Time for a COVID Reckoning
Dear Editor:
I am going to bring up a topic that may trigger some people and make them feel uncomfortable, and yet I feel this must be addressed if we are to heal as a people. On July 29, Dr. Fauci was brought before Congress in a hearing to answer questions about his role during the COVID mandates.
It was especially triggering for me and members of my family because our father had passed away alone in a hospital during that time as part of COVID protocol, and we still are not sure exactly what happened.
Sadly, many loved ones in the frum community similarly passed away under these conditions. It was a time of insanity, really. People were threatened that they would be fired from their jobs if they didn’t cooperate and take an experimental mRNA shot, and vaccine passports were issued to those who complied. I remember walking by a kosher restaurant that had a sign in the window stating that only those who had taken the jab were welcome. Sadly, shuls volunteered as “medical clinics” to give these experimental shots to men, women, and children. Shuls, day schools, and universities enforced compliance in order to get permission to enter their buildings.
Families were separated from loved ones, friendships were severed, and many elderly people were isolated and left to die alone. If people wanted to take alternative medicines, like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, they were ridiculed. One of the few leaders in the frum community, Dr. Zelenko, of blessed memory, was ridiculed for trying to save people with these alternative drugs and telling people to avoid hospitals, ventilators, and dangerous drugs like remdesivir.
Unfortunately, people in positions of power, both here and in Israel, who should know better, promoted taking these jabs with a vengeance. The federal government offered hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to organizations, including churches, synagogues, faith-based groups, and school networks, to conduct COVID-19 vaccine outreach, education, and mobile clinics. People were hired in these communities to be vaccine ambassadors. Free burgers, fries, and milkshakes were offered in exchange for taking these experimental shots. Like I said earlier, it was sheer madness. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Those who questioned or refused to abide by these tyrannical rules were ridiculed and isolated as well.
There was a small group of people who did speak out and brought in doctors like Dr. Zelenko, Dr. Kory, Dr. Marik, Dr. Cole, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Simone Gold, etc., to address the communities and warn them about the serious side effects associated with these experimental mRNA shots, and yet they were quickly shouted down and mocked by others in the community.
Now, six years later, it is finally coming out how dangerous these shots truly were and how they caused devastation, including injuries and death, and are still causing devastation. Watching Dr. Fauci being questioned at the hearing and seeing him plead the Fifth 111 times and refuse to apologize to people who lost loved ones was heartbreaking. But then again, Dr. Fauci could not have acted alone. And maybe that is the lesson to be learned here. Maybe G-d is trying to teach us that when madness and darkness present themselves, we need to stand up and speak out and not just go along, no matter what we are being offered.
This was not a small event. As evidence is pouring in on a daily basis, the COVID fiasco will become one of the worst scandals in history and has left many people really hurt. If we don’t want this to happen again, we must learn from it. And yet, since the Dr. Fauci hearings broke, I have heard virtually nothing from the frum community. No apologies, no remorse, just silence, as if to say, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen, or even if it did, let’s just move on. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And as we enter the month of Elul, which is a time for really doing cheshbon hanefesh, it’s time for those who did not act appropriately during this time to come out and do teshuvah.
Ironically, the FDA has just approved an mRNA flu shot by Moderna, which they will reportedly start administering as early as this fall. This is despite there being many concerns about these experimental mRNA shots. Of particular concern is that these shots also act as shedders, which can cause even more devastation. As somebody who grew up in the ‘60s, I have watched our own communities get sicker and sicker over the past sixty years. I have watched these communities be infiltrated by a medical system that has gotten increasingly corrupt and often puts profits above safety and promotes drugs and experimental injections over making healthy choices. As a result, we are seeing a health crisis in our communities.
At any rate, now that people are waking up to the terrible acts that were committed against the citizens of this country back in 2020 and 2021, we need to do better. The drug companies are not backing down, but we, as a holy nation, have a choice. We can choose life, health, and truth, or we can choose, G-d forbid, the opposite. Let’s hope this Rosh HaShanah people choose the former and that they have the courage to stand up against tyrannical measures in the future!
