In both Israel and the U.S., ḥaredi communities have been among those hit hardest by the current pandemic. Large and often multigenerational families, intense communal life, and high population density partly explain this fact, but so does the slowness of leaders to shut down schools and synagogues and discourage weddings and other public gatherings. The results have provoked resentment from outsiders, but also anger from within.
Writing for a ḥaredi publication, and himself a prominent ḥaredi writer and educator, Yehoshua Pfeffer explores the reasons for the ultra-Orthodox response. He takes as examples the reaction of the ḥaredi sage Chaim Kanievsky—who on March 18 reportedly called for schools to be kept open, only to reverse himself eleven days later and declare that anyone who fails to comply with state-mandated social-distancing guidelines is guilty of endangering the lives of others—and the non-ḥaredi, but quite religiously stringent, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed—who first discouraged, and shortly thereafter forbade, public prayer and the like:
Melamed . . . wholeheartedly recognizes the authority vested in Israel’s official institutions. His religious convictions, alongside the fact that he is an Israeli citizen, lead him to champion a deep sense of civic responsibility alongside his rabbinic responsibility for the upkeep of halakhah. As a loyal citizen, he sees the instructions and regulations of Israel’s official bodies as fully binding; he would balk at the very idea of setting himself and his community aside from the rest of Israel. Thus, when Israeli schools were shut due to the coronavirus threat, it was obvious that this should include schools that follow his leadership.
By contrast, ḥaredi rabbis—[with] some exceptions—do not recognize the authority vested in Israel’s official bodies. Yes, [they believe that it] is usually correct and expedient to follow the state’s laws and regulations. . . . But this is a far cry from the kind of civic loyalty and national responsibility that animates Rabbi Melamed.
This underlying mindset is reflected in the grating (to say the least) wording of the question, put to Rabbi Kanievsky by his grandson at the very onset of the coronavirus [crisis]: “The state wants to shut the religious elementary schools.” [The implication]: “Our independent religious educational system is under attack by the state of Israel, which is using the pretext of the coronavirus to close our dearest institutions.” [The elder Kanievsky’s] response—“Heaven forbid”—was of course only natural. In matters of religious affairs ḥaredi society must maintain absolute autonomy, and the only appropriate response is thus a flat refusal to comply with government “decrees” [g’zeyrot]—a word used in ḥaredi parlance to underscore an alienation from Israel’s government, whether in matters of army service (“the draft decree”) or in purely economic issues (“economic decrees”).
Yet, Pfeffer concludes, the state of Israel is not tsarist Russia, and while many ḥaredim like to imagine themselves as living in a “state within a state,” a pandemic affecting secular Israel threatens them, and vice versa. The radical isolation from the rest of Israeli society that has led to the successes of ultra-Orthodoxy—when judged by its own standards—is thus also responsible for its failure to protect its own members.
Read more on Tzarich Iyun: https://iyun.org.il/en/article/coronavirus-the-charedi-response