The Teitelbaum Brothers at War or Something Else? A Petri Dish for Covid-19 Spread!!

The below letter to the editor is being published at the behest of an anonymous reader who is concerned about both the spread of Covid-19 and the raging “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” style civil war between the brothers Teitelbaum, leaders of two factions of the Satmar religious community. We have not edited it.

We are not going to provide an analysis of the long-standing war between the brothers Rabbi Aharon and Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum. It is an existential battle that would require an archivist, an expert in Satmar religious affairs, a magician and a philosopher to explain. But the spread of Covid-19 is an almost certain and foreseeable consequence of a massive gathering of the Kiryas Joel Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum Satmar community. Moreover, that will likely then be followed by a massive gathering of the Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum faction, if the author of the below is correct.

We cannot independently verify why the community is being gathered.

Kiryas Joel’s Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum could be summoning his community to excoriate local and state government on Covid-19 mask mandates, or for any number of unrelated reasons. It’s anyone’s guess.

The author sent the below along to try and save the lives of his or her religious community members. If this post helps, so be it.

Note to reader: The translation of the Hebrew in the second to last paragraph is “Anyone who has saved a life it’s as if he has saved the world.”

It is signed: “And in the name of G-d may we do and may we be successful.”

Dear friend,

Please let’s prevent more deaths of our family and friends, more than enough died the last 2 years around us! And more than enough became severely sick with strokes and heart attacks around us!

I hope you are doing alright now, and if not it’s ok nor does anybody else do alright now… But if we do something proactive we may be feeling just a bit better.

The  hasidic Whatsapp groups are ablaze with Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum of Monroe NY ‘s latest bombshell; he called for a gathering of thousands of his Hasidim followers to give a speech. Nobody knows yet what it will be but it is a scandalous because he asked no recordings should be allowed so we know it’s going to be a very dirty hateful speech against his brothers Zalmen followers that are becoming very strong in Kiryas Joel

This is based on a collection of all the leaks and speculations on whatsapp:

Tomorrow evening Thursday night the 16 of December 2021 8;30PM thousands will gather there in the main Kiryas Joel synagogue at 12 Garfield road.

All this amidst a new variant raging and the government not enforcing any masks nor other Covid precautions on this powerful bloc vote; so prepare for many more deaths there of their old and sick from omicron the next week or 2 while this major gathering is all about infighting of the grand rabbi Aron the older brother leader will forbid to buy homes and products from the growing minority who follows his younger brother grand rabbi Zelman there will be clips and pics so i tell u about this mass infecting of thousands with Covid a day and a half in advance.

The Aroiny Kiryas Joel leaders no doubt say this gathering is for G-d and Torah so they are ready to get infected; but we all know that it’s only for hateful politics!

Please spread this notice to all who may make a difference to halt this mass genocide of our vulnerable immune compromised members that will no doubt catch it form people who will attend this super spreader. כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא and even if we don’t like those aroinis they all have friends in business or family who are zalies that they will kill!

We can stop this if all of us really do speak up!

ובשם ה’ נעשה ונצליח!

Senator O’Mara – Weekly Column, Gov. Cuomo – What about the Nursing Home Tragedy? AND OVERSIGHT??? Covid-19

Senator O’Mara’s weekly column ‘From the Capitol’ ~ for the week of May 10, 2021 ~ ‘No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

May 10, 2021

• COMBATING COVID-19 AND PROTECTING NEW YORKERS; PROTECTING NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Senator O’Mara shares his weekly perspective on issues facing New York State government.Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

Senator O’Mara offers his weekly perspective on many of the key challenges and issues facing the Legislature, as well as on legislative actions, local initiatives, state programs and policies, and more. Stop back every Monday for Senator O’Mara’s latest column…

This week, “No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

Here was the lead paragraph in a National Review article late last week following Governor Andrew Cuomo’s May 5th news conference: “New York governor Andrew Cuomo defended an executive order that may have exacerbated coronavirus outbreaks in state nursing homes as ‘smart’ from a ‘medical point of view.’”

