COVID-19 widens the rift between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and secular communities
Yaakov Litzman, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Health, meets with then U.S. Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in 2012. U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers.
JERUSALEM — While the 158 Israelis who have died from the coronavirus pandemic is a small number relative to the more than 150,000 deaths worldwide, the pandemic has exposed a deep rift between Israel’s 1 million ultra-Orthodox Jews and the country’s other 8.25 million Jewish and Arab citizens.
First, Health Minister Yaacov Litzman, 71, who is a member of the Ger Hassidic movement, defied his own ministry’s social distancing guidelines. On April 2, the rabbi and his wife were reported to be infected with the coronavirus. Residents of Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim Haredi neighborhood acknowledged Litzman illegally prayed in a quorum of 10 men. The minister denied the charge.
Litzman then met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government and military leaders, including the director of the Mossad spy agency, compelling them all to observe 14 days of self-isolation. None became infected.
Mainstream Israelis are calling for the resignation of Litzman, a political appointee who lacks a high school diploma or any medical expertise. On his home turf in Jerusalem’s Haredi neighborhood, graffiti appeared calling the health minister a “Nazi,” a highly-charged slur in a country with the world’s largest community of Holocaust survivors. Residents blamed Litzman for the partial lockdown in the neighborhood that is being enforced by police patrols.
Several dozen rioting Haredi youth in Mea Shearim used the same epithet to curse police monitoring social distancing in their neighborhood. Police reportedly dispersed the crowd with stun grenades.
While Haredi rabbinical leaders have forbidden owning televisions, radios or computers and reading secular Hebrew-language newspapers, Litzman, as their de facto representative in the government. clearly failed to communicate with his constituents about the seriousness of the disease. His gross negligence in conveying clear information about the pandemic allowed key rabbis to encourage the devout to continue their sacred routine of public Torah study and prayer in yeshivas (Talmudic schools). Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the almost 13,000 Israelis infected today are Haredim.
Even now, with the death toll mounting, non-compliance with social distancing regulations among Haredim is continuing. Trying to prevent a further outbreak, the government imposed a 36-hour lockdown on April 14 and 15, the last day of Passover and the subsequent Mimouna celebration.
On the eve of Passover, thousands of Haredim, apparently oblivious to the unnecessary risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus were reportedly out shopping for new shoes and clothing for the week-long holiday, as is traditional. Similarly, scores of Haredim have continued to attend mass funerals for people who died from COVID-19. Some Haredim continue to sneak into ritual baths and still pray in large groups.
In radical Haredi circles, going out shopping for Yom Tov (holy day) and attending funerals are not only seen as not forbidden but perhaps admired as machmir (stringent), as in going above and beyond in order to perform one of God’s 613 mitzvot (divine commandments).
While Haredi neighborhoods like Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim are COVID-19 hotspots, Bnei Brakan—an ultra-Orthodox city of 200,000 adjoining secular Tel Aviv—has become another zone of contagion. In early April, overwhelmed by of the number of sickened patients, Bnei Brak’s 300-bed Mayanei Hayeshua hospital ran out of ventilators.
Ironically, the hospital has turned the insular community’s irresponsible behavior into a cause for fundraising on the internet. “Mayanei Hayeshua’s medical staff find themselves at the forefront of this pandemic. Located in one of the most densely populated communities in Israel, Mayanei Hayeshua has set up its own coronavirus field hospital and is working tirelessly around the clock to treat and save the lives of the countless hundreds of sick men, women and children who are admitted daily,” read the campaign.
With the death toll mounting, Israel’s Haredim are finally beginning to understand that the Health Ministry regulations are not intended to punish or unnecessarily restrict their community. but rather serve to curtail the spread of coronavirus.
On April 13, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, 79, who died from complications of COVID-19, was buried in Jerusalem. Rather than the tens of thousands of mourners who under normal circumstances would have attended the funeral of a major rabbinical figure, only 20 family members and senior rabbis were present at the graveside.
