Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor : Cuomo: "I'm Going to Close the Synagogues." and De Blasio Vows Law and Order... After Chassidic Jewish Protests and My letter about Trump Taxes on Sept 30 in the Jerusalem POST and The First NBA Field Goal And Assist: Both Scored By Jews By Saul Jay Singer and The Portion of Nitzavim and millennial and Z generations have a "shocking and saddening" lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, and Trump Calls Regeneron a 'Cure' for Covid-19


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Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.

Love Yehuda Lave

I am doing a zoom on the Lockdowns and other Subjects on Wendesday night at 7:30 PM bli neder

R&B Lecture: "Do the Pandemic and American Presidential Election mean we in the Messianic Age?"by Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Lave
Wednesday, October 14th, 2020 07:30 PM Jerusalem
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsf-GrrzwsGN1LzVt-XL3lOwD6P4rFO0ND

De Blasio Vows Law and Order... After Chassidic Jewish Protests

Wed Oct 7, 2020 Daniel Greenfield

(Photo shows Bill de Blasio joining in an illegal mass gathering for BLM street vandalism outside Trump Tower.)

Good news.

Democrats can totally get behind a crackdown on mostly peaceful protests. As long as the mostly peaceful protesters are members of a conservative religious group.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has gotten behind Law and Order. For Chassidic Jews protesting his selective targeting of their communities.

Mayor Bill de Blasio warned people protesting new COVID lockdown restrictions in parts of Brooklyn and Queens that the NYPD "will not tolerate" assaults, property damage or fires.

Really?

Black Lives Matter would beg to differ. And BLM did a whole lot more than burn masks in the street or shove back when they were shoved. Actual arson, mayhem, and looting is fine.

Burning masks though? Nein, says Mayor Wilhelm.

The warning came hours after hundreds of members of Orthodox Jewish communities protested in Brooklyn overnight Tuesday. Debris was burned in the street at one point during the protests and there was some pushing and shoving between demonstrators and police officers.

This would be a very slow and peaceful rally for Black Lives Matter. And Mayor Bill de Blasio has tolerated it. What he's really saying is that his white and minority supporters can engage in assaults, property damage, and fires, but not a minority group he dislikes.

"And when the NYPD makes clear to anybody that they need to act in a way that is appropriate given the challenge we're facing, you must adhere to the instructions of the NYPD," de Blasio said. "If you don't, as in every other situation in this city, there will be consequences."

De Blasio said he spoke with NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and made it clear that this was a health emergency. "The state has laid down very clear rules. Everyone must follow those rules. The NYPD will be enforcing those rules," he said.

Under new rules, violators face $15,000-a-day fines for mass gatherings, as well as $1,000-a-day fines for not wearing face coverings or practicing social distancing.

Will those rules apply to BLM? We know they don't and won't.

That means these rules are racial and religious discrimination and ought to be met with DOJ action and lawsuits. This is as blatant as a civil rights violation gets.

"People in the community have lost a lot of trust in the government, be it because people were told they can't pray but thousands of people can gather in the streets to protest, or because rules kept changing from minute to minute without rhyme or reason," Borough Park Community Board leader Barry Spitzer told me. It made no sense to community members that in the city's view, "going to a funeral is bad but protesting is good."

Spitzer also alleged that the city is insensitive to how much Orthodox Jews have sacrificed since March. "Do they understand what it means that 98% of our synagogues were closed all through Passover? Do they understand what it means that people didn't go to synagogue on Passover? Do they understand what it means that people sat for the seder alone? ... They didn't pray, they didn't go to the mikvah, they didn't make weddings, they closed their shops."

But... but a guy who robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint must be venerated with riots and looting. How do you backward religious folk not understand that?

"Every patient became a prisoner," Indig said. "We begged them, let volunteers in ... No patient should be left alone, no patient should be neglected." The Floyd protests took place with this indignity fresh in the community's minds. "They had no issue with the demonstrations, with the protests with thousands of people in the streets," Indig said of city authorities.

As Josh Hammer at Newsweek notes,

Albany and City Hall best prepare for litigation: The situation is fluid, but there will assuredly be a flurry of lawsuits filed on behalf of New York City's Jews. The Constitution's federalist structure does provide states and localities with so-called "police power" over emergency health-related regulatory measures, but anti-religious discrimination is verboten under the First Amendment and relevant federal statutes, such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

But litigation, whether real or threatened, is insufficient. Attorney General William Barr should immediately open a Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation as to whether Cuomo and de Blasio are violating federal law by discriminating against New York City's Jewish community in such transparent fashion.

