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(Religion as the arsenic of the masses.)
NY Times, April 1, 2020
Virus Soars Among Ultra-Orthodox Jews as Many Flout Israel’s Rules
By David M. Halbfinger
BNEI BRAK, Israel — Ultra-Orthodox Jews failing to comply with
government instructions to contain the coronavirus are causing it to
spread so quickly that Israeli officials are considering blockading
entire communities to protect the wider population.
The virus is mushrooming in ultra-Orthodox communities as much as four
to eight times faster than elsewhere in Israel.
In the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, where 95 percent of the residents
are ultra-Orthodox, the number of confirmed cases spiked from 267 on
Friday to 571 on Tuesday. The total was nearly that of Jerusalem, whose
population is four times bigger.
Although they make up only 12 percent of Israel’s population, the
ultra-Orthodox account for 40 to 60 percent of the coronavirus patients
at four major hospitals, hospital officials told Israeli news media. The
true dimensions of the epidemic among the ultra-Orthodox can only be
estimated because testing is rare.
Experts attribute the proliferation among the ultra-Orthodox to
overcrowding and large families, deep distrust of state authority,
ignorance of the health risks among religious leaders, an aversion to
electronic and secular media that they believe is mandated by religious
law, and a zealous devotion to a way of life centered on communal activity.
All of which add up to stiff resistance to heeding social distancing
orders that require people to stay home except for vital errands and
prohibit meeting in groups, including for prayer. These rules threaten
fundamental activities for the ultra-Orthodox including worship,
religious study and the observance of life-cycle events like funerals
and weddings.
Women in Bnei Brak keep their distance from each other while in line at
the supermarket on Monday.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times
The wildfire pace of infection has inflamed tensions between the
ultra-Orthodox, known in Hebrew as Haredim, or “God-fearers,” and other
Israelis, as a series of gotcha videos and photos have circulated
showing large groups of ultra-Orthodox dancing at weddings or shopping
on busy streets, as if doing so posed no risk.
The funeral of a rabbi in Bnei Brak on Saturday night, which drew
several hundred mourners to the city’s streets, prompted angry
denunciations by Israelis who called the participants murderers or
worse. It took place days after all Israelis were ordered to stay
indoors, with few exceptions.
In the predominantly secular city of Ramat Gan, which adjoins Bnei Brak,
the mayor on Monday demanded a curfew on Bnei Brak, saying the hot spot
there “isn’t any longer a ticking bomb, it’s a powerful bomb that blew
up in our faces.”
And the director general of Bnei Brak’s only hospital, Dr. Moti Ravid,
pleaded with the authorities to bar residents from leaving the community
for at least a week. He said that the infection rate in ultra-Orthodox
parts of the country was four to eight times higher than elsewhere in
Israel.
Bnei Brak itself may prove resilient, he said, because its people have
so many children, and young people have been less vulnerable.
“But if they help to infect others, the result will be that many old
people will die,” he said in an interview.
Bnei Brak’s mayor, Avraham Rubenstein, insisted the city had done its
best but could not expect religious Jews to embrace the restrictions.
“Do you know what it is to close synagogues?” he said.
He also assailed the central government, saying the Health Ministry had
hoarded information and that the police had failed to show a firm enough
hand. Late Monday, Bnei Brak said it would begin testing residents in
grocery stores.
“No public prayers,” he said. “No weddings, not even with less than 10
people. Funerals will be held with 20 people in open areas.”
Epidemiologists have had little difficulty explaining the spread of the
virus in ultra-Orthodox cities, where time is marked by the Jewish
calendar. The holiday of Purim, a carnival-like day of carousing and
socializing, began the night of March 9, when gatherings of up to 100
people were still permitted. A week later the ultra-Orthodox hamlet of
Kiryat Yearim, near Jerusalem, had about a quarter of its 7,000
residents in quarantine.
But when the government ordered the closing of all schools, and
initially capped gatherings at 10 people — the minimum needed for a
quorum, or minyan, for Jewish worship services — ultra-Orthodox rabbis
did not all acquiesce, said Gilad Malach, an expert on the
ultra-Orthodox at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Some ultra-Orthodox rabbis, many of whom are predisposed to suspect the
state as a secularizing influence, asserted the importance of prayer and
Torah study, arguing, “It’ll rescue us from this virus,” Mr. Malach said.
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 92, the most revered figure in one of the largest
ultra-Orthodox branches in Israel, the Lithuanians, appeared in a March
11 video with his grandson in which he rejected the idea of closing
schools, saying that to do so was “more dangerous” than leaving them open.
“You saw that the rabbi doesn’t know anything about the epidemic, about
the corona,” Mr. Malach said of the widely shared video. “But the
adoration for him is so great, they refer to him as a prophet. So there
was a delay in the shutdown of these schools.”
Rabbi Kanievsky finally issued a new edict on Sunday, echoing state
authorities by decreeing that Jews pray alone in their homes, not in
groups of any size, not even outdoors.
But even Haredim who professed their affection for Rabbi Kanievsky were
still flouting his latest ruling on Monday.
A stroll through Bnei Brak revealed dozens of quiet prayer quorums, some
of as many as 50 men, often hidden behind the hedges or walls in front
of apartment buildings, synagogues and religious schools. At one
synagogue, where worshipers shooed away a journalist and photographer,
the morning service was still being held indoors.
Those ignoring the rules rationalized the decision or said they were
unaware that rabbinical guidance had changed.
A friend, Moshe Cohen, 25, acknowledged his fear of the virus, alluding
to the death notices popping up for prominent ultra-Orthodox Jews all
over, including in Brooklyn, the biggest concentration of Haredim
outside Israel.
“At the beginning it wasn’t so scary,” he said. “Now we see how many
Haredim died in America, and how serious it is.”
Others adopted creative coping strategies. David Tzion, a religious
instructor, carried a shofar — a ram’s horn normally only played at the
Jewish new year — saying, “This is guarding me.”
Worshipers in several places asked if we were there to report them to
the authorities. But missing in Bnei Brak, where the local police
allowed Saturday night’s funeral to proceed rather than provoke a
confrontation with mourners, was any sign of enforcement.
In Jerusalem on Monday, by contrast, the police made a show of force in
the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim, with officers in
helicopters, on motorcycles and on foot zeroing in on groups of
worshipers and issuing tickets carrying fines of $1,400.
But he said he had been taught that the pandemic, like wars and even the
Holocaust, was “getting us closer to the redemption,” the coming of the
Messiah.
And he said that being stuck in a crowded apartment rather than spending
his days studying with his peers was not such a burden. “You manage,” he
said. “If you have a place in their heart, you have a place in their home.”
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