Smart?

After all these months, when how Governor Cuomo and his inner circle addressed the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes has been defined by cover-ups, stonewalling, lies, and the like, and keeping in mind that the Cuomo administration is under federal investigation for its actions, the governor calls it “smart.”

Trust me, there’s another side to that story.

Recall that Governor Cuomo issued a March 25, 2020 directive requiring New York State nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals into the homes. Last year’s March 25th directive would end up sending more than 9,000 COVID-positive patients into hundreds of nursing homes statewide, according to reporting from the Associated Press earlier this year, and likely contributed to thousands of deaths. Over 6,000 of those were new admissions to nursing homes, not readmissions as the Cuomo administration has tried to lead the public to believe.

Here’s how “smart” that action was considered at the time by many of the nation’s leading long-term care professionals.

The day after Governor Cuomo’s March 25 directive to nursing homes, on March 26, 2020, a prominent, national group of long-term care professionals denounced the directive and warned against it.

Specifically, the prominent, national medical professionals group American Medical Directors Association (AMDA)-The Society for Post-Acute Care and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine released a statement that the Cuomo order was “over-reaching, not consistent with science…and beyond all, not in the least consistent with patient safety principles.” The group’s statement went on, “Rather than bullying nursing facilities and medical providers to make unsafe decisions, the State of New York would be wise to direct its energies at ensuring adequate personal protective equipment is available to all healthcare providers…developing a long-neglected healthcare workforce, and identifying and standing up alternative care sites.”

Three days later, on March 29, AMDA-PALTC was joined in another statement by the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL). The groups stated, “As organizations dedicated to preserving the safety of patients and residents in post-acute and long-term care settings including assisted living, we strongly object to this policy directive and approach…This is a short-term and short-sighted solution that will only add to the surge in COVID-19 patients…We understand the need for public health and elected officials to weigh the risks and benefits of their decisions…However, a blanket order for every nursing home in the state to accept all admissions from hospitals is not sound policy.” [Both statements can be viewed in full on the AMDA-PALTC website: paltc.org]

Despite these dire warnings from the medical community directly involved in the care of our state’s elderly nursing home residents this directive was left in place for more than 30 days, until May 10, 2020. During this period, in excess of 9,000 COVID-positive hospital patients were sent from hospitals into New York’s nursing homes. Over 6,000 of these patients were not in a nursing home prior to entering the hospital.

During a joint Senate-Assembly hearing on the nursing homes crisis on August 3, 2020, I directly asked Health Commissioner Howard Zucker if he had received and read the March 26 and March 29 statements. He denied knowledge of them.

I didn’t believe Commissioner Zucker on that day and I still don’t believe it. It is simply not credible that New York’s top health official would not have been informed on statements from leading medical professionals expressing their alarm at one of New York State’s key directives and its potential and alarming risk to the elderly and these residential facilities overall.

And I don’t believe that Governor Cuomo’s policy was “smart.”

If Governor Cuomo and his top lieutenants had heeded the warning from the experts on the front lines of nursing home care in America, thousands of nursing home residents would have at least been better protected. Many lives could have been saved. 

The question is no longer whether the Cuomo administration’s handling of the nursing homes tragedy was smart.

Instead, in my view and the view of many others, the question remains unanswered about why Governor Cuomo and his inner circle ignored the warnings from public health experts that their March 25 mandate to nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients was over-reaching, and not consistent with science or patient safety principles. 

It is just one of many unanswered questions that still demand to be pursued regarding the Cuomo administration’s nursing homes cover-up.

Governor Cuomo has tried to conceal the truth on the devastation of this crisis in our nursing homes and in other places, and it has caused great harm. Reports keep forcefully exposing the lies, cover-ups, and crimes.

Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

For-Profit Nursing Homes Should be de-Licensed- The Elderly Need Protection From Quantifiable Valuation Over Humanity!