It's about time there was pushback, when it comes to Jewish and Christian religious gatherings.

If Republicans don't mobilize around issues that people care about, they're going to lose.

(I'm not going to repost the tabloid Jew-baiting coverage from the New York Post and the Daily Mail, tabloids that conservatives occasionally rely on, but that have issues. The Post's hostility to Orthodox Jews is a longstanding and ugly affair. The Daily Mail is opportunistically happy to run whatever gets it the most clicks.)

At Messionic times the truth will be abandoned

The $750 question
Regarding "'Trump paid just $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017'"

(September 29), the time appointed by God for the messianic redemption is a closely guarded secret. Nonetheless, we are offered hints to recognize its proximity: an increase in insolence and impudence; unbridled irresponsibility on the part of authorities; centers of learning will turn into bawdy houses; wars; many destitute people begging with none to pity them; the pious shall be despised; truth will be abandoned; the young will insult the old and more (Sotah: 49).

The condition of truth being abandoned is certainly relevant in the story on your front page about US President Donald Trump's taxes. Every taxpayer in America knows you pay your taxes in advance and then just pay the balance with your tax return. Contrary to the false impression in The New York Times story, Donald Trump did not avoid taxes; the $750 was just what he paid with his return over and above his prepayments.

Dick Morris, American political author, and former presidential adviser, reports that in 2016 and 2017, Trump requested and got an extension to file his returns. As required, he made an estimated tax payment of $1 million in 2016 and $4.2 million in 2017. Then, when it turned out that he did not owe that much in taxes, rather than demand the money back, he let the IRS keep it and apply it to any future tax he would owe. So when he seemingly paid only $750 in taxes for the first two years of his presidency, it was because he had already overpaid during the two previous years with $5.2 million. He left the money with the IRS and took the refund over several years. A government strapped for cash should reward such conduct, not vilify it. Bottom line: Donald Trump did not avoid paying taxes, he prepaid them.

Latest articles from Jpost

What's wrong with that? Certainly not the headline that says he paid $750 when he actually paid $5.2 million. In this election year, watch your news sources carefully. Can the Moshiach be far away?
RABBI YEHUDA LAVE Jerusalem

Cuomo: "I'm Going to Close the Synagogues."

Tue Oct 6, 2020 Daniel Greenfield

The mantra of the lockdowners is pretty simple. When in doubt, blame religious people. If the test numbers are going up, blame the folks praying and getting married and burying their dead, instead of binging on Netflix and retweeting Biden memes. And in New York, that means blaming Orthodox Jews.

Mayor Bill de Blasio had already engaged in blatant antisemitism with his infamous tweet. "My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed"

Now it's Governor Cuomo's turn, ranting at a press conference, "I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, 'If you're not willing to live with these rules, then I'm going to close the synagogues.'"

Those would be the rules that Cuomo and his allies don't live by.

The photo above is a Sharpton anti-police event with Cuomo conducted during the pandemic. Sharpton has since gone on to hold a 50,000 rally in D.C. while the media applauded.

Meanwhile, Cuomo's munchkins had dug up a photo of a Chassidic funeral from 2006 and displayed it damningly as an example of VERY BAD BEHAVIOR. The sort of terrible behavior that killed all the nursing home patients whom Cuomo put in proximity to coronavirus patients.

This sick sad farce isn't just hypocritical, it's now blatantly racist. And the Democrats who, not all that long ago were claiming that calling the coronavirus, the China Virus, was racist and could cause hate crimes, have no concern about falsely blaming a minority group for the virus, as long as it's traditionally religious and white.

