settler violence targeting Palestinians

Christian Orthodox worshippers hold up candles lit from the Holy Fire as they gather in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City on April 27, 2019 during the Orthodox Easter. (Thomas Coex/AFP)

Israel to help Christians share ‘holy fire’ ritual amid pandemic

By Josef Federman

Jewish athletes participating in the 20th Maccabiah Games, wave their national flag during the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games in Jerusalem, July 6, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

2021 Maccabiah Games postponed by a year amid coronavirus pandemic

Jewish men use "social distancing" as they pray outside the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, March 20, 2020. (AP/Mark Lennihan)

UJA-Federation of New York providing over $34 million in pandemic assistance

Tmol Shilshom David Ehrlich, center, who died suddenly on March 23, 2020, with photos of friends and customers from his cafe (Tmol Shilshom crowdfunding project)

Yesterday once moreTmol Shilshom staff and friends crowdfund to save beloved cafe

By Jessica Steinberg

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