Dear Reader:

We have been railing about for-profit nursing and rehabilitation facilities for years: when an elder care facility, any version of elder care, is for-profit, there is utter lawlessness. Money flows like water through a sieve, unencumbered by laws or oversight.

A thorough review of the names of for-profit nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in New York, cross-checked with PPP Loans reveals that many of them (and/or their attorneys) were some of the largest recipients of PPP Loans during the first round of Covid relief. The second round remains to be seen. They will likely be the first to get PPP Loan forgiveness even though many of them did little, or more accurately nothing to protect their employees or their patients. In fact, the word “nothing” here is quite forgiving. It would mean a passive omission, simple apathy.

To put the narrative in a more truthful perspective, many of the for-profit nursing homes fed their own pockets with the Covid-19 funding. That money should have guaranteed staffing but they were underpaying wages or not hiring. And, many of the country’s nursing homes are owned by the same or similar groups of owners, and they actively manipulated and continue to manipulate the system to profit from Covid-19. Yes! To profit!

Many nursing homes (though not all) take out life insurance on their patients with them as beneficiaries of the policy, when the patient signs in. If that patients makes it past 30-days to 60-days depending upon the policy, the death of the patient generates income to the homes. It is a win/win. Well, the insurers are out – but there is little oversight there either. These are small money policies that generally are unregulated by the insurance industry.

LeadingAge, the “elder care facility advocacy group” believes that the failure of many of these homes cannot be fixed by oversight it can only be fixed by adding money. The comments by LeadingAge imply that there is not enough money to help these facilities take appropriate care of their patients. That is a vile and utterly false interpretation of events. The business model is profit above all else. A view from 30,000 feet shows his analysis doesn’t match the math with respect to many, if not all, of the for-profit elder care facilities.

The problem, in this blogger’s humble opinion: YOU CANNOT BUY MORALITY. IF YOU ARE LACKING IN A MORAL COMPASS, THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE WORLD THAT WILL FIX THAT. ADDITIONAL MONEY SIMPLY FEEDS THE MONSTER!

The nursing and rehabilitation home industry is a well-played, well-gamed and manipulated system run by super savvy individuals or groups who know how to game every aspect of the operation. Many are partially owned by the attorneys who represent them and some of those attorneys, at least in NY, help decide who runs on political tickets. These “moblike” industry is a web of somewhat incestuous industry connections. The Elder Care Centers will contract out linen and food services to friends, family or even themselves (a rose by any other name…). They buy drugs from distribution or drug companies owned or operated by their friends, colleagues or even their own corporate enterprises who provide a scratch on their proverbial backs. Foodservice is provided by friends, family or interrelated entities. Mobile medicine is provided by interrelated companies.

These facilities use inexpensive sharps for things like insulin and other injectable drugs that often result in more pain to the patient but less pain to the bottom line. Many reuse insulin or other injectable drug vials but charge each patient for their own, sometimes stockpiling the extra meds and sidestepping laws that prevent the reuse of needles or vials. Instead of giving their patients the name-brand drugs they may have used before admission to their facilities, they give them the generics and file claims for name-brand. They often fail to provide necessary services: occupational, speech, physical and other therapies, they claim to provide those services and bill for them; but many of the patients will attest to what they are not getting and therapy is on the top of that list. They charge for doctor’s visits that don’t happen or are substituted by RN’s, NP’s or PA’s so the doctors are often paid multiple times for the same hour in a day – a reward for often misdiagnosing ailments or over-diagnosing meds.

Facilities that have specialized Dialysis centers associated with their services have little reason to protect a diabetic’s kidneys when a slow destruction of the kidneys yields greater profit. Dialysis is far more profitable then kidney treatment and insulin.