Trump Calls Regeneron a 'Cure' for Covid-19

11 Percent of Millennials and Gen Z Believe Jews Caused the Holocaust: Poll The millennial and Z generations have a "shocking and saddening" lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, with more than one in 10 believing the atrocity was caused by the Jewish people according to a new survey. According to a poll conducted by the President of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), both generations display a "disturbing" lack of basic awareness about some key facts surrounding the Holocaust, including not knowing how many people died or the names of Nazi concentration camps. In what is described as "one of the most disturbing revelations" of the survey, 11 percent of U.S. millennials and Generation Z members said they believed that Jews caused the Holocaust. When broken down by state, the poll says that nearly one in five (19 percent) of people in New York believed that Jews were responsible—a fact made "even more disturbing" as New York is the state with by far the largest Jewish population in the country. The report also found that 16 percent of responders in Louisiana and Tennessee also believe Jewish people caused the Holocaust, along with 13 percent in Texas and California and 12 percent in South Dakota. Nationally, 59 percent of respondents said that they believe something like the Holocaust could happen again. "The results are both shocking and saddening and they underscore why we must act now while Holocaust survivors are still with us to voice their stories," said Gideon Taylor, president of Claims Conference. "We need to understand why we aren't doing better in educating a younger generation about the Holocaust and the lessons of the past. This needs to serve as a wake-up call to us all, and as a road map of where government officials need to act." Claims Conference, an organization that works to improve Holocaust education and secure compensation for survivors, conducted what they described as the first-ever 50-state survey on Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Gen Z. Nearly half (49 percent) of millennials and Gen Z say they have seen Holocaust denial and distortion shared on social media or elsewhere online. When asked how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust, 63 percent of those taking part in the survey said they did not know the figure was six million. When broken down by state, the report found that 69 percent of people in Arkansas do not know how many Jewish people died in the Holocaust, followed by Delaware with 68 percent, Arizona with 67 percent, and Mississippi and Tennessee with 66 percent. When broken down further, nationally 36 percent of millennials and Gen Z in the U.S. said they thought that two million or fewer Jews were murdered. Elsewhere, 48 percent of millennials and Gen Z could not name a single Nazi death camp or ghetto established during World War II. "Not only was their overall lack of Holocaust knowledge troubling, but combined with the number of millennials and Gen Z who have seen Holocaust denial on social media, it is clear that we must fight this distortion of history and do all we can to ensure that the social media giants stop allowing this harmful content on their platforms," Claims Conference Executive Vice President Greg Schneider said. "Survivors lost their families, friends, homes and communities; we cannot deny their history." Claims Conference also ranked each state based the responders meeting their top three Holocaust knowledge criteria: heard about the Holocaust, can name at least one concentration camp, death camp, or ghetto, and know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Based on the percentages of responses, Wisconsin scored the highest in Holocaust awareness, followed by Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maine and Kansas. Arkansas has the lowest Holocaust knowledge score with only 17 percent of millennials and Gen Z in the state meeting the Holocaust knowledge criteria. The Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study involved a sample 1,000 adults aged between 18 and 39 nationwide and 200 interviews in each state. The survey was conducted via landline, cell phone and online interviews.

The Portion of Nitzavim
An Eternal Covenant The portion of Nitzavim begins with the covenant involving the entire people of Israel, from the elite to the common man. Not only did this covenant include all who were present at the time but it included all who were to be born in future generations. Severe consequences await the people if the covenant is broken; the penalty is exile without the possibility of returning to the Land of Israel. And in fact the ten tribes which were exiled in the time of Sancherev to a place far, far away- Afriki (Tractate Sanhedrin 94a). And in the words of the Torah: " And the Lord uprooted them from upon their land, with fury, anger and great wrath, and He cast them to another land, as it is this day." (Deuteronomy 29l;27) The text is hard. "Vayashlichem"- and he cast them, which refers to a long exile in a far-away land. This word is written without the letter "yud" following the letter "lamed". This alludes to the exile of the Ten Tribes (the numerical value of "yud" is ten.) And the form of the letter "lamed" in the accompanying picture found in a Torah which I rescued from Holland alludes to the fact that the tribes were exiled to a far-away place. (Remazei Rabbenu Yoel)

Original newspaper photograph of Ossie Schectman (January 3, 1947), only a few months after he scored the first BAA basket.

The First BAA/NBA Field Goal And Assist: Both Scored By Jews

By Saul Jay Singer

The First BAA/NBA Field Goal And Assist: Both Scored By Jews

By Saul Jay Singer - 14 Elul 5780 –

When Utah Jazz point guard Ricky Green scored the five millionth NBA (National Basketball Association) point in a January 24, 1988 loss against the Boston Celtics, the league thought it would be interesting to determine who had scored the first field goal.

It discovered that the first basket had been made by the long-forgotten Oscar ("Ossie") Benjamin Schectman playing in the fledgling Basketball Association of America (BAA), which became the NBA in 1949. (A video of that historic basket may be seen on YouTube.)

The inaugural game of the BAA was played in Toronto on Friday night, November 1, 1946, at 8:30 p.m. with 7,090 fans in attendance. Ticket prices ranged from 75 cents to $2.50, but a few fans were admitted gratis as part of a marketing gimmick offering free tickets to all attendees taller than Toronto's 6' 8" center, George Nostrand.

