Hadassah Hospital was the first medical institution in the world to test a passive vaccine treatment for COVID-19 on a patient by administering Immunoglobulin G (IgG). The hospital began harvesting plasma from recovered coronavirus patients two months ago with the hope of using the antibody-rich plasma as a treatment for severely ill coronavirus patients. The Jerusalem Beis Din and the Eidah Chareidis encouraged members of the Chareidi community who had recovered from the coronavirus to donate their plasma and Hadassah harvested 40 liters of plasma, enough to develop serum for up to 70 patients.

A worrying report was published on Tuesday by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University. The report, which focused on how the Covid-19 Coronavirus affected Jewish standing in the world, found that the virus caused a global wave of anti-Semitism. According to the researchers who penned the report, “The new wave of antisemitism includes a range of libels that have one common element: The Jews, the Zionists and/or the state of Israel are to blame for the pandemic and/or stand to gain from it.” The Kantor Center study was based on anti-Semitic material flagged by researchers around the world which the center gathered and analyzed. The study is just the latest in a series of studies to have come up with the same findings.

The Kiryat Arba council made a decision to close its pool ahead of the summer season in light of an order by the Supreme Court to offer at least two hours of mixed swimming every day. Two weeks ago, four residents of Kiryat Arba, a town of about 7,500 almost exclusively populated by religious residents, filed a petition with the Supreme Court demanding that the local pool offer hours for mixed swimming. The Supreme Court issued a similar order two years ago following an earlier petition by the same residents, who represent only three families. The pool obeyed the order by allocating hours for “family swim” but many residents responded by canceling their memberships, causing the pool to close due to financial constraints.

A Federal Judge in NY has just scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday regarding summer camps. As YWN has been reporting, following New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s crushing decision to disallow overnight camps this summer, the Agudath Israel of America-led Association of Jewish Camp Operators (AJCO) and several parents filed suit in federal court to overturn that decision. Two days later, the AJCO requested a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to ask the court to immediately open overnight camps in New York State. On Wednesday morning, a court hearing was scheduled for next Tuesday. CLICK HERE TO READ THE DECLARATION BY RABBI MEIR FRISCHMAN, FOUNDER OF AJCO CLICK HERE TO READ THE MEMO OF LAW (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Long-time Pro-Israel Congressman Eliot Engel is likely to lose the seat for New York’s 16th Congressional District to his progressive challenger, Middle-school principal Jamaal Bowman, results show. Rep. Elliot Engel, who has been in Congress since 1989, was behind Bowman by a 61 percent to 34 percent margin in Engel’s Bronx-Westchester district. Bowman received high-profile endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hillary Clinton, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had also thrown their support behind Engel. Engel, 73, serves as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The hundreds of men and women who came to the Kosel on Tuesday morning for Shacharis of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz left no room for the Women of the Wall to carry out their monthly provocations in the women’s section. Instead, the 30 members of the controversial organization were forced to carry out their egalitarian service in the upper section of the plaza. Like every month, the group was barred by the Kosel Heritage Foundation from bringing in a Sefer Torah into the plaza. Women of the Wall activists claimed that they were verbally harassed by mispallelim at the plaza. “Despite our repeated requests, we were not permitted entry into the women’s section, and we were left open to attacks in the upper part of the plaza,” said Yochi Rappaport, director of the Women of the Wall.

Rav Yehudah Grami, the Chief Rabbi of Teheran, said there was “complete freedom of religion” in Iran in an interview on Sunday. In the interview, which was carried out in Hebrew with Al-Monitor and broadcast on Channel 12 News in Israel, Rav Grami spoke about many aspects of Jewish life in Iran. “I estimate that there are between 20,000 and 25,000 Jews in the country. Most of them live in Tehran, Shiraz, Esfahan and Kermanshah, though there are other, small communities too,” Rav Grami said. “We have total freedom of religion,” claimed Rav Grami. ” All the shuls are open, and Torah classes take place there.

Any men who fail to wear a mask in the Chareidi city of Elad will no longer be able to receive an Aliyah to the Torah or serve as a shaliach tzibur. The decision was reached at an emergency meeting of all the Rabbanim of the city on Monday, headed by the Rav of Elad, Harav Mordechai Malka, due to the alarming rise of coronavirus cases in the city in recent days. “Whoever is not mapkid on ‘V’nishmartem’ transgresses a din in the Torah b’meizid,” Rav Malka said to the Rabbanim.

The data on coronavirus cases published on Tuesday is worrying for Chareidi communities in Israel, which are leading the country in the number of new virus cases in the past week. Bnei Brak had the highest number of new coronavirus cases in Israel in the past week, with 148 cases. For comparison, there were 138 new cases in the past week in Tel Aviv, which has double the population. Netanya had 79 new cases, most of them in Chareidi neighborhoods and in Petach Tikvah there were 51 new cases, also mostly in Chareidi neighborhoods. Elad had 43 new cases in the past week. There has also been an outbreak in the past week in Tiveria, with 34 new cases, all in the Chareidi neighborhoods of the city.

An attempted car-ramming attack took place on Tuesday afternoon at the “Kiosk” checkpoint next to the Arab village of Abu Dis near Ma’aleh Adumim on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The terrorist approached the checkpoint in his car in an attempt to ram into the Border Police officers, aiming at one officer in particular. The officer managed to jump aside and was only slightly wounded on her arm. The other officers at the scene opened gunfire at the terrorist whose car smashed into a concrete wall. The terrorist was neutralized and is reportedly in critical condition. Fortunately, no one else at the scene was wounded. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)