Following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Motzei Shabbos about the partial shutdown being imposed on Israel, the Health Ministry issued a new order on Sunday morning requiring all educational facilities including yeshivos gedolos and ketanos and kollelim to close down. Many yeshivohs, kollelim and Talmidei Torah opened on Sunday as usual after but Israel Police came to the yeshivohs and chadarim that opened and blocked the entrances. A Jerusalem municipality security officer prevented students from entering the Achiezer Talmud Torah in Bayit Vegan. Officers also arrived at the Chachmas Shlomo Talmud Torah and the Ateres HaTorah yeshivah ketana in Ramot Daled to prevent learning sessions from taking place.

Following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Motzei Shabbos of the partial shutdown being imposed on Israeli citizens in wake of the spreading coronavirus, the Health Ministry issued a new order on Sunday morning, directing all yeshivos and kollelim to close down. However, the yeshivos and kollelim were already opened for the day on Sunday and many chadarim opened as well as word spread that Hagadol Harav Chaim Kanievsky said that bittul Torah is more dangerous than the coronavirus. Following the Health Ministry’s directives to close all schools, a principal of a cheder approached Harav Chaim and asked the Gadol what to do.

Dr Stuart H. Ditchek, is calling on all parents – in all Jewish communities – NOT send their children to Yeshiva, and to demand that they close immediately. He is also calling on all Shuls to close as well. Watch this attached video:
The post URGENT MESSAGE FROM DR DITCHEK: Yeshivas & Shuls Must Close NOW! [VIDEO] appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night that he will instruct the Treasury Department to allow individuals and businesses negatively affected by the coronavirus to defer their tax payments beyond the April 15 filing deadline. In an address from the Oval Office, Trump said he would use his emergency authority to allow individual taxpayers ad businesses to defer paying their taxes by next month’s deadline if they have suffered adverse effects from the spreading virus. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress earlier Wednesday that the payment delay would have the effect of putting more than $200 billion back into the economy that would otherwise go to paying taxes next month. He did not indicate what the new deadline would be.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is suspending all travel between the U.S. and Europe for 30 days beginning Friday as he seeks to combat a viral pandemic. Trump made the announcement in an Oval Office address to the nation, blaming the European Union for not acting quickly enough to address the “foreign virus” and saying U.S. clusters were “seeded” by European travelers. “We made a lifesaving move with early action on China,” Trump said. “Now we must take the same action with Europe.” Trump said the restrictions won’t apply to the United Kingdom and the U.S. would monitor the situation to determine if travel could be reopened earlier.

The federal government’s top infectious disease expert told lawmakers Wednesday that the novel coronavirus spreading across the globe is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. “I mean people always say, ‘Well, the flu does this, the flu does that,’” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said Wednesday during a hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this,” he added. Fauci warned that the outbreak in the U.S. is going to get worse before it gets better and said the U.S. must act quickly to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

When no one else in Israel could be found willing to take the risk, Zaka volunteers stepped up to the plate and tended to the body of an Israeli man who passed away while in quarantine for COVID-19 on Monday. The body of the 50-year-old Netanya resident, who recently returned from France and passed away while in self-quarantine, lay on the floor for hours as authorities tried to find someone willing to perform the true chessed shel emes. As midnight approached, Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov turned to ZAKA chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and requested his help. A select staff of volunteers took the sacred mission onto themselves.

A group of mekubalim carried out a “special tikun” on Taanis Esther to remove the coronavirus threat from the residents of Israel, B’Chadrei Chareidim reported. The mekubalim, including Rav Dovid Chavusha, flew around Israel in a plane for two hours and performed the tikkun which included reciting pitum ha’ketores, blowing the shofar and special kavanos. A similar tikkun was carried out 70 years ago by the mekubal Rav Yehudah Fetaya, when the Nazis threatened to enter Eretz Yisrael. Harav Fetaya and other mekubalim went to the Egyptian base in the south of Israel and flew around Israel for an hour. STAY UPDATED WITH BREAKING UPDATES FROM YWN VIA WHATSAPP – SIGN UP NOW Just click on this link, and you will be placed into a group.

Video showing New York City police officers arresting a young black man sparked outrage and elicited questions about the amount of force used to make the arrest in a city where mistrust of police remains high more than five years after Eric Garner’s death from an officer’s chokehold. Fitzroy Gayle, 20, pleads for help in the video, recorded by a woman who then tweeted it, as several officers wrestle him into submission Wednesday evening on a Brooklyn sidewalk. When Gayle asked a lone plainclothes officer why he was being stopped, the officer did not appear to answer before uniformed backup rushed in. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Thursday he was ordering an internal investigation. “This was painful to watch,” Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted.

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggested to Israelis to adopt Namaste – the Indian style of greeting one another – instead of shaking hands to avoid spreading the coronavirus at a press conference on Wednesday, he didn’t realize how widely reported his words would be in India, international media outlets and social media. Later on Wednesday and Thursday, Netanyahu’s suggestion was widely reported in the press by English language Indian news sites, international news websites, Indian YouTube channels which broadcast that portion of the speech, one of them even translating Netanyahu’s suggestion in English and all forms of social media.