The year draws to a close with a rush of animated activity at Jerusalem’s star development.  Just this week, Jerusalem Estates publicized receipt of the final approval for occupancy- right in time for the new year.  The company representatives were proud to bring news of the requisite Certificate of Occupancy for the first 4 buildings at Jerusalem Estates: Building 2, Hakad; Building 3, Hadekel; Building 12, Hanevel; and Building 13, Hagavia.

Chaim Yaakov Sin, a resident of Beitar Illit, was R”L killed on Wednesday, when the roof of a building collapsed on top of him at a construction site on Tzvi Pinkas Street in Afula. United Hatzalah volunteers and Magen David Adom ambulance teams rushed to the scene and performed CPR on Chaim at the scene. Chaim was transported to Ha’Emek Hospital in the city while still undergoing CPR efforts. A few hours later he was Niftar at the hospital. The Niftar was part of the Shalom Rav community in Beitar Illit, and his father, Rabbi Yoel Sin, lives in Beitar and works as a contractor and is well known in the community. Chaim followed in his father’s footsteps and also entered into the construction field after finishing his military service.

The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with infections surging in the Midwest, some hospitals in Wisconsin and North Dakota running low on space and the NFL postponing a game over an outbreak that’s hit the Tennessee Titans football team. Midwestern states are seeing some of the nation’s highest per capita rates of infection, and while federal health officials again urged some governors in the region to require masks statewide, many Republicans have resisted. Like other states, health officials in Wisconsin had warned since the pandemic began that COVID-19 patients could overwhelm hospitals. That’s now happening for some facilities as experts fear a second wave of infections in the U.S. A record number of people with COVID-19 were hospitalized in Wisconsin.

A father who escaped from the cult with 5 young children, the youngest just a couple of months old desperately needs your help. The mother who refused to leave, only showed up to challenge him in an expensive and tough custody battle that forced him to borrow money and sink further into debt. He now faces the daunting task of raising them alone while trying to make parnassa and starting a business with no funds. Please open your hearts and contribute generously to give these children a chance at having a good life, with the proper care they need, rent, food, education, clothing, house cleaning and nanny care etc. And help their father get on his feet so he can provide for them-that would be ideal! Click to donate!

A Russian man convicted of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring and stealing the personal information of more than 100 million customers was sentenced Wednesday to more than seven years in federal prison. Yevgeniy Nikulin, 32, received the 88-month sentence Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco. Prosecutors said that in 2012, Nikulin, working from Moscow, hacked the computers of the San Francisco Bay Area companies, installed malware, stole login credentials for employees and used them to obtain customer data such as usernames and passwords that he offered for sale on a Russian-speaking cybercrime forum. Nikulin was arrested in Prague in 2016 and extradited to the United States in 2018 after a long extradition battle.

Hagaon Harav Yisrael Yitzchak Kalmanowitz has been ill recently and is suffering from a serious lung infection and is in need of much rachamei Shamayim, B’Chadrei Chareidim reported. Sources tell YWN that he is suffering from COVID-19. In light of his serious condition, tefillos are being held in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, in the Rav’s Beis Medrash on Rechov Shlomo Hamelech, and in other Batei Medrashim. The public is asked to daven for the refuah shleimah of HaRav Yisrael Yitzchak ben Leah l’refuah sheleimah b’toch shaar cholei Yisrael. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

The Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe was hospitalized in Laniado Hospital in Kiryat Sanz in Netanya due to a lung infection that developed as a result of the coronavirus. The Rebbe began feeling ill before Yom Kippur and when his condition deteriorated he was hospitalized. However, according to a message disseminated to the chassidim, the Rebbe’s infection is mild and “at the recommendation of the doctors, he will remain in the hospital for supervision for several days.” The chassidim were urged to strengthen themselves in Torah and ahavas chaveirim and to split the heavens in tefillah for the refuah sheleimah of the Rebbe.

A Black death-row inmate who was convicted of kidnapping and killing a Texas teenager in 1994 has been scheduled for execution in November, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. If the lethal injection goes ahead as scheduled Nov. 19, Orlando Hall would be the eighth person executed this year as part of the Trump administration’s resumption of federal executions after a nearly two-decade pause. Hall, 49, was one of five men who prosecutors said kidnapped 16-year-old Lisa Rene from her home in Arlington, Texas, to get revenge on her two brothers for a botched $5,000 marijuana deal. Over two days, she was taken to Arkansas, gang-raped, bludgeoned with a shovel and buried alive. Hall’s lawyers said in a statement that their client is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov.

Ukraine on Tuesday marked the 79th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre, one of the most infamous mass slaughters of World War II. Babi Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, is where nearly 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in 1941 when the city was under Nazi occupation. The killing was carried out by SS troops along with local collaborators. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Babi Yar monument on Tuesday and took part in a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the tragedy. “Seventy-nine years ago, a black page was inscribed in the common past of the Ukrainian and Jewish people. We bow our heads before all the victims of Babi Yar. And we have no right to forget these terrible crimes,” Zelenskiy said in a statement.

In a particularly fearsome statement made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a meeting of the coronavirus cabinet on Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister announced that the exit from the current lockdown will be carried out far slower than the previous one and could take place over half a year to a year. At the meeting, Netanyahu instructed that preparations be made for extreme scenarios that may transpire this coming winter, such as treating 5,000 COVID-19 patients in serious condition simultaneously. The prime minister told the cabinet that the lockdown should be tightened even further and that the current parameter of citizens being permitted to leave to within one kilometer of their homes be decreased.

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