Inside Israel’s ultra-orthodox jewish communities throughout Covid-19 pandemic

Written by Patrick Kingsley
The crowd surged and swirled, just like the eddies of an ocean. Crushed in opposition to each other, tons of of males stretched their arms towards the rabbi’s physique, making an attempt to the touch the bier in a show of non secular devotion.
It was the peak of Israel’s third lockdown, in an ultra-Orthodox district close to the center of Jerusalem. Gatherings had been banned. Masks had been obligatory. Infection charges had been spiking, significantly amongst ultra-Orthodox teams like this one.
Yet right here had been tons of of mourners, most with mouths uncovered, attending an unlawful funeral procession for a revered rabbi who had himself died of the coronavirus.
For these deeply religious Jews, attendance was a non secular and private responsibility. To briefly grip the rabbi’s bier, and symbolically help his passage from this world, was an indication of profound respect for the useless.
But for secular Israeli society, and even for some throughout the ultra-Orthodox world, this sort of mass gathering recommended a disrespect for the dwelling.
“What is more important?” questioned Esti Shushan, an ultra-Orthodox girls’s rights activist, after seeing footage of the gathering. “To go to funerals and study Torah? Or to stay alive?”
It is a query that channels one of many central conflicts of the pandemic in Israel: the spiraling rigidity between the Israeli mainstream and the rising ultra-Orthodox minority, an insular group of extremely non secular Jews, also called Haredim, who eschew many trappings of modernity in favor of intensive biblical studies.
When the pandemic started, one Haredi chief promised that adherence to Jewish regulation would save his followers from the virus.
Throughout Israel’s historical past, the Haredim have been reluctant members in mainstream society, usually prioritizing the examine of scripture over typical employment and military service. The coronavirus has widened this divide.
Mourners attend the funeral of Rivka Wertheimer in Jerusalem, Feb. 3, 2021. (Dan Balilty/The New York Times)
Since the beginning of the pandemic, components of ultra-Orthodox society have resisted the restrictions and protocols ordered by the secular state to counter the virus, preferring to comply with the counsel of their very own management.
The Haredim should not monolithic, and lots of have adhered faithfully to antivirus measures. Some Haredi leaders instructed their followers to put on masks, join vaccines and shut their establishments.
But different main rabbis didn’t, and a few ultra-Orthodox sects continued to carry mass weddings and funerals. They stored open their colleges and synagogues, at the same time as the remainder of Israel was shutting down. A couple of on the unconventional fringe even rioted in opposition to the measures and clashed with the police.
“It’s a dispute that’s been running for decades,” mentioned Eli Paley, chairman of the Haredi Institute for Public Affairs, a Jerusalem-based analysis group. “There is tension between the Haredim and the rest of the society that touches on the most deep questions about Jewish identity.”
“Then came the coronavirus,” he mentioned, “which made all the underlying tensions even stronger.”
Throughout the pandemic, the federal government has been reluctant to penalize Haredim who violate antivirus protocols; analysts argue that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, fears upsetting the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers inside his governing coalition.

Israel leads the world in vaccinating its residents, and is seen as a bellwether for what a post-pandemic world may appear to be. But even because the vaccination charge rises, the nation continues to be months from normality: The variety of infections stays excessive — and the Haredim have borne the brunt.
Rivka Wertheimer, a 74-year-old Haredi homemaker, was among the many most up-to-date wave of contaminated folks. Late one current night time, she was near dying.
Two ambulances had been parked outdoors her cramped residence in north Jerusalem, able to rush her to the hospital. Two paramedics had been inside, able to carry her onto a gurney. A nurse at her bedside mentioned she had simply hours to reside — until she left now.
But the Wertheimers weren’t certain.
For greater than three weeks, Wertheimer’s seven little children had cared for her at house. Hasdei Amram, considered one of a handful of Haredi charities offering at-home well being care to coronavirus sufferers, had been sending nurses, oxygen tanks and medication to her ground-floor residence.
Wary of hospitals and outdoors intervention, her household was reluctant to vary course even now, as their matriarch suffered one other complication of the virus — a suspected hemorrhage.
Midnight approached. The oxygen machines bubbled away. To assist them determine, the household referred to as the person they belief greater than any physician: their rabbi.
“Everyone knows that human intellect has a limit,” mentioned Chaim, Wertheimer’s eldest son. “When we ask a rabbi, we are asking him what blessed God wants.”
Science is of worth, however for the Haredim it takes a again seat to religion, which governs each facet of life of their neighborhood.
A volunteer with Hasdei Amram, considered one of a handful of Haredi charities offering at-home well being care to coronavirus sufferers, visits a affected person in Jerusalem, Jan. 12, 2021. (Dan Balilty/The New York Times)
To see how this steadiness performs out, you’ll be able to head south from Wertheimer’s residence and into the slim streets of the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Mea Shearim.
A maze of alleyways, Mea Shearim was constructed within the nineteenth century, earlier than the primary main waves of Zionist immigration. The neighborhood has lengthy been a stronghold of the ultra-Orthodox. Some of its residents have at all times been skeptical of the Israeli state, and the pandemic has given recent impetus to that custom.
At a big yeshiva, or seminary, college students gathered freely in clear violation of a authorities shutdown of the training system.
