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Lowertuiition: Thank you. Perhaps we should all find some way of acknowledging our good fortune of having come through Round 1 in good health (assunming that is the case) while never losing sight of what has been lost to the tzibur in terms of the almost nightly reports here on YWN of tragedy after tragedy within the frum community .
As of yesterday evening there was NO timeline published for the 5T and Long Island.
For those who are going back for their first davening b’tzibur since March, will you bench gomel during your first Aliyah?
I agree with MOST of your points regarding yidden leaving the NYC metro area ard relocating to less densely populated areas with a higher quality of life. When I left years ago there were certain challenges but others followed and we now have a thriving community. Depending on your mesorah and hashkafah, you may want to consider one of over a dozen smaller metro areas noted in the above posts rather than going “off the grid”. Yes, technology has made it easier to escape the city, but its hard to do virtual mikvah, and “remote hakofos and ” shalosh sa’udos.with a crowd of yidden. Physical activities and interactions are part of yiddeshkeit. .
“I knew one that finished the whole Seder Noshim Gemoroh 70 times in Shanghai besides for before and after..”
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The only WaWa in our area has a great view of the CostCo parking lot. Lots of smoothies listed on the menu. As far as dating venues, whatever works in your area in terms of privacy, ambience and travel proximity.
As of now, the earliest that rentals of bungalows, hotels etc. could be rented in NYS under Cuomo’s phased reopening plan wold be sometime in early to mid July, assuming there are no unforseen spikes in mortality/hospitalization rates. Those who open earlier risk loss of their occupancy permits and I suspect the local towns would be vigilant in monitoring any violations considering how opposed they have been to ANY opening. That would still allow for 6 or 7 weeks of vacation, assuming there are some who want to leave the city.
Just speaking to a friend on the difficult choices implied by the OP and perhaps staying at home would be equally risky. The kids will still be out on the streets of Brooklyn coming home each day with potential issues and the data show that infants have low infection rates although this new Corona-related syndrome is worrisome.
Sad that we even have to deal with this Hobbesian choice.
To Sariray: much naches and good health with the baby and the whole family whatever choice you make.Aychel: Thank you for sharing.
I would think that CR posters are clearly on the cutting edge of what is “mainstream” as evidenced by the near total consensus here on most religious, cultural and political issues.
As Goldiolicks notes, the OP make zero sense and may be a troll. No rational yiddeshe parents would remotely consider bringing home a new baby in these times to a home where there are five mobile petri dishes (aka ‘boys”) returning to that home every afternoon after a day of rolling around with dozens of other boys from other families. Unless you are going to test all the campers daily or require them to wear masks and socially distance, you are literally putting the life of the newborn at risk. Perhaps they are planning for mother and baby to be “quarantined” from the rest of the family but otherwise, the concept is beyond crazy.
NoMesorah: You are correct….they are now called “smoothies” and cost 3X as much…..still not an ideal place to meet your beschert but out in the boonies, they may have outdoor areas as you say. Just bring lots of hand-sanitzer to wipe down the benches and tables (and your own food if the local WaWa doesn’t have a good hashgacha).
JJ: No one is suggesting that we would have had substantial fatalities even if the Trumpkopf had done everything right, which obviously he had not. However, had he taken the warnings earlier, initiated widespread testing using foreign tests available back in late January rather than allowing CDC to mess around for weeks trying to develop their own test and blocked flights from Europe (where apparently the US strain of the virus appears to have originated) at the same time he blocked flights from China, the number of deaths might be much lower. As Trump would say, “who knows”.
Edited
A Baas Yisroel should not be going to a “WAWA” to meet her beschert. Someday, you’ll be telling the eyniklach that, “Zeyde met Totty during the big 2020 magayfah over a Slurpee at the WAWA”…..I think not.
HIE: If you can find a beach near a lysol production plant….lots of sunlight, open space and hopefully industrial fumes.
To return to a serious note, I would have suggested a park but with a sunny day with springtime temperatures, the parks have gotten worse than 13th avenue erev shabbos. If there is a park area where you can find two benches with some separation, that might be a start. If you live outside the big cities which still have social distancing and restaurant closures, perhaps it would be less difficult to find somewhere to hang out for an hour or two without crowding. Much hatzlacha.For a change, I’ll come down on the side of Beis Josef. He is correct that the fathers should simply come together, work out a mutually acceptable arrangement for their children to marry and present it to them as a fait acompli’. If they refuse to consummate the deal, they will have to move out of the basement, find a JOB, earn a parnassah and rent their own apartments. This was a proven strategy for clearing out the basement prior to the Pandemic and hopefully will have the same efficacy again once we return to normal. The success rate is obviously a function of finding the most dysfunctional beschert for your son or daughter and insisting that its your way or the highway. You might also offer to pay for the moving van if you are really feeling guilty .
