JERUSALEM (AP) – Mendy Moskowits, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Belz sect in Jerusalem, doesn’t understand the uproar against believers like him.
In recent weeks, ultra-Orthodox Jews have defied the limitations of the coronavirus by holding large funerals for beloved rabbis who died of COVID-19, celebrated big weddings, and kept sending their children to schools. The meetings have sparked clashes with the police and an unprecedented wave of public anger towards the religious community.
Moskowits says, like many ultra-Orthodox believers, that Israeli society does not understand their way of life and has turned its community into a scapegoat.
“The media is giving us a very misrepresentation in my opinion,” he said.
The ultra-Orthodox community makes up about 12% of Israel’s 9.3 million residents. But it has exerted an extraordinary influence by taking advantage of its status as king in parliament to secure benefits and generous government subsidies.
Ultra-Orthodox men are exempt from compulsory military service and often receive social security benefits while continuing to study full-time in seminars during their adulthood. Their schools enjoy broad autonomy and focus almost entirely on religion, while avoiding basic subjects such as mathematics and science.
These privileges have led to disdain from the general public – resentment that turned into outright hostility during the coronavirus crisis.
Gilad Malach, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, says ultra-Orthodox believers were responsible for more than a third of COVID-19 cases in the country in 2020. Among Israelis over 65, the ultra-Orthodox death rate was three times that of the general population , he added.
Data from the Ministry of Health shows that vaccination coverage in ultra-Orthodox areas falls far short of the national average.
Ultra-Orthodox non-compliance, Malach said, stemmed in part from members who did not believe they should “obey the rules of the state, especially on matters of religious conduct.”
Ultra-Orthodox, also known as “Haredim,” follow a strict interpretation of Judaism, and prominent rabbis are the community’s arbiters on all matters. Many view secular Israelis as a recent departure from centuries of unchanged Jewish tradition.
‘We have rabbis. We don’t just do what we have in mind, ”said Moskowits. “We listened to them for a few thousand years. We will also listen to them today. “
While the ultra-Orthodox community is far from monolithic, many rabbis have ignored or even deliberately violated safety rules. 93-year-old Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the most influential spiritual leaders, has insisted that schools remain open during the crisis.
On a recent day, dozens of ultra-Orthodox girls from a primary school in the Romema neighborhood came in violation of the law. Few wore masks or kept their distance from others. Classes continued in primary schools for boys in the neighborhood and on yeshivas.
“We cannot let a generation go bankrupt,” said Moskowits, who lives in Romema. “We still send our boys to school because we have rabbis who say Torah study saves and protects.”
In a community that largely shuns the Internet, rabbis plaster ‘pashkevils’ or public notices on walls in religious neighborhoods to spread their messages.
Some communications urged people not to get vaccinated, even by using Holocaust footage to scare people. “The vaccine is not necessary at all! The pandemic is already behind us! “read one of them, comparing the pressure on vaccinations to boarding a train to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders say such views are held by a radical minority. Most people respect safety rules, they say, and the virus is spreading because communities are poor and people live in small apartments with large families.
Moskowits, a 29-year-old father of two, said some families have up to 10 children and only one bathroom. From 14, boys are sent to boarding schools and only spend the Sabbath at home.
For many, lockdown “doesn’t technically work physically,” Moskowits said. He called it a “human rights violation”.
Moskowits, who grew up in the UK, speaks English with a British accent, but his vocabulary is heavily spiced with Yiddish and Hebrew words. He wears the black velvet kippah, the pressed white shirt, and black slacks typical of ultra-Orthodox men – but no mask, despite the government’s demands for them in public. He said he contracted COVID-19 in March and claims a letter from his doctor excuses him not to wear a mask.
As a real estate developer, he interrupts his workday with prayers in a neighborhood synagogue and tries to pray once a week at Jerusalem’s western wall, the holiest place where Jews can worship. Once a day he performs ablutions in a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath, and regularly studies religious texts with a partner.
The religious community is growing rapidly, even though economists have long warned that the system is not sustainable. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, about 60% of the population is under the age of 19.
Protecting the ultra-Orthodox way of life – or Yiddishkeit – is the ultimate goal of the community. If that means infections are spreading, that’s a price some members are willing to pay.
Ultra-Orthodox people “sacrifice most of their lives for the next generation and for the preservation of Yiddishkeit. We give everything away ”, said Moskowits.
This view is hardly universal.
Nathan Slifkin, an Orthodox rabbi living in Israel, complained in a recent opinion piece in the Jewish Chronicle that members of the Haredi community “really see no connection between COVID’s ignoring the restrictions and the death of people.”
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the ultra-Orthodox ambulance service ZAKA, lost both his parents to the virus in January. He says rabbis urging followers to violate coronavirus rules have “blood on their hands.”
Funerals play a central role in traditional Jewish life, and the pandemic makes them all too common. Cars with megaphones drive through religious districts announcing deaths and funerals. Pashkevils notify communities when a prominent rabbi dies.
Shmuel Gelbstein, deputy director of a Jerusalem funeral society for the ultra-Orthodox community, said it was “ very busy this year, very difficult in terms of mortality, both when it comes to common deaths, plus of course the coronavirus, which is certainly an amount. that adds to the tax. “
Burials for two prominent Haredi rabbis who died of COVID-19 drew an estimated 10,000 mourners last week.
The non-Orthodox majority of Israel was outraged by what they saw as disregard for the rules and selective enforcement by the authorities.
But the ultra-Orthodox claim that they are being unfairly singled out, noting that protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – protected by free speech laws – are allowed during the pandemic.
Moskowits explained that for the young men who flocked to these funerals, prominent rabbis are “a big part of your life.”
“When these younger boys go to a funeral, they feel like their father has died,” he said. “Nothing gets in the way. He’s going to the funeral anyway. “