CORONAVIRUS

OUTBREAK



The look of the exasperation on the police sergeant’s face said it all, even though half of it was covered by a surgical mask.

It was Sunday morning and he was in command of a checkpoint blocking the road leading out of the Strictly Orthodox neighbourhood of Bet Yisrael in central Jerusalem. His remit was limited to enforcing the restrictions on movement during the coronavirus near-lockdown imposed by the government.

But he had the lawman’s frustration at the knowledge a crime was being committed next door that he was powerless to prevent.

“Yes, we know, we know,” he answered when told about the full synagogues up the road, blatantly in breach of the government’s emergency orders against gatherings of over two people. “We’re going to do something about it.”

But it would take another 24 hours for the police to muster the forces, and more crucially the political backing, to go in and force the packed shuls of Mea Shearim to close their doors and stop serving as a hub of Covid-19 infection.

Israeli police dispersing a public gathering in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim district (Photo:Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

For anyone who thinks that the Charedi community is cohesive or homogenised, the many different ways in which different parts of the community responded to the coronavirus crisis dispelled such notions.

Three weeks ago, when the Israeli health authorities began closing the country down, there were Strictly Orthodox rabbis who responded responsibly, and gave similar orders to the institutes, shuls and yeshivas they lead.

Yet even now, despite all we know, there are still smaller sects and Chasidic cults whose rabbis insist they should continue praying and studying as if nothing has happened.

The last Shabbat in Bnei Brak, the Charedi city of 200,000, east of Tel Aviv, where according to the health authorities the rate of infection is five times that of neighbouring suburbs, the different attitudes were on open display.

By now the headlines of the Strictly Orthodox newspapers, with familiar names and photographs of prominent rabbis and machers in New York and London who had already succumbed to Covid-19, had had their impact — even more than the cars which had driven around the previous afternoon with loudspeakers blaring dire warnings.

Officers in Mea Shearim check a property for signs of prayer gatherings (Photo: Flash 90)

The normally heaving Rabbi Akiva Street, where families and young people on Shabbat replace the cars forbidden from driving, was near-empty. The few young men who were still sauntering around claimed to be “looking for a minyan”. Towards the end of the afternoon, more men and boys came out to pray.

Each shul seemed to have its own unique take on the regulations. A few were locked. Others had put a lectern at the entrance as warning, but allowed people in at their own discretion. Some had notices blaming the Health Ministry for forcing them to apply the rules.

“Please don’t gather in groups of more than ten!” beseeched one notice. “We already received a fine from the government, another one will mean we have to lock the building.”

Another notice said in Hebrew that by orders of government they were closed and then added, in Yiddish, that they were open for prayer and study.

Most of the afternoon prayers were held in the afternoon sun, or under the shade of Bnei Brak’s rare trees.

One shul had conflicting notices in Hebrew and Yiddish (Photo: Anshel Pfeffer)

Abiding by the social distancing rules and keeping two metres between each man is difficult in Israel’s most crowded city, which averages 27,000 residents per square kilometre.

“We really are trying to be more careful,” said one father, keeping a watchful eye over two scampering boys. “But there are families of 10 and 12 in three-room flats in this town. With the schools closed, where do you expect them to go? The shul is as much our home than our flat.”

The next morning in the heart of the Strictly Orthodox world that is Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim quarter, where small Chassidic groups still refuse to have anything to do with the Zionist state, the contrast was even starker.

In an empty lot, the annual Pesach market was already up and running in a wide marquee, with massive signs carrying social distancing instructions, hand sanitisers and boxes of surgical gloves at the entrance.

But two streets away, morning prayers in the Shtieblach went on as normal, with small prayer rooms packed with men and boys of all ages.

A notice on the door quoted a rabbi’s saying from 200 years ago: “It is the blessed God’s will that in time of plague, the gathering of students for learning Torah must not cease and it will be the days leading to the coming of the Messiah.”

An officer in Mea Shearim on Tuesday (Photo: Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Another had a message for the government: “You didn’t close the camps of your impure army. You don’t care for the health of your soldiers, but you care for the health of Charedi Jewry?”

It would take teams of border police in body armour to finally close the Shtieblach and other establishments in Mea Shearim the next day.

“Torah and prayer are our lives,” said one local man. “How can anyone expect us to stop living?”