These numbers can be obtained for the asking by law enforcement or anyone reading this blog. Nursing homes and rehabilitations centers need strict oversight absent loopholes. For-profit nursing homes need to be de-licensed – all of them. The ownership of the homes is available on public links. The links between owners in different states can be found by cross checking ownership state-by-state. We have done this analysis with respect to about 30 of the largest of the and most mafia-like ownership groups, which, by the way, own some of the country’s worst nursing homes. We are not stating anything that is not otherwise publicly available and we have been making these claims for years.

No one should be listening to the lobbyists. They have an agenda and quality care for elderly and vulnerable individuals is a far too altruistic endeavor. The lobbyists also have skin-in-the-game and it amounts to a fortune!

New York Assembly releases package of nursing home reform bills

The Democratic-led New York state Assembly released a package of nearly 20 nursing home accountability bills Friday, aimed at tightening restrictions on the hundreds of for-profit facilities.

Among the 19 bills is one sponsored by Assembly Health Chair Dick Gottfried (D-Manhattan) that would prohibit the creation of any new for-profit homes and impose a morratorium expanding the capacity of existing homes.

“Lots of people have been discovering that there are enormous problems in our nursing homes. COVID may have brought them to light and made them worse but a lot of us know those problems have been there for many, many, many years,” Gottfried said during Thursday’s remote Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Health. 

He railed against the for-profit industry in an interview later Thursday evening with NY1, arguing those nursing homes often have higher infection rates and instances of bed sores among patients.

“We’re not going to license any more for-profit nursing homes or for-profit beds,” he said. “We should stop the creation of for-profit beds…you should [operate a nursing home] to care for people not because you want to make money.”

Right now, there are 401 for-profit, privately owned nursing homes out of the roughly 619 in the Empire State, according to a January report from the office of state Attorney General Letitia James.

To continue reading in The New York Post

In Utter Disregard, Covid-19, Torah Scrolls and It’s all Upside Down, Thousands of Ultra-Orthodox in Williamsburg

We considered flipping the video so it would not be upside down. But, this way seemed almost more fitting. in the video Aharon Teitelbaum, the Grand Rebbe of the Kiryas Joel Satmar sect is speaking about the importance of the Torah and the new scrolls. There is a great irony there, considering the blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life apparent in this vido.

It is a travesty for Jews everywhere. It is a shame that the leader of one of the wealthiest sects of ultra-orthodoxy and the religious faithful are not taught a more respectful lesson, to sanctify life.

A New Torah Scroll in Williamsburg, in a world turned upside down

the Satmar welcoming in a new Torah scroll

A Little Resentment as Secular Israel Quarantines and Religious Israel Gathers by the Thousands – Covid-19

“Massive Wedding Now in Jerusalem”

“To See and Not to Believe”

The above was a live video feed of a funeral in Israel from this afternoon, January 31, 2021 – in the middle of a pandemic. It was taken from a Facebook page, the link for which was sent to us.

There were more than 10,000 in attendance at this funeral. The government will not stop these events from happening because of the coalition Knesset and the power of the few ultra-religious ministers who hold the government hostage. The law enforcement will not step in because of the violence that ensues when when they try to prevent these events from happening.

This is an example of utter lawlessness.

In our opinion, these are large scale bio-terrorist events and should be treated as such. The leaders should be jailed. The people in attendance should be placed in a single location for two weeks so they cannot affect those people who have spent nearly a year abiding by the rules and were NOT in attendance. Medical attention should be denied to anyone who attended. There are law-abiding citizens who may need those beds.

This is wholly godless behavior. Doubtless more funerals will follow as others get sick, hospitalized and die. The end result is inevitable. The optics are terrible.

If there is Anti-Semitism, it is in this instance based upon a resentment and fear derived from actual and frightening events. This is nothing short of murderous conduct committed by a group of fundamentalist fanatics and endorsed by Israel’s government. Those in power in Israel have blood on their hands. There will be more.

To those religious and secular leaders who find this behavior reprehensible, we plead with you to step up and say something. We implore you to demand accountability. We ask that you protect the rest of us.