Do any of these tests also provide any measure of “hinged” versus “unhinged”??
One common mistake made by rookies: Always remove the plastic bag containing the neck and innards from inside the cavity before placing the chicken in the hot oven. This will generally improve the taste and texture no matter what recipe you are using. B’Taavon!!
Perhaps the best contrarian indicator of the likely efficacy of the Zelenko Cocktail is that the Fox News evening lineup of Trumpkopf sycophants have dropped their nightly drumbeat for this drug and shifted to a combination of anti-Fauci rhetoric and “ObamaGate”. But not to worry for our tin foil kippa types. The Fox News Wannabe Network (aka One America News) still has their nightly infomercials for hydroxychloroquine with doctors they find in yennavelt who also claim 100 percent cure rates. Some promote 800 numbers, website hyping their special formulation of the drug and if you are among the first 100 callers, you will get “FREE ZINC” with your order.
noMesorah: Yes, 100 percent. A shul (as represented by its Rav and Board) have discretion as to the criteria they will use for selecting those for a kavod. Just as they many choose not to give a kavod to a davener who is a known machalel shabbos or is alleged to have committed domestic abuse, they may choose not to give a kavod to these members who publicly defied the psak of the Rav. End of story. My personal opinion is that they could revoke their membership and deny them entry to the shul, but they chose a lesser form of discipline. A shul is not a democracy and the Psak of a rav regarding public behavior is not a “suggestion”.
The Rogue Minyanmachers are 100 percent entitled to participate in their own minyan contrary to the psak of the Rav of this shul. Likewise, the Rav (with support from the Board of the Shul) is entitled to exclude them from any kavod in that shul. Since they obviously disagree with the Rav, perhaps make their rouge minyan permanent.
Actions have consequences.As usual, Charlie hit the nail on the head. Our future lives in big cities for the foreseeable future will be driven by the “Fauci Factor” as explained at today’s Senate hearing on the “reopening. With an effective vaccine (as shown through RCTs and observational metrics) the “fear factor” will still exist but likely at a sufficiently de minimus level that we won’t fear a gutten shabbos handshake or touching the bimah when we get aliyos or wiping down the Eitz Chayim with Purel before doing hagbah. Without a vaccine, we will still venture out but many of us will be highly risk averse in our social and phsical interactions with people and things.
The three top experts on the Trumpkopf’s Virus Task Force testified today before a Senate Committee whose Republicans wanted to hype his “Reopen Parade”. Instead, they calmly and professionally refuted his lies about “having prevailed”, the virus “will be gone”, the reopening is a “great success” etc. Once they are off the 5:00 PM nightly “news conference” stage with him, they find their voices and integrity. When Senators asked the director of CDC as to when the detailed “ropening guidelines would be publicly released” he slinked down in his chair and nearly disappeared off the computer screen (Note: He was testifying remotely because he was exposed to the virus at the White House) . Even the Republicans noted that the reopening would move more quickly if businesses had some guidelines to rely upon to insulate themselves from litigation. Instead, he mumbled something about “soon” but would not give a timeline for fear of angering the Trumpkopf. Perhaps they are tired of walking like the clowns at the end of the Circus Parade leaning up after the Elephants.
Ultimately, the question is how many lives is the Trumpkopf willing to lose to push up the stock market before the election. There is plenty of blame to go around on all sides, but this mindless rush to “reopen at any cost” is contrary to his own guidelines. (17 of the 23 states that have begun to reopen did NOT meet the President’s own criteria of 2 weeks of declining infection rates etc. but the Trumpkopf mindlessly cheers them on).With over 100 young children now having been identified as possibly suffering from this new CV-19 related syndrome that may lag 4-6 weeks after initial exposure/infection to the virus, the public health officials now have an additional complication in their decision about the safety and risk of opening summer camps. Parents too will be concerned about the ability of current monitoring/testing/diagnostic protocols to assure that asymptomatic carriers are not inadvertently allowed to come into contact with their kids.