The game, which featured the New York Knickerbockers against the Toronto Huskies, was originally to be played the following day on November 2, but the very popular Toronto Maple Leafs were scheduled to play that day, so the basketball game had to be moved back to November 1 and the court was laid atop the ice surface.

Most of the original BAA owners, who were also owners of professional hockey teams, sought to make their new professional sport appealing to hockey fans, who particularly enjoyed hockey brawls and violence and, as such, they instructed the referees to essentially "let the players play." About a minute into the game, with the refs not calling anything except the most blatant fouls; with the game being played on a court filled with puddles from the melting ice; and with the players slipping and sliding away, six-foot tall Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the historic opening basket.

Schectman charged down the court in the middle of a classic three-on-two break and scored on a layup, a play that the announcer described as "a clean first basket." There is some dispute as to who should be credited with the assist; official recognition is given to a give-and-go pass from Leo "Ace" Gottlieb, but there is credible evidence that the passer was actually Nat Militzok.

Schectman scored 11 points on four field goals and shot 3 for 5 from the line in the Knicks' 68-66 victory over Toronto. He went on to score 435 points during his lone season with the Knicks, averaging 24 minutes, 8.1 points (making him the third-highest team scorer, shooting 28 percent from the field – no team during that inaugural season shot better than 30 percent – and 62 percent from the free-throw line), and two assists per game (third best in the league).

Schectman thought about joining the new league when, during a barnstorming exhibition tour in 1946, he met Chuck Connors, who would later achieve fame starring in "The Rifleman" on television and was then trying out for the BAA's Philadelphia Warriors. (Connors is one of only 13 athletes in history to play both professional basketball and major league baseball.)

Schectman signed his contract with the Knicks on September 1, 1946 and was paid $60 a game, plus a $1,000 bonus for the playoffs. The Knicks finished their season at 33-27 and, during the six-team postseason, defeated the Cleveland Rebels 2-1 in the quarterfinals before being swept 2-0 in the semifinals by the eventual champions, the Philadelphia Warriors.

The starting five for the Knicks that historic opening day in 1946 – Schectman (team captain and, at age 27, one of the oldest players on the team), Leo Gottleib, Stan Stutz, Jack Weber, and Ralph Kaplowitz – were all Jewish, as were subs Sidney ("Sonny") Hertzberg, who went on to be the Knicks leading scorer that season with 515 points, Hank Rosenstein, and Militzok.

The local Toronto fans subjected the team to anti-Semitic heckling, including chants such as, "Throw the ball to Abie!" (The players faced similar taunts from fans during their home games at Madison Square Garden.)

It was not surprising that the entire Knick team was Jewish because professional teams generally drafted mostly local players, and the New York ballplayers were drawn from the Jewish semi-pro teams, Jewish settlement houses and schoolyards, and Jewish community center leagues that sprung from Jewish inner-city neighborhoods.

Basketball, which became an important part of Jewish communal life, played an important role for the children of Eastern European immigrants, both as players and fans, in establishing their American identities.

Jewish success in basketball provided Jewish youths with a way to prove their physical strength, speed, and athletic skill to the gentile world in the face of traditional stereotypes of Jews as bookish and physically fragile. Of course, this conspicuous role of Jews in professional basketball brought out the anti-Semitic haters.

For example, New York Daily News sports editor Paul Gallico wrote in the mid-1930s that basketball "appeals to the Hebrew with his Oriental background [because] the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind and flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-alecness." While the Knicks were very popular at home, they faced racial slurs on the road as "that Jew team from New York."

Born in Kew Gardens, Queens, Schectman (1919-2013) grew up in poverty as one of five children of immigrants from Odessa, Ukraine. He first learned the game in the 1920s in Harlem, which was then racially diverse and had a number of Jewish settlements, and he began his playing career at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn.

He played both guard and forward at Long Island University, then a powerhouse under Coach Clair Bee, and he was a member of the undefeated 1939 NIT National Championship team that won 42 consecutive games. The winning streak was broken by USC in March 1939, but the team won the NIT crown when it defeated Loyola of Chicago 44-32 in the final.

An excellent dribbler, driver, and shooter, Schectman and Coach Bee led LIU to a record of 25-2 and to another NIT title in 1941 when LIU defeated Ohio University in the final 56-42 and Schectman was named Converse first team All-America. Bee said of Schectman, "In my estimation, Ossie was one of the all-time college greats. He could do everything a little better than any player you can name."

After graduating LIU, Schectman served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II before joining Eddie Gottlieb's Philadelphia SPHAs ("South Philadelphia Hebrew Association") of the American Basketball League, which won the league championship in Schectman's second season (1942-43) and, the following year, he finished second in the league in scoring with 199 points (10.5 average).

