JERUSALEM — A major source of the coronavirus spreading is the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi communities. We don’t know exactly the extent of infections, due perhaps to the reluctance of politicians, health personnel, and the media to publicize it. We do know that it is extensive, a third or more of the total, while the Haredi population is somewhere closer to 10 percent of the Jewish population, and less than that as a percent of the total.
Now we’re hearing that 40 percent of recent infections are Haredim.
Sources of their infections result from the resistance of their Rabbis to the avoidance of mass gatherings and the wearing of masks.
Unity is not a trait of the Haredim. Many of them do wear masks and seem to avoid crowding.
Actually there are numerous congregations. led by their revered Rabbis, who pass on their leadership within families.
The unity of each community is important. The most extreme are various Hasidic congregations, whose members are meant to avoid the internet and telephones linked to it.
Rabbis accept some loss due to the disease, in order to keep their communities together despite it.
We’ve seen pictures of young men studying together in large halls, as well as taking part in massed dancing, and wedding ceremonies for the granddaughter of a leading Rabbi and other massed celebrations that bring thousands together in large halls.
Various extreme congregations forbid their members to accept diagnostic testing. In one case a thousand students were found to be infected. At term end, they went home, where infections spread in crowded housing, with many children, and their towns and neighborhoods.
The proximity of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot have provided their various reasons for the Haredim to gather and to spread their infections.
The phenomena is prominent here, but also in the US and elsewhere, where the media highlight the incidence of infections and serve to spread nervousness among other Jews who sense the onset of anti-Semitism that will affect them all.
One of my correspondents used the terms “stupid and arrogant” to describe the ultra-Orthodox.
Interior conditions of the Haredim are not well known to the rest of us. There are Wikipedia sites that detail histories and current conditions of the ultra-Orthodox, both the Haredim and the Hasidim. They indicate the varieties between the congregations, and variations with respect to their separatism from other Jews.
Internal unity is important to the Haredim. Separate schools, arranged marriages, lots of kids. living off welfare stipends for men who study, with off-the-books working by the men, and women working as teachers or other professionals , with subsidized housing to include the lot in separate towns or neighborhoods.
Jerusalem has several of these neighborhoods, with Mea Shearim as the most well known, but with Sanhedria, Romema, and the spread to Ramat Eshkol and more recently into our own French Hill. This is no longer a largely academic neighborhood. Hebrew University faculty members have departed. An apartment building once owned by the university with its flats rented to young teachers is now owned by Haredim, and they are moving elsewhere throughout the neighborhood.
Something like 30 percent of Jerusalem’s Jewish population are Haredim.
Other locales are cities and towns, Bnei Brak, Beitar Illit, Modiin Ilit, and Elad are prominent among them.
And they have political weight via two parties: one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi.
Their spokesmen use their power against any efforts to regulate the ultra-Orthodox. Students are not required to study languages, history, mathematics, or science, but spend their time with the sacred texts.
A standard line is to compare their gatherings with the protests near the residences of the Prime Minister. If thousands can gather with minimum concern for separations, why can’t thousands gather in synagogues to pray?
Years ago, David ben Gurion decided that the Haredim need not serve in the military. That reflected the severe suffering of Central and Eastern European Haredim in the Holocaust, and the limited numbers of Haredim living in Israel. Since then, the policy has been reinforced by the growth of the Haredi population and their political leaders, well beyond the need to provide a small community with any kind of protection.
The Sephardim, associated with SHAS, tend to be more forthcoming, both with respect to the education in their schools and the willingness of their Rabbis to adhere to the dictates of the Health Ministry.
Most extreme are several Hasidic congregations. The most extreme do not recognize the Israeli State and refuse to participate in elections. Others are affiliated with Torah Judaism. They are prominent in adhering to Yiddish, to avoiding all secular subjects in their schools for males, and to keep their members away from universal cell phones that link to the Internet. Most important to them is their separation, in the style of their clothes, their residences, and ignoring the demands of the Health Ministry.
Each of our nightly news programs has had their police spokesperson to answer questions, but their response to the issue of the Haredim has been ambiguous. They cite some interventions and the passing out of sheets that impose fines, but insist that they can’t be everywhere. The police avoid dealing head one with the principal Rabbis, who control populations of young men with a record of dealing forcefully with police efforts in their areas.
The Haredim of Mea Shearim have constructed a huge Sukkah, capable of holding thousands. They are claiming that it is open on the sides, so that it will avoid the limits imposed on mass gatherings. Meantime, the municipal authorities and police are dithering, with the rest of us wondering what’ll happen.
There is conflict between the police and anti-Bibi demonstrators in Tel Aviv, as well as between the police and Haredim in Bnei Brak, Beitar Ilit, and Jerusalem. Something amis during Sukkot.
Despite repeated announcements, advertisements, and warnings of death from the illness, the police allowed 300 Haredim–well beyond the 20 said to be the limit–to be close to the burial of a major Rabbi who died of the disease at the age of 62, and did not attempt to disperse the thousands who gathered on the other side of barriers.
All were men, clothed in their black long coats and furred hats.
We’ve seen on the news pictures of planes arriving in Israel with the bodies of overseas religious Jews who’ve died of Coronavirus, and will be buried in Israel.
Where? Jerusalem’s cemeteries are full, with those dying here destined for limited space in buildings erected on the outskirts of the crowded main cemetery.
Somewhat less separate are the Arab communities, whose mass weddings have provided the same breeding ground for infections as the mass gatherings of the Haredim.
However, Arab leaders tend to support the recommendations of the Health Ministry, and speak against problems in their own communities. Included here are the Arabs who are physicians and administrators in hospitals.
One result of the weight of the Haredi politicians is that Netanyahu would rather force upon the entire country a massive lockdown instead of going against a major source of the infections. We’re to be all kept within a kilometer of our homes, and many are kept out of work due to the government’s unwillingness to deal directly with a major source of the infections.
The government has spent time debating whether we should be kept within 200 or 500 meters, or a kilometer from our homes, while epidemiologists argue that such limits are useless.
The streets are crowded with cars travelling here and there. Clearly the population has lost faith in the leadership, with many doing what they want, and coping somehow with occasional road blocks by the police.
Be that as it may, let me offer my best wishes for Sukkot. With or without private Sukkah.
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Ira Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com