There is no easy answer here and whatever decision Cuomo and the state health authorities make, there will be an immediate and loud pushback.In plain English, the New York study results published today in JAMA showed that patients treated with Hydroxychloroquine shows no material benefits in responding to the coronavirus versus those not given the medication. Also, there was no noticeable advantage for patients that took the drug paired with azithromycin. While this was NOT a randomized study, it certainly raises doubts about all the hyping by the Trumpkopf, Fox News experts and right wing blogs. The results of a fully accredited randomized study will be released soon and perhaps it will show some benefits but until then, this is the best available information. If you want to continue your tin foil conspiracy theories, there are several excellent websites that would value your inputs.
If I recall correctly, the ONLY constitutional protections that can be suspended in limited cases are habeas corpus and the Third Amendment (which keeps the Army from forcibly occupying the extra bedroom you reserve for your machatonim (and even then, only in times of “rebellion” or “invasion”. The States may enforce provisions of their own Constitutions on emergency authorities granted to the executive but only if those don’t violate the U.S. Constitution. In many states, those emergency authorities are relatively weak and limited so there has been lots of litigation on whether those governors are violating their own state laws and don’t even implicate federal constitutional guarantees.
He is “innocent” just like the Trumpkopf was “100 percent exonerated” by the Mueller Report and “Chris Christie and his political hacks did not violate the technical terms of the Federal fraud statute in the shutdown of the GW Bridge. Flynn repeatedly lied or misled everyone from the VP to the investigators but the prosecutors failed to obtain their indictment correctly under DOJ guidelines.
“Innocent”, no. “Lucky” yes.
There is a big difference between have a charge thrown out based on technical violations inappropriate behavior by prosecutors as was the case with Flynn That feature of our criminal justice system works to protect those on the fringes of our political system just as it hopefully does to everyday citizens.Before making a decision, there is an absolute chiyuv to watch this video on the YWN news site. I hope I have linked to it correctly (and assume links to YWN stories are OK).
Hilarious Video Of Israeli Teaching Mother To Use Zoom Goes Viral
Ditto to CTL Lawyer’s comments. There are several remote learning “virtual meeting” classrooms available but I’m guessing 90 percent of the schools (frum and secular) are using Zoom.
However, its really important that the teachers have been trained on using zoom or else it becomes a real circus (which not surprisingly the kids quickly learn to exploit ).
Obviously, its very unlikely that some of the older rebbeim will be able to quickly adopt to the technology (especially if they’ve never used a computer) but the younger generation should be able to pick it up really quickly. The basic options allowing muting and shared screens are very intuitive.
For those families fortunate enough to have a high speed connection, adequate bandwidth should not be a problem. For others with conventional cable connections or cellular-satellite hotspots or those living in high-rise buildings wired with a centralized cable network, I’m hearing that there is brequent buffering and getting disconnected frequently.
Beware of some of the other software being offered. For example, one of the largest and wealthiest school systems in the country had planned to use the Blackbaud system starting several weeks ago. I t has been an unmitigated disaster and the teachers have gone rouge and using their own Zoom accounts for ad hoc instruction while the school system struggles to fix their problems. There are some really top notch systems from MicroSoft and Google but they are more for business use and not as intuitive as zoom.
I’m obviously NOT a fan of “teleconferencing” and really don’t understand why the parents would not recognize that their kids are not getting the benefits of interactive and visual learning they can simply never get over a phoneline.Like most of these issues, the answer is a firm YES and NO. Obviously, much depends on the individual child, the school that he/she attends, the type of home-life they have outside of school and so many other variables. Yes, some schools can be very competitive and create stress for their students, but so can some parents who put pressures on their kids to excel and perform even when the schools they attend aren’t so demanding. I would be reluctant to generalize on a question that is so fact and case-specific.
P.S. Its only been about 6 weeks since most of the schools were closed and about 2 weeks of that time the kids would have been home anyway because of Pesach. Ask them the same question by the end of August if you still have them locked in the closet because of “social distancing” and you may find they would like nothing better than to be back in their “stressful” classrooms.See the DOJ “interested party” filing in the litigation brought in Virginia by a small church on Smith Island which had been issued a summons for violating the state’s guidelines limiting church gatherings to 10 individuals. In their case, they had 16 attendees in a building that seated over 200 and had taken other steps to follow CDC guidelines. While I’m a big supporter of the guidelines in general, some of their prescriptive rules make no sense, especially when you are dealing with constitutionally protected activities such as shooting ranges and religious services. I’m personally clueless as to why golf courses in many states were initially closed since I cannot think of a sport with greater social distancing when you walk the course (especially since I spend most of the time in the rough). However, golfing and getting a tattoo are not constitutionally protected. A bit more common sense would have made the rules go down a bit easier with most (but not all) those affected.