Rebecca Chesner
Life in Israel: Continued
Dear Editor:
I have not had time to catch my breath and share my ongoing adventures in the Holy Land. I finally received my health insurance, Baruch Hashem, after waiting a month and a half. It could have been worse. I don’t listen to the news because it is stressful, and the pundits predict gloom and doom. I feel at peace here, walking the streets of Jerusalem, surrounded by the beauty of greenery, flowers, and community gardens. People seem friendlier and offer to help strollers off buses and carry packages.
Yesterday, I asked the owner of a local bookstore that I patronize if I could leave my heavy packages there while I went home to get my shopping cart. He insisted on taking the packages home for me, despite my protests! The neighborhood is quiet most of the time, except when garbage trucks come by. The birds wake me up in the morning at 5:15 a.m. How do they know the time? Wish I knew what they were chirping about.
I have plenty to keep me busy, whether it’s volunteering at a soup kitchen, visiting elderly Holocaust survivors, or working with people who have dementia. The latter has not begun yet. I took three weeks of classes at Nishmat and met two lovely women who have kept in touch with me. My sister is planning to visit me for the holidays in the fall. Finally, family is coming!
Rachel Epstein
Coffee Yogurt
Dear Editor:
I don’t ask for much when it comes to food choices. I’ll buy Bowl & Basket Frosted Flakes just as easily as I’ll buy Tony the Tiger. The former has to be eaten more quickly so it doesn’t get soggy in the milk. However, one product I don’t replace is Dannon’s coffee yogurt. Any other brand doesn’t match up to the original. So, much to my surprise and dismay, it is no longer being sold. I thought I was the only consumer to notice, but the WSJ had an entire article about coffee yogurt addicts mourning the loss of their favorite yogurt.
“Big deal,” you might say. Try another yogurt, another flavor, or the flip-top ones. To be honest, I hate yogurt, with the exception of the above brand. It was probably taken off the shelves because of its ingredients or maybe because it’s not cholov Yisroel. Guess what? I don’t care. You can eliminate all the Entenmann’s cakes, which are so sweet you can get sick just looking at them. By the way, is carrot cake healthy?
I don’t ask much from life. I’m not happy that lettuce is off my “to buy” list for the time being. There was one type of cherry ice cream at Trader Joe’s that I miss, and chicken bouillon cubes are another item that disappeared from the shelves. However, if you take away my coffee yogurt, I might have to resort to coffee milkshakes. What has my culinary world come to?
Debbie Horowitz
When Party Comes Before Principle
Dear Editor:
The radical Marxism and Islamism that have overtaken the Democrat Party are even too much for longtime Democrats James Carville and Bill Maher. They see the influence that Hasan Piker has on the Democrat Party and are willing to walk away from their political party rather than be associated with Piker.
New York Senators Schumer and Gillibrand ran to embrace and endorse Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. They have chosen power and party over anything else. They have neither principles nor morals. The man is associated with CAIR. He is pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas, anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel. He, like Piker and Bernie Sanders, attacks AIPAC. Islamism is not compatible with Americanism. We do not want our cities to turn into what Paris and London have become.
Our country is collapsing before our eyes. Fellow Americans are voting for Democrats who want Iran to have a nuclear weapon! Could you imagine how WWII would have played out had Adolf Hitler had nuclear weapons? We need to wake up. Our education system, funded by enemies like Qatar, is brainwashing our youth.
The big issue that Democrats are running on is “affordability.” You have propagandists, like Stephanie Ruhle on MSNOW, state that “Trump made everything more expensive because of mass deportations and his war with Iran.” This is not journalism. It’s not even reality. Joe Biden’s ill-named “Inflation Reduction Act” sent prices skyrocketing. Inflation grew to over 9%. Regular gas was over $5 per gallon. We aren’t even close to that today. There is no way Democrats will make things more affordable. Marxists believe history begins today. Jews do not. We do not forget. 2022 was not that long ago.
Mr. Hecht, Professor Alan Dershowitz has a new book coming out, Why I Quit the Dems and So Should You. I’d like to send it to you as an early Chanukah gift. He foresaw what was to come. He chose his religion, his faith, and his country over his party. Mr. Hecht, you already see what is playing out in NYC with this mayor. I hope and pray that you come around as well.
Shalom Markowitz