The Single Sickest Group by Proportion – the Most Violent Protesters of Covid-19 Lockdowns – Pikuach Nefesh F-U

Dear Reader:

The hypocrisy is astounding.

By proportion all over the world, the single sickest group of people to population numbers is the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community. It is in the numbers and the math speaks for itself. These rates of illness (and death) are consistent in the US (with particular attention to New York and New Jersey), in Israel (Bnei Brak, Beit Shemsh, Beitar Ilit), in Belgium (Antwerp), in the Ukraine, in the Netherlands, in England (London) and the list goes on and on. And with the increased rates of illness and flouting of Covid-19 precautions, the increase in many of these places is resentment, hatred and ultimately anti-Jewish sentiment.

Everywhere there are large groups of organized religious people (whatever the religion), the numbers of Covid-19 infected people are higher. Most religious groups have scaled down. The ultra-Orthodox have not! Where they have stopped congregating, the numbers have reduced, sometimes dramatically. Sadly, the ultra-Orthodox Jews have, in large part, not stopped congregating. The rabbis are telling them that it’s all in G-d’s hands. But, if G-d sends us a lifeboat are we not supposed to acknowledge it is there for a reason?

As those same religious Jews profess to be pious and observant, (Talmidim Chachamim) to study Torah and worship One G-d as the Chosen People, they have set aside the single most important tenet of the Jewish laws, the notion of THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE. (Pikuach Nefesh) To that, they have said a glorious F-U.

Haredi Society, Flouting Covid-19, Lax Enforcement, Frustration

Enfeebled and enraged, Haredi society feels forsaken on all sides

The focus of growing anger, and increasingly frustrated in turn at the government’s lax enforcement of virus rules, the ultra-Orthodox are now a political time bomb

Monday afternoon in the Knesset. MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism heads to the dais to speak about a bill advancing through parliament that will allow police to slap steep fines on schools that violate virus restrictions and even to close them by force.

He’s visibly angry; his comments are short and to the point.

“You’re only bringing this bill to vilify the Haredi public!” he declares.

Then he adds, in comments that would later go viral on Israeli social media, “It’s not our fault! You, who sent us to live in such crowded conditions, it’s your fault!”

It was an astonishing display that encapsulated the confused, anxious Haredi non-response to the crisis of rule-breaking that’s setting parts of the community aflame, and the frantic search for someone to blame.

Ultra-Orthodox violations of the virus restrictions aren’t new. The problem has simmered for months, occasionally waning as contagion rates and corresponding restrictions recede, then exploding again onto the public agenda when the pandemic returns with a fury.

But the latest round of anger and anxiety surrounding Haredi struggles with the virus has quickly reached a fever pitch. Recent days have seen violent riots in Haredi population centers as police moved in to enforce long-ignored health closures.

In the usually placid city of Bnei Brak, a municipal bus was torched to its metal skeleton after young Haredi men dragged the driver from the vehicle. Camera crews, including a Fox News team, were either attacked or had their vehicles vandalized in Haredi areas. Israeli news broadcasts have carried photogenic vignettes of such violence for days.

Police clash with Haredi men as they enforce coronavirus restrictions in the Haredi neighborhood of Mea She’arim in Jerusalem, January 24, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

And throughout the rising violence, Haredi rabbinic and political leadership were nowhere to be found.

Voter fury

The anger and frustration have now engulfed the debate. Channel 12, sensing the public mood, decided to ask in a poll released Tuesday whether Israelis wanted Haredi political parties to be part of the next governing coalition.

Among the self-identified center-left, 78 percent prefer the next government not include the Haredi parties; just 5% want them included. That’s an extraordinary gap, but not really unexpected. The center-left is largely drawn from Israel’s secular bastions, the large cities, kibbutzim, and the like.

The surprising figure came from the other side, from the self-identified right. A majority, 52%, said they, too, didn’t want the Haredi parties in the next government. Just a third, 33%, said they wanted them.

To continue reading, click here.