Boro Park is blessed with dozens of organizations dedicated to caring for families during health crises. From home-cooked meals to Hatzalah two minutes away in the middle of the night, residents know they can count on their community’s thousands of volunteers to be ready to help. I am proud to be the founder of Renewal Organization, which has grown to an extensive medical organization dedicated to making a positive change in the lives of people who desperately need a life saving kidney transplant in order to stay alive. Renewal was built by dedicated members of the community who learned how to navigate the healthcare system, all for the sake of saving a life. So why can’t our local hospital’s executives manage basic competence? Maimonides Medical Center is failing.

Since its inception, YWN has never called for the ouster of an elected candidate, Republican or Democrat. That changes today. It is our firm belief that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s stance toward the Orthodox Jewish community in New York are such that she must be replaced. Our position comes not only from her failing to publicly stand up for the rights of yeshivas, but especially because of what we have seen from the governor in private. Several weeks ago, YWN was contacted by the Hochul campaign, which offered to conduct an exclusive interview with the governor. This offer was surprising on several fronts: firstly, it is well know that YWN rarely conducts interviews promoting specific positions, especially ones from political candidates.

This past week brought an extraordinary assault against the Chassidishe community by the New York Times. Timed to appear the day before a New York Board of Regents vote on regulations opposed by yeshivas, the true target of the Times story wasn’t educational enhancement nor was it the rights of school children. It was to stigmatize and delegitimize the entire Chassidic community, and to undermine their standing as New Yorkers and Americans. There is room for healthy debate about the scope and extent of the responsibility to provide children with a basic education. Had the Times wanted to add its voice to that debate, it could have named the dozen schools whose performance it featured and called for improvements in those schools.

A 22-year-old white supremacist was sentenced Tuesday to life in federal prison for killing a woman and injuring three others when he burst into a Southern California synagogue in 2019, adding to a life sentence he received three months earlier in state court. John T. Earnest declined to speak in a courtroom full of victims, families and congregants. In state court, his attorney said he wanted to speak but a judge refused, saying he didn’t want to give a platform for his hate-filled speech. Earnest’s attorney, Ellis Johnston III, said his client acknowledged his actions were “inappropriate,” a statement that was greeted with skepticism by prosecutors. Peter Ko, a federal prosecutor, said Earnest’s expression of regret came shortly after the shooting in a phone call to someone else.

A member of Israel’s Knesset said from the Knesset plenum on Tuesday that the Balfour Declaration, which declared the state of Israel, is “cursed.” “Today, November 2, 104 years ago, was the cursed Balfour Declaration, which announced the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine,” Joint Arab List MK Osama Saadi told the Knesset. The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 announcing support for the establishment of Israel as a national home for the Jewish people. Saadi reiterated his view on the state of Israel in an interview with Army Radio later on Tuesday, stating: “We recognize the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy in the world, but the Jewish people has its own home and the Palestinian people do not.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

The United Arab Emirates formally inaugurated its embassy in Israel on Wednesday, less than a year after the signing of the Abraham Accords. The embassy is situated in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) building in the heart of Tel Aviv’s business district, a symbolic location as both Israel and the UAE view the normalization deal as an opportunity to boost their economies. Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog and the Emirati Ambassador to Israel Mohammad Mahmoud Al Khajah spoke at the ceremony, with the latter stating: “This is just the beginning. Both countries are innovative nations and we will harness these new approaches for the prosperity of the countries.” “To see the Emirati flag in the skies of Tel Aviv would have seemed a distant dream. Today it is a reality,” Herzog said.

Hatzalah of South Florida and Chesed Shel Emes have both reached out to YWN with an urgent message to Klal Yisroel around the world: STOP SPREADING MISINFORMATION ON WHATSAPP! The sheer number of messages “confirming” multiple deaths in the Miami tragedy are simply shocking. In fact, YWN has confirmed that not one body has been removed from the rubble, nor have search and rescue personnel even touched the pile to begin their tedious search and recovery. There have been messages going around with names of victims “confirmed dead”, when some of these names have been confirmed by Hatzalah and Chesed Shel Emes to have not even been in the building at the time of the collapse.

The race for Mayor has had its ups and downs, “ebs” and flows.  Like a playoff basketball game, we have seen the lead change, and the game evolve.  But it’s now “crunch time” and we are getting to the end.  Early voting has started and by next week, the bulk of the votes will be cast. There is a lot at stake for our community.  A lot on the line. For many, our community, the Frum community, has looked at two candidates.  One that is new, but aggressively pursuing the community.  And another that has longstanding ties to the community, whose work for the community has been well known for decades. But the choice is no longer that simple.  It’s no longer an “either, or” scenario. Something else has happened.

A “pro-Israel” rally scheduled for Flatbush this Thursday has the potential to have serious implications for the local Jewish community in Flatbush and elsewhere. The rally was announced by an anonymous person on social media, someone who clearly lacks the guts to sign their name on the flyer. It calls for a car rally on Coney Island Avenue near Avenue J, just two blocks away from a major Mosque and a huge Muslim community. What this reckless individual doesn’t seem to know or care about, is the delicate peaceful coexistence both community’s have enjoyed living side by side in harmony for decades. That this unidentified person would choose to put the safety and well-being of the Orthodox community at this moment of fear and tension at risk demands explanation and repudiation.

Anti-Semitic NY Post columnist Steve Cuozzo slanders Orthodox Jewish community with outrageous false claims. It seems the NY Post, is back to one of its favorite pastimes, attacking the City’s Orthodox Jewish community. In a completely bigoted op-ed totally devoid of reason, Steve Cuozzo asks why Manhattan’s Covid positive rate is so much lower than the rest of the city. Astoundingly, he then proceeds to suggest that this may be due to ” large, often mask-less ultra-Orthodox gatherings ” and that “Manhattan has none of the huge Hasidic congregations found in Brooklyn and Queens.” In other words, Cuozzo is saying that it is the Orthodox Jews who are somehow responsible for the higher covid rate across the entire city of NY.