New theory that Putin and the Russian mafia are behind the release of the virus so as to “frame” the Wuhan Lab and create this broigas between the U.S. and China. Russia Hoax 2.0??
There is a big difference if you will we using it for business purposes where a more comprehensive and inclusive search is needed versus personal use where you might be willing to forego some sites in the name of shamiras aneiyim. I’ve used adblocik with much success but it does allow through some sites you might be uncomfortable with. I’m guessing that Reb Yosef has vetted the software he referenced and it will be sufficiently limiting for mehadrim.
CA: Agreed….or as an alternative, making sure your spellcheck is activated when posting.
On a serious note, the Texas Lt. Gov was making a point that what he considered to be over-the partial shutdowns don’t even come close to the sacrifices in personal rights we have made as a nation in other periods in times of national emergency. The case of Georgia, in particular, which prioritized opening of hair salons and tattoo parlors last week was indicative of this risk-taking to reaching government rules on social distancing etc. was a denial of his personal liberty and that to him, life without liberty etc. My sarcasm reflects my belief that while inconvenient and stressful, satisfy their right wing and libertarian political constituencies who insist that reliance on “personal responsibility” is sufficient. We shall see. I am skeptical.
If we want to be transparent about the public policy choices in “reopening” there should be an explicit statement by each jurisdiction as to how many deaths among our vulnerable populations (aka over 65, weak immune systems, etc.) they are willing to accept in order to save jobs. That metric, (acceptable deaths per 1000 jobs saved) is likely to vary among jurisdictions. For example, the Lt. Governor of Texas last week suggested that some things (e.g. getting your hair done or a confederate flag tattoo on you behind)) “are more important that saving life” . Hopefully, the lives of vulnerable groups have a higher value in other parts of the country.
More discussion and demonizing of China=Less discussion of Trump Screwups….Republicans are smart to advise all their candidates to keep talking about “China” (as distinct from the President’s BBF President Xi) and hand out free samples of lysol at their campaign events.
The Eleventh Amendment generally limits private actions brought against states in federal court. … A state may not be sued in federal court by its own citizen or a citizen of another state, unless the state consents to jurisdiction. However, where the claim relates to denial of a (federal) constitutional right, such claims often are heard in the federal appellate courts and SCOTUS (e.g. Heller decision striking down D.C. weapons law under Second Amendment, Oberefell (Bakers”) decision striking down Colorado civil rights law in the case of baker refusing to provide wedding cake for gay couple etc).
By the time a judge gets around to ruling on this (and similar) lawsuits, the case may be moot. Most state governors are operating under very broad emergency authority under their respective state laws to limit/suspend individual rights to protect public health and safety. Where they cross the line is when they cannot establish some reasoned basis for their decision-making or where it appears to be totally arbitrary with evidence of animus towards constitutionally protected rights. For example, a Virginia judge found the governor went too far by allowing outdoor gun ranges to stay open but closing an indoor gun range.. Conversely, several other federal and state judges have upheld limits on indoor religious services where there was provision for outdoor services with proper spacing. I would think De Blasoio’s selective enforcement is a bigger concern than closure rules that are applied uniformly across similarly situated religious/commercial activities.
Its not a binary decision to open or stay closed. The governors of the tri-state area have already said they will adopt the Trump Task Force guidelines of beginning a phased reopening once there are two weeks of declining infections rates. We are moving in that direction but its silly to think about suddenly waking up one morning and everything will be back to usual (unless we decide to emulate Sweden).
The photos this week of the bodies of those who were niftar from the virus piled into rented box trucks on Brooklyn streets outside funeral homes should help get the message across to those who might be skeptical or who are fortunate to not know anyone struck with the mageafah.
If not, probably nothing will help communicate the scope of this tragedy.Unless your are fortunate and were planning to send a very large gift to the lucky chosson/Kalah, you can take out your phone and transfer $500-$1000 on Zelle (or one of several similar instant cash transfer systems) in less time then it will take you to read the OP. No need to reinvent the wheel.
P.S. Obviously, the young couple need to have registered on the same cash transfer network but that also takes less time than it takes to register on Macy’s Bridal Registry.
147: Very good question. I believe a good case could be made that the tuition for the period where no instruction was provided could be treated as a donation to a charitable entity. However, I think there will probably have to be some IRS ruling confirming that view. For example, the mosdos may have to go through the motions of “offering refunds, albeit over an extended period of time” or allowing parents to forego their rights to a refund and consent to the treatment of the relevant amounts as “donations” to the school.
Do we have a tax lawyer here to comment?