At a massive rally outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem turned ugly after protesters began throwing bottles and eggs at police officers securing the protest. Photographers covering the protest were also targeted by the projectiles. The protest, which was termed the “Bastille Protest”, because it is held on “Bastille Day” saw protesters clash with police officers, while some even attempted to break into the Prime Minister’s residence.

Israel’s Health Ministry reported another record-breaking number of 1,168 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours. The number of active cases has risen to 21,393, with 177 in serious condition, of whom 55 are ventilated. The death toll has risen to 368. Health Ministry officials have come to the conclusion that a second lockdown in Israel is inevitable, Channel 13 News reported on Monday night. Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Chezy Levy said that Israel’s infection rate has risen to 6% at a press conference at the Health Ministry on Monday night. “I’m worried about the increase in numbers,” Levy said.

New York Times opinion columnist and editor Bari Weiss announced Tuesday she is leaving the NY Times, saying she was bullied by colleagues in an “illiberal environment,” weeks after declaring there was a “civil war” inside the paper. Weiss published a scathing resignation letter that she sent to Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger on her personal website, noting she doesn’t understand how toxic behavior is allowed inside the newsroom and “showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.” Before joining the Times, Bari was an oped editor at the Wall Street Journal and an associate book review editor there.

Israel’s nurses threatened on Monday to go on a general strike due to severe staff shortages rendering it impossible for nurses to properly fulfill their jobs, Ynet reported. The shortage stems from the fact that as hospitals are filling up with more and more coronavirus patients, almost 800 nurses are in quarantine, a 500% increase since last month when only 124 nurses were in quarantine. “The nurses are collapsing,” National Association of Nurses chairwoman Ilana Cohen said in a letter to Finance Minister Yisrael Katz, adding that nurses cannot continue without additional manpower and that hospitals have opened new coronavirus wards without hiring new staff members and purchased new respirators without training nurses to use them.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing blistering criticism over an internal report that found no strong link between a controversial state directive that sent thousands of recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes and some of the nation’s deadliest nursing home outbreaks. Scientists, health care professionals and elected officials assailed the report released last week for failing to address the actual impact of the March 25 order, which by the state’s own count ushered more than 6,300 recovering virus patients into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.

The neighborhood of Ramot in Jerusalem, which has about 60,000 residents, may be placed into lockdown due to its high rate of coronavirus infections, Kikar H’Shabbos reported. Currently, Ramot’s Rabbanim and askanim are engaging in strenuous efforts to avoid a lockdown and have had more than one emergency meeting with government officials in the past 24 hours. “Ramot is on the way to a lockdown but the government and the Home Front Command has given us a last chance to decrease the infection rate so the neighborhood won’t be declared a “red zone,” one of the neighborhood askanim told Kikar H’Shabbat.

The federal government on Tuesday carried out its first execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee came over the objection of the victims’ relatives and following days of legal wrangling and delays. Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, professed his innocence just before he was executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. “I didn’t do it,” Lee said.

There were 17 people shot in NYC on Monday, as the uptick in gun violence across the city continues. Among the victims is a 17-year-old victim who was shot in the head and killed. There were also five people shot during three drive-by’s that occurred within a 14-minute span in Canarsie. There are no arrests in any of the incidents and the investigations remains ongoing. Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blames the uptick in crime on “shoplifters” looking to get food for their “hungry families”. In the past 400 shootings in NYC, not ONE was a shoplifter, or a “hungry person” looking for food for their families. They are 99% gang and drug-related incidents.

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com Perhaps no other Torah personality has had such a dichotomy in terms of impact and obscurity.  The Alter of Kelm, Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv Broide of Kelm (1824-1898), was a prime student of Rav Yisroel Salnter zt”l – the founder of teh Mussar Movement.  He was also the Rebbe […]

Hagaon Harav Asher Weiss delivered a special shiur on the coronavirus on Sunday evening, during which he said: “I know that many say that most patients are fine – that’s not relevant. What’s important is not the number of people who are fine, what’s important is the number of people who are lo aleinu at risk, especially the chronically ill and elderly.” “Everyone needs to think about his family and decide who he’s willing to give up – on Saba or Savta, on his Rav or Rebbe – these are the people at-risk.” “The first rule is to wear a mask. I know that there are ‘chachamim’ among us who aren’t willing to accept the authority of the Health Ministry. Why do we need to listen to them? These are the experts. People all over the world are wearing masks.