The SPHAs were an American semi-professional and then professional basketball franchise founded by future Philadelphia Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb as an amateur group comprised of mostly Jewish players. Their jerseys featured a Magen David and the acronym SPHA in Hebrew letters; their road uniforms had "Hebrews" stitched across the back; and they became known as "the Wandering Jews" because they did not have their own home court.

Anti-Semites always turned out in force to harangue the team or worse – sometimes they brought weapons to the games, which were confiscated – and they almost always went home frustrated and angry when the "Jew boys" won. The SPHAs, who became Jewish heroes, played in many leagues around the Philadelphia area and the East Coast, most notably the Eastern Basketball League and the American Basketball League (ABL), between which the SPHAs won 10 championships.

After five years with the SPHAs, Schectman entered the BAA in 1946, played his only year in the league, made his "first shot," and played in 54 games for the Knicks. He turned down the Knicks' offer to play a second year for the team because he had business opportunities in New York that required frequent road trips, precluding his commitment to a BAA schedule.

While working in the garment business, however, he played for the Paterson Crescents in the regional American Basketball League for two seasons; the team won the ABL championship in 1947-48, and Schectman was named to the All-ABL first team.

Schectman later retired to Delray Beach, Florida. Known for his positive attitude, he frequently told interviewers that he felt no jealousy or resentment about the stratospheric salaries earned by contemporary NBA players because "they are the best athletes in the world, and they deserve it."

Schectman and other players from the historic first BAA game were honored at a 1996 game between the Knicks and the Raptors marking the 50th anniversary of that inaugural game, when the Knicks gave him a jersey bearing his name and number (6), and he was elected a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.

He often spoke proudly about Sacramento forward Omri Casspi being the first Israeli in the league, and he continued to closely follow the NBA until his death.

* * * * *

Though, as discussed above, Leo Gottleib is credited with the first assist in NBA history (on Schectman's basket), Militzok claims that he made the first assist: "I didn't remember it until I saw it on the video. And they showed number four giving him a pass underneath to lay up the ball. Well, number four happened to be me, so now I got the first assist. And now my wife is sitting there, saying, 'You dummy, why didn't you shoot the ball?'"

Schectman said that he did not remember who made the pass, though he didn't believe it was Militzok because he was "positive that Nat wasn't one of our starters." (He is correct about that.)

In this exhibit, Nat Militzok writes: "An original Knick is still around as of 5/27/97." He died 22 years later on May 14, 2009.

Born in the Bronx, Nat Militzok (1923-2009) was a star in college, beginning his career at CCNY in 1941, when his team posted a 16-1 record. After transferring to Hofstra University, where he played for two seasons, he joined the Navy after America entered World War II and, while stationed at Cornell University, he played for its basketball team (1944).

After the war ended, he joined the Knicks as a 6' 3" power forward for the initial BAA season, but he spent only part of that season with the team before being traded to Toronto in February 1947 for cash; according to Militzok, "there was a conscious effort on the part of Madison Square Garden to get rid of the Jewish ballplayers."

It is clear that this was very much the case as Knicks management, concerned that the number of Jews on the team would adversely impact ticket sales, also sold Kaplowitz's contract to the Warriors in the middle of the first season – ironically, Kaplowitz went on to play a key role in defeating the Knicks in the playoffs that year – and traded Rosenstein to the Providence Steamrollers. Hertzberg says that he was the only Jewish player left on the Knicks at the end of the season.

After a few more years in organized basketball in the American Basketball League, playing first for the Scranton Miners and then for the Saratoga Harlem Yankees, Militzok went to law school and launched a successful legal career. He represented a number of clients in negotiating contracts with professional basketball teams; among them were Lou Carnesecca's contract as coach for the New York Nets (then in the ABA) and Columbia's Dave Newmark's contract with the Chicago Bulls. (Newmark, who is Jewish, later played in Israel for Hapoel Tel Aviv.)

Whether credited to Militzok or Gottlieb, the first assist in BAA/NBA history was by a Jew. Leo Gottlieb (1920-1972) was born in Manhattan; attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx; played guard for the Philadelphia SPHAs (1939-40), the New York Jewels (1940-42), the New York Americans (1943-44), and the New York Gothams (1945-46) before signing with the Knicks (1946-48), later serving as a scout for the team. He was the high scorer in the historic first BAA game with 14 points.

Gottlieb was the uncle of Ron Rothstein, first coach of the Miami Heat.