Social Distancing during Epidemics Has Ample Precedent in Rabbinic Law

In recent weeks, there has been much discussion in synagogues and Jewish communities about how to enforce the measures recommended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which in some locales are being enforced by police. While some rabbis courted controversy by insisting that schools and yeshivas stay open, others have issued rulings unprecedented in their halakhic leniency in order to ensure that religious life can continue without increasing risks of contagion. Jeremy Brown turns to talmudic and medieval writings to see how rabbis responded to plagues in the past:

The Talmud emphasizes not the isolation or removal of those who are sick, but rather the reverse—the isolation of those who are well. “When there is an epidemic in the town,” [states Tractate Bava Kama], “keep your feet inside your house.” Of course the effect is the same: there is no contact between those who are ill and those who are well, but since there are usually many more well than there are sick, the effort and social disruption of isolation of the healthy will be much greater.

In the 14th century, when Europe was ravaged by several waves of bubonic plague that killed one-third of the population, many towns enacted measures to control the disease. Around 1347, the Jewish physician Jacob of Padua advised the city to establish a treatment area outside of the city walls for those who were sick.

Jewish behavior during an epidemic is even regulated in the Shulḥan Arukh, the 16th-century code of law deemed authoritative by Jewish communities the world over, [which states that] “one should flee from a city in which there is an epidemic. . . . To save yourself you should stay far away. It is forbidden to rely on miraculous help or to endanger yourself.” The suggestion made by the rabbis—to isolate yourself from others during an epidemic—is a basic part of public infection control. We’d be wise to listen.

Read more at Lehrhaus

More about: Coronavirus, Halakhah, Shulhan Arukh, Talmud

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF