March 17, 2020

Nina Abrahams and Amit Bigler knew the coronavirus pandemic would have an impact on their wedding, which was already taking place in Israel, far from their home in New York.

But they didn’t expect to have their guest list whittle down from 330 to about 20 — and for those 20 guests to attend the ceremony in different shifts, so that no more than 10 guests were present at the same time.

That’s exactly what Abrahams and Bigler had to do, however, after the Israeli government temporarily outlawed gatherings of more than 10 people to combat the spread of the virus. They would put together their wedding in less than a day.

Couples around the world have had to downsize their wedding celebrations as countries impose strict rules to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 5,000 people worldwide. In Israel, at least one couple gained attention for circumventing the regulations by holding a wedding ceremony in a supermarket, where 100 people are permitted.

More often, however, couples say they are shrinking their weddings in order to go forward with celebrations at a time of great uncertainty.

The Tournelles Synagogue in Paris typically hosts four or five wedding ceremonies every week. But on Sunday, with the coronavirus toll rising in France, its iconic, cavernous sanctuary had just one wedding — with just a few guests.

Rabbi Chalom Zana, a Chabad rabbi from the suburb of Bourget, said the couple had considered postponing but went ahead at his urging.

“I told them it’s a matter of continuity and recommended they do the ceremony as planned, and just postpone the party,” Zana said.

“At first there was some heaviness in the air, but I found it appropriate. After all, a rabbi’s job is to explain the procedure to the couple and also the significance of the contract into which they are entering. The fact that the event was at all happening symbolized the Jewish people’s commitment to continuity despite all circumstances.”

For Abrahams, 26, and Bigler, 27, the choice to rush their wedding was easy to make.

“We just wanted to be together,” Abrahams told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by phone from Israel a day after her nuptials.

But executing their plans was anything but simple. They had coordinated every detail for their March 23 ceremony and party with their venue, Ella, in the Israeli town of Ness Ziona. And they had stuck with those plans even as it became clear that their 70 guests from overseas, including Abrahams’ siblings, would not be able to attend.

But on Saturday night, more than a week before their wedding date, Israel announced that it would ban gatherings of more than 10 people. The pair decided they couldn’t wait longer.

Abrahams, who served in the Israeli army before returning to her native New York, rushed to the mikvah to do a ritual immersion done traditionally before Jewish weddings.

Then she and Bigler drove around Israel in the middle of the night in search of an outdoor spot. Ultimately they realized that Bigler’s uncle, who lives in the town of Gedera, had a backyard that would do.

Catering and DJ arrangements were off the table, so as the pair filled out last-minute paperwork, relatives picked up fruit, cheeses, cakes and sandwiches at a nearby market. Bigler’s mother found a saxophonist to play during the wedding ceremony. The couple then rushed to get ready and take photographs before the ceremony took place less than 24 hours after they had decided to make it happen.

“Although so many were missed, the wedding was intimate, meaningful and beautiful,” the bride’s mother, Miriam Abrahams, wrote about the experience. She and her husband had arrived in Israel just days before the country began requiring a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving from overseas.

Nina and Amit, she added, “have remained calm and positive and turned lemons into limonana!”

The couple, who met on the JSwipe dating app in 2018, indeed found a silver lining in the small attendance.

“We’re both kind of shy people,” Abrahams said, “so we were both also happy and a little relieved not to have something so big.”

Amazon has banned the sale of most editions of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and other Nazi propaganda books following decades-long pleas by Holocaust education organizations and Jewish groups.

Booksellers were informed in recent days that they would no longer be allowed to sell a number of Nazi-authored books on the website, including “Mein Kampf,” The Guardian reported Monday on its website, citing Amazon emails to sellers.

In one email seen by the Guardian, sellers of secondhand copies of Hitler’s Nazi manifesto were told that “they can no longer offer this book” since it breaks the Amazon website’s code of conduct.

Despite the campaigns for at least two decades for Amazon to stop selling copies of “Mein Kampf,” Amazon had cited free speech rights in continuing its sale. Last month, the Auschwitz Museum called out owner Jeff Bezos for making a profit on “vicious anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda.”

Dozens of inexpensive Kindle eBook editions of “Mein Kampf” also have been deleted from Amazon’s listings, as has Hitler’s Amazon author page, according to the Guardian.

Amazon did not comment to The Guardian on the reasons for the policy change, but a recent intervention to remove the books by the London-based Holocaust Educational Trust had received the backing of leading British politicians, the newspaper reported.

“As a bookseller, we provide customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including titles that serve an important educational role in understanding and preventing antisemitism,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Guardian. “All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer and we do not take selection decisions lightly.”

At least 100 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in Borough Park, a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency confirmed the number with an official at Asisa, an urgent care clinic in the New York City neighborhood that caters to the Hasidic community.

According to the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of restrictions on speaking to the media, the 100 positive tests have come since the clinic began testing on Friday morning. Asisa has conducted 1,000 total tests, the official said.

As of Tuesday, there are 814 total coronavirus cases in New York City, according to its Department of Health.

An Israeli startup will donate around 120,000 masks made with an anti-pathogen, anti-bacterial fabric it developed that could help stop the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), to Israeli hospitals, medical professionals and coronavirus patients, reported The Jerusalem Post.

“Sonovia Ltd. is determined to use its novel technology for the good of the State of Israel,” the company said in a release. “In this crucial period, it is hoped that our efforts will help curtail the number of clinical cases of coronavirus we see in Israel in the upcoming weeks and months.”

Sonovia developed an almost-permanent, ultrasonic, fabric-finishing technology that “mechanically infuses metal oxides nanoparticles onto textiles during an ultrasonic-assisted impregnation process with the specialized chemical compound turning the textiles into highly effective blocks against bacteria and fungi,” the website NoCamels reported.

It was based on a process created at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan.

Dr. Jason Migdal, a research scientist with Sonovia, said any airborne bacteria will be destroyed upon contact with the surface of the mask. He explained that coronavirus is spread via aerosol and direct contact, making any antiviral personal protective equipment “of crucial importance to combat the transmission of this viral epidemic.”

On Sunday, the company imported all its stored fabric from its R&D line in Germany to its headquarters in Israel and then to a factory in Jerusalem that will make the masks, according to The Jerusalem Post. Migdal said the masks will be ready by next week.

Butchers in the United Kingdom are hustling to meet an unprecedented demand for kosher meat in light of the many canceled Passover trips due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jewish News reported.

Sarah Mann Yeager from the British company Louis Mann & Son said local butchers are “already stretched to capacity on Passover.” She estimates a 20 percent increase in demand because of how COVID-19 has impacted travel plans for Passover, which is celebrated this year from April 8 to April 16.

“We are having to work overtime, bring in extra staff, and there are added pressures to the market due to the lockdown,” she said. “We will do our best to meet demand so long as there are no problems in supply.”

Suppliers could also face problems because “there are only a finite number of kosher abattoirs” in the United Kingdom, and “if one person catches the virus, it could have severe consequences,” she said.

Tamir Haziza, director of the butcher Menachem’s in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood of London, is also “concerned” and has had to readjust his supply because “basically everyone is staying.” He said, “we are buying more meat every day to try to make sure people get what they want.”

The butchers also encouraged people not to do their Passover shopping at the last minute.

“I don’t want people to be disappointed. I encourage people to do their shopping ASAP,” said Haziza.

Mann Yeager encouraged customers to “get moving as soon as possible,” but also “to behave in a sensible manner” and “not to panic-buy.”

Yossi Menachem warned about the limited supply for specialty cuts and also urged people “to clear their freezer” and “order meat a few weeks earlier.”

More than 60 Democrats have called on the Trump administration to press Israel not to use U.S. military equipment to demolish Palestinian homes.

In a letter sent on Monday to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the 64 House Democrats—spearheaded by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)—cited the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs, which stated that there’s been a 45 percent increase in home and other civilian demolitions in 2019 compared to the previous year.

Congress members requested a probe as to whether Israel is following the requirements for recipients of U.S. defense equipment in accordance with the Arms Export Control Act of 1976.

“The United States should work to prevent unlawful home demolitions and the forcible transfer of civilians everywhere in the world and prevent the use of U.S.-origin equipment in this destructive practice,” stated the letter. “The faithful implementation of the AECA is one important oversight tool for ensuring that U.S.-origin defense articles and other items recipient countries purchase with foreign military financing are not used for such purposes outside the scope of ‘legitimate self-defense.’ ”

The COVID-19 pandemic cast a pall over the swearing in of Israel’s 23rd Knesset on Monday, with the Knesset’s 120 lawmakers being sworn in three at a time to avoid spreading the disease, while Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein delivered speeches to a nearly empty hall. This is the third Knesset to be sworn in fewer than 12 months, due to an ongoing political impasse that has paralyzed the country’s government.

Nevertheless, lawmakers quickly got to work, introducing a series of extraordinary bills designed specifically to remove Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.

The first bombshell was sponsored by Knesset member Oded Forer of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party.

His bill would grant the Knesset the authority, with a simple majority and via a secret ballot, to oust an indicted prime minister heading a transitional government. Netanyahu is currently serving as de facto prime minister because three election cycles in a row have failed to produce a permanent government, and has been indicted in three corruption cases. So this legislation is specifically aimed at removing him from office.

Forer told JNS that “it is clear to us that Netanyahu wants to lead Israel to a fourth election. He thinks he will do better in the next round on the heels of directing Israel through the coronavirus crisis. We promised that we would not allow the country to go to a fourth election; that is what we are doing with this law. Our party will guide Israel towards a wide-ranging, Zionistic and liberal government.”

Forer’s bill also states that if a prime minister faces criminal charges, then any Knesset member can put in a request to remove him from office. The Knesset House Committee would then have one week to hold a vote on whether to recommend that the Knesset accept the petition. If it passes the committee it would go to the Knesset floor for a vote. If it passes the Knesset, then the government would choose a new prime minister from the party of the ousted one.

The bill explains that secret ballots are needed for all these votes “to ensure that Knesset members vote according to their personal opinion, rather than party considerations and coalition pressure.”

The bill sent shock waves through the Knesset as it became clear that a majority exists to pass the measure.