TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Air travel to Israel has come to a near standstill due to coronavirus restrictions, but one type of voyage still endures: the final journey of Jews wishing to be buried in Israel. For centuries, Jews have sought to be interred in the Holy Land, going to great lengths to secure […]

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Israeli cabinet ministers voted Friday to allow students in grades 1-3 and 11-12 to return to school on Sunday, with kindergartens only expected to reopen on May 10 after the government reassesses the situation. The government announced that in Chareidi schools, students in grades 7-8 as well as those in Yeshiva Ketana […]

NEW YORK (AP) — As America tentatively emerges from weeks of lockdowns, the pandemic has taken its toll on workers who have been on the front lines all along. They have been packing and delivering supplies, caring for the sick and elderly, and keeping streets and buildings clean. They have also watched their co-workers fall […]

SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon has spent years honing the business of packing, shipping and delivering millions of products to doorsteps around the world. Now it has a captive audience. With much of the globe in various stages of a lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s largest online retailer has become a lifeline to […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that New York schools and colleges will remain closed through the rest of the academic year amid the coronavirus pandemic. Cuomo said that it’s too risky to open up schools again this spring, and that he wants to keep children and educators safe. THIS IS A […]

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — After Adolf Hitler annexed his native Austria and Allied bombs laid waste to Vienna, Hannelore Cruz traveled to Portugal without her parents as a refugee from hunger, cold and postwar deprivation. She arrived with a group of other children when she was 5 years old. A Portuguese family raised her and […]

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Rabbi Aryeh Zev Ginzberg, rabbi of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center of Cedarhurst and the founding rabbi of Ohr Moshe Torah Institute in Hillcrest, Queens, returned home today from the hospital after being hospitalized for weeks with the coronavirus. Rabbi Ginzberg’s condition had taken a turn for the worse, his kidneys […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that state and local governments are seeking up to $1 trillion for coronavirus costs, a stunning benchmark for the next aid package that’s certain to run into opposition from Senate Republicans. Pelosi acknowledged the federal government may not be able to provide that much. But she […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he believes the U.S. can never declare “total victory” over the coronavirus because too many people have died. But he added that he will count it a win when the virus is gone and the economy fully reopened. With more than 60,000 Americans fallen to the […]

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nearly six weeks have passed since Arie Even, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, died of the coronavirus. It happened at the end of Shabbat dinner on a Friday night in March at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Even drew headlines as Israel’s first COVID-19 fatality. As of Thursday, the coronavirus death […]