Like Litzman, the Jerusalem-born rabbi, who served as chief Sephardi rabbi from 1993 to 2003, had a tarnished reputation. He was indicted in 2012 for his involvement in “the rabbis’ case” scam, which involved the issuing of false rabbinic credentials to more than 1,000 police and security services employees. The title entitled them to bonuses of NIS 2,000-4,000 ($530-$1,060) a month. After many delays, in 2017, he was convicted of fraud, sentenced to probation, and ordered to pay a fine. The fraud cost the state hundreds of millions of additional shekels paid out to undeserving civil servants.
Writing from New York City—where Haredi neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Crown Heights have been ravaged by COVID-19 for the same reasons the disease has struck so many Haredim in Israel—Naftuli Moster, the founder and executive director of Yaffed, an advocacy group dedicated to ultra-Orthodox and Hassidic education, noted:
“There needs to be a serious reckoning throughout the community. There are three major fronts where major improvements must take place:
1. Ensuring that every child receives a proper education, including in science, so they understand what germs, viruses, and infections are.
2. Holding leaders accountable when they resist common-sense guidelines and regulations.
3. Transforming our Haredi media ecosystem into one that is independent and neutral.
“Only then will we be able to prevent another catastrophe such as this from ever happening again,” said Moster.
While mainstream Orthodox and secular Israelis are exasperated by the behavior of Haredim, they have been demonstrating solidarity with the Haredim in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. On April 8, on the eve of Passover, when almost all Israelis normally meet in large family groups to celebrate the Seder, people gathered in groups of no more than three to read the Haggadah (‘telling’) that accompanies the multi-course feast celebrating the Israelites’ freedom from slavery in Egypt.
At 8:30 p.m. on April 8, the first night of Passover, millions stepped out onto their balconies to sing “What makes this night different than all other nights?” Traditionally, this question is the chorus of a song chanted by the youngest child present at the ritual banquet. It precedes four questions about Passover’s symbolic foods and rituals.
The mass celebration on balconies symbolized that Israelis remain hopeful. Ever resilient, the people of Israel have turned to social media to turn being alone into a celebration of virtual togetherness. Zoom, WhatsApp and other video conferencing software have become de riguer as tools to stay connected. Some liberal rabbis waived the ban on electronic communication during the holiday, reasoning that pikuach nefesh (‘saving a life’) transcends the obligation of religious observance.
Fiercely secular Tel Aviv put on its own exuberant balcony celebration on during the intermediate days of Passover, marking 111 years since the city’s Zionist visionaries met on the beach north of ancient Jaffa to parcel out the lots for the new city they were about to found. To mark the festive occasion we sent a truck to roam the city with the city's unofficial anthem (Tel Aviv Ya Habibi Tel Aviv!), asking residents to wave and dance from their balconies.
Aliyah (immigration to Israel, the Jewish state’s raison d’etre) continues, notwithstanding the threat of coronavirus. The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency announced this week that a flight carrying 22 newcomers from the US remains on schedule to land in early May. The newest citizens, bearing their newly issued identity cards, will spend their first two weeks under quarantine.
Rabbi Brooks Susman, who leads Congregation Kol Am, a 70-family Reform congregation in Freehold, New Jersey, said: “If, God forbid, Trump is reelected, [my wife] Andrea and I will be contemplating aliyah!” Susman said he has presided at eight COVID-19 funerals in New York and New Jersey over the Passover holiday.
Israel’s Health Ministry expressed optimism April 13 that authorities have “pretty much succeeded in the stage of stopping the spread” of coronavirus. The statement comes as the rate of new cases appears to be stabilizing at a few hundred new infections per day.
According to reports, the government is simultaneously planning an exit strategy designed to allow segments of the economy to slowly re-open. About 1 million Israelis, including this writer, lost their job in March or April, leading to a jump in the unemployment rate from 4 percent at the beginning of the outbreak to just under 26 percent.
Fitting for the season of Passover, many Israelis—the quintessential survivors— cite this popular Hebrew expression: “We survived Pharaoh. We’ll get by this too.”
Gil Zohar was born in Toronto and moved to Jerusalem in 1982. He is a journalist for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine, and other publications, though currently on leave without pay from The Jerusalem Post as the newspaper struggles to survive during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Land’s multiple narratives.