Yom Shnee
Monday
28 Sivan 5782
June 27 2022
The Photograph of the Day
The Asian Tiger mosquito (aka Aedes Albopictus).
Fields, forests, gardens, and homes throughout Israel have been invaded this summer by the Asian Tiger mosquito. Especially resistant to heat, the mosquito reproduces every two weeks.
According to the CDC, this mosquito “is an epidemiologically important vector for the transmission of many viral pathogens, including the yellow fever virus, dengue fever, and Chikungunya fever, as well as several filarial nematodes such as Dirofilaria immitis. It is also capable of hosting the Zika virus and is considered a potential vector for Zika transmission among humans.”
Not surprisingly, there is already a shortage of insect repellent here.
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
6,290 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 15,144 tested) bringing to 57,779 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 41.53%; the coefficient of infection was 1.23%.
265 Israelis are seriously ill; 56 are critically ill—47 of these are on ventilators.
10,940 have died–14 since yesterday.
The relatively small number of those who tested positive yesterday is due to the small number of people who were tested. The incredible positive test rate continues to rise; the number who are seriously ill jumped by double digits as did the number who died.
And nobody in the government says a word.
By the way, based on your humble servant’s experience of having multiple friends and family get Corona over and over again, the concept of “herd immunity” seems completely bogus. With each new variant, there is another wave and people who presumably had herd immunity are finding out that they do not.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists hurled Molotovs, IEDs, and “rocks” at Israeli motorists on Road 465 east of Rantis, on Road 463 near the Horseshoe Junction, between Tapuach and Otzrin, at Singil northeast of Ramallah, in Huwara south of Shechem, east of Beit Haggai in the Mount Hevron area, near Lupine a-Sharqiya, between Hevron and Kiryat Arba, at numerous places along Jerusalem-Gush Etzion highway including Al-Abud, and at Tekoa among dozens of other locations.
3 Palestinian terrorists were captured in Nur a-Shams along with a number of weapons.
Thank you to Josh at Rescue Without Boundaries SSF for the above aggregation of attacks.
The bus drivers’ strike intensifies . . .
There is virtually no public urban transportation in Israel this morning with the strike spreading all over the country.
Yesterday, the Histadrut posted these numbers on its website in its demand for higher wages:
*40% of bus drivers have been “severely attacked” with more than 300 attacks since the beginning of 2022.
*there is a shortage of more than 5000 drivers.
*salaries are so low that thousands of drivers are working double jobs.
TODAY’S BLOG
What Is The Law Governing Abortion In Israel?
The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and allow U.S. states to decide on abortion laws has raised the issue here in Israel–with nonstop media coverage since the decision.
What is the situation in Israel?
A woman who wants an abortion needs to submit an application to an “abortion committee” consisting of three people: two doctors (one of whom must be an OBGYN) and a social worker. One of these three must be a woman.
The Israel government website informs women who want to get an abortion that “you” must meet one of the following conditions:
- You must be under 18 or over 40. If you’re under 18, you don’t need your parents’ consent.
- Your pregnancy is a result of unlawful sexual intercourse, for example, rape or incest (as defined by criminal law).
- The pregnancy could endanger your life or cause you physical or psychological harm.
- You got pregnant outside of marriage.
- Your fetus may have a physical or mental defect.
The doctor who performs the abortion cannot be one of the doctors on the committee.
The time between submitting an application to the committee and receiving a response is usually less than a week.
Since the current abortion law was established in 1988, there has been a constant decline in the number of abortions. In 2021, 17,548 women applied for an abortion and 99% of them were approved. The most common reason was being pregnant outside of marriage.
Virtually no orthodox Jewish, Bedouin, or Druze women underwent abortions.
One final word: there are no statistics available on the number of Israeli women who went abroad for an abortion to countries such as nearby Cyprus (where it is performed on request up until the 12th week of pregnancy).
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.