JERUSALEM (AP) – Mendy Moskowits, a member of the ultra-Orthodox sect Belz Hassidic in Jerusalem, does not understand the uproar towards believers like him.
In recent weeks, ultra-Orthodox Jews have challenged coronavirus restrictions by holding large funerals for the beloved rabbis who died of COVID-19, celebrating big weddings and continuing to send their children to schools. The meetings led to clashes with the police and an unprecedented wave of public anger at the religious community.
Moskowits, like many other ultra-Orthodox believers, says that Israeli society does not understand their way of life and has turned their community into a scapegoat.
“The media gives us, in my opinion, a bad misrepresentation,” he said.
The ultra-Orthodox community represents about 12% of the 9.3 million Israelis. But he exercised an extraordinary influence, using his status as a kingmaker in parliament to ensure generous government benefits and subsidies.
Ultra-Orthodox men are exempt from compulsory military service and often receive social security payments while continuing to study full-time in seminaries into adulthood. Its schools enjoy wide autonomy and focus almost entirely on religion, avoiding basic subjects like math and science.
These privileges generated disdain for the general public – resentment that turned into total hostility during the coronavirus crisis.
Gilad Malach, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, says that ultra-Orthodox were responsible for more than a third of the country’s COVID-19 cases in 2020. Among Israelis over 65, the ultra-Orthodox mortality rate was three times that of the general population, he added.
Data from the Ministry of Health show that vaccination rates in ultra-Orthodox areas are well below the national average.
The ultra-orthodox noncompliance, said Malach, partly resulted from the fact that members did not believe that “they must obey state rules, especially in matters of religious behavior”.
The ultra-Orthodox, also known as “haredim”, follow a strict interpretation of Judaism, and prominent rabbis are the arbitrators of the community in all matters. Many consider secular Israelis a recent aberration from centuries of unchanged Jewish tradition.
“We have rabbis. We don’t just do what we have in our minds, ”said Moskowits. “We heard them for a few thousand years. We will hear them today too. “
Although the ultra-Orthodox community is far from monolithic, many rabbis intentionally ignored or even disregarded security rules. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 93, one of the most influential spiritual leaders, insisted that schools would remain open during the crisis.
On a recent day, dozens of ultra-Orthodox girls cascaded out of an elementary school in the neighborhood of Romema that was operating in violation of the law. Few wore masks or kept their distance from others. Classes took place at primary schools for boys and nearby yeshivas.
“We cannot allow a generation to fail,” said Moskowits, who lives in Romema. “We are still sending our boys to school because we have rabbis who say that Torah study saves and protects.”
In a community that largely avoids the Internet, rabbis preach “pashkevils,” or public notices, to the walls of religious neighborhoods to spread their messages.
Some warnings encouraged people not to get vaccinated, even using images of the Holocaust to scare people. “The vaccine is completely unnecessary! The pandemic is over! ”One read, comparing the race for vaccines with boarding a train to the Auschwitz death camp.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders say these 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 father of two, 29, said some families have up to 10 children and only one bathroom. From the age of 14, boys are sent to boarding schools and spend only Saturday at home.
For many, the blockade “technically, physically doesn’t work,” said Moskowits. He called this “human rights violation”.
Moskowits, who grew up in the UK, speaks English with a British accent, but his vocabulary is heavily seasoned with Yiddish and Hebrew words. He wears the black velvet skullcap, well-pressed white shirt and black pants typical of ultra-Orthodox men – but without a mask, although the government demands it in public. He said he hired COVID-19 in March and says a letter from his doctor exempts him from wearing a mask.
A real estate developer, he punctuates his workday with prayers in a neighborhood synagogue and tries once a week to pray at the Jerusalem Western Wall, the most sacred 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, although economists have long warned that the system is unsustainable. About 60% of its population is under 19, according to the Israel Institute of Democracy.
Protecting the ultra-Orthodox way of life – or Yiddishkeit – is the community’s ultimate goal. If this means that infections are spreading, it is a price that some members are willing to pay.
The ultra-Orthodox “sacrifice most of their lives for the next generation and for the preservation of the Yiddishkeit. We distribute everything, ”said Moskowits.
This view is hardly universal.
Nathan Slifkin, an orthodox rabbi living in Israel, complained in a recent opinion article in the Jewish Chronicle that members of the Haredi community “genuinely see no connection between ignoring restrictions and people dying from COVID.”
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of an ultra-orthodox ambulance service called ZAKA, lost her parents to the virus in January. He says the rabbis who encourage followers to violate coronavirus regulations have “blood on their hands”.
Funerals play a central role in traditional Jewish life and the pandemic has made them very common. Cars with megaphones pass through religious neighborhoods announcing deaths and details of funerals. Pashkevils notify communities when an important rabbi dies.
Shmuel Gelbstein, deputy director of a burial society in Jerusalem for the ultra-Orthodox community, said this year has been “very busy, very difficult with regard to mortality, both with regard to common deaths, plus, of course, coronavirus, which is certainly an amount that adds to the load. ”
The funerals of two Haredi rabbis who died of COVID-19 each attracted about 10,000 people last week.
The unorthodox majority in Israel was outraged by what they saw as disregard for the rules and selective enforcement by the authorities.
But the ultra-Orthodox say they are being unfairly discriminated against, noting that the demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – protected by free speech laws – were allowed to continue during the pandemic.
Moskowits explained that, for young people who attended these funerals, prominent rabbis are “a big part of their life”.
“When these younger guys go to a funeral, they feel like their dad is dead,” he said. “Nothing gets in the way. He’s going to the funeral anyway. “