Down a close-by lane, tons of of Haredim gathered for one more avenue funeral for a coronavirus sufferer. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a decent crowd, blocking the road. The rabbi main the funeral halfheartedly requested the mourners to cowl their faces. Most didn’t.
One man, Ezekiel Warszawa, 32, wove his approach by the gang, whispering to the mourners to reject the antivirus measures.
“Remove your masks,” he mentioned. “Take them off.”
The virus was a punishment from God, he mentioned — retribution for the Jews’ failure to obey non secular guidelines. The solely treatment was non secular observance, he mentioned.
Not everybody took that view. Several mourners shushed and tutted, telling Warszawa to depart. The rabbi reminded mourners to cowl their mouths.
And at different ceremonies that week, there was a extra orderly air.
The posters had been old school dying notices: giant white indicators with easy black kind that introduced the passing of outstanding native residents and rabbis, usually from the coronavirus.
Spliced amongst these notices had been bulletins of a unique type: subversive messages that questioned the existence of the virus and the necessity for antivirus measures.
“Jews, open your eyes, why rush?” learn one poster on the partitions of a number of streets. “The gentiles can get vaccinated first.”
But for each ultra-Orthodox individual attending a crowded funeral, or posting a subversive signal, there’s one other diligently staying at house.
Volunteers with Hasdei Amram, considered one of a handful of Haredi charities offering at-home well being care to coronavirus sufferers, visits a affected person in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2021. (Dan Balilty/The New York Times)
The Haredim have many leaders and sects, and are divided between Hasidic, Lithuanian and Sephardic traditions, every with its completely different subgroups. Many are pissed off by those that endanger others by breaking the lockdown guidelines.
“They have to wake up, because people are dying,” mentioned Shushan, the Haredi activist. “How many funerals will come out of this one?”
Yet even inside critics of the Haredim, like Shushan, really feel unable to totally break ranks. Despite their variations with different Haredim, they nonetheless really feel defensive of their neighborhood and reluctant to supply ammunition to secular critics. And they really feel intimidated by the extent of secular vitriol.
“I feel caught between two sides,” she mentioned. “I feel fear from the pandemic and I want to keep my family safe from it. But I also feel fear from the secular side.”
“When they look at the Haredi people, they see all of us as one group,” she mentioned. “All of us in black.”
Across the Haredi world, there’s a widespread sense of being misunderstood. Many really feel they’re victims of a double customary, one by which secular individuals are allowed to protest in giant crowds outdoors the prime minister’s residence each week, however the ultra-Orthodox are vilified for searching for to mourn en masse.
They additionally really feel their critics don’t perceive simply how vital biblical studies, rabbinical management and the mourning of the useless are to their lifestyle. Nor how a lot of an existential disruption it’s to shut the non secular colleges the place many ultra-Orthodox spend most of their waking hours in the hunt for divine reality.
“Without learning, we cannot live,” mentioned Chaim Wertheimer, Wertheimer’s eldest son. “This is our life.”
“The Torah is the will of God,” he mentioned. “The more a person studies the Torah, the more he will know about God’s will.”
Hasdei Amram, the charity, is making an attempt to bridge this divide. Based in an underground storeroom in Mea Shearim, the group fields hundreds of calls every week from Haredim who’ve fallen in poor health with the virus.
The emergence of latest virus variants has made the previous month significantly devastating. The extra contagious B.1.1.7 variant, first recognized in Britain, now accounts for as much as 80% of the circumstances in Israel.
“This wave is the hardest we’ve had,” mentioned Menachem Markowitz, a coordinator for the charity. He drives throughout Jerusalem each night time, speeding oxygen tanks and medication to sufferers’ residences, usually till daybreak.
“It’s a different kind of corona,” he mentioned. “And people are getting infected more easily.”
Ultra-Orthodox males carry the physique of the revered Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner, who died of the coronavirus, as tons of of mourners collect for his funeral in Jerusalem, Jan. 31, 2021. (Dan Balilty/The New York Times)
The charity’s core staff is made up of Haredi volunteers with no formal medical {qualifications}. They crisscross the town, delivering oxygen, blood checks and steroids to coronavirus sufferers who name for his or her help.
Their work is recurrently supplemented by a pool of sympathetic non-public nurses and docs who additionally journey from neighborhood to neighborhood every night time, usually after ending their day jobs. Donations cowl a few of the prices, whereas the sufferers pay the docs themselves.
When sufferers like Wertheimer turn out to be too sick to be handled at house, the charity advises them to go to a hospital. But normally, Hasdei Amram believes many sufferers get better far sooner when surrounded by their household in a well-recognized atmosphere.
It is a ramshackle operation, staffed by hard-charging workaholics displaying little regard for their very own security.
On a current February night time, Dr. Itamar Raz completed a full shift at his personal basic observe earlier than starting a number of hours of house visits on behalf of Hasdei Amram. Raz tore round in a white jeep with a mattress, which he hopes to donate to a well being retreat, tied incongruously to its roof.
He zigzagged throughout the non secular neighborhoods of Jerusalem — west from Givat Shaul to Har Nof, then east to Kiryat Sanz — visiting sufferers the charity had requested him to deal with. At every residence, he rushed straight in, protected solely by a worn face masks that usually dangled beneath his nostril.
But Raz normally went with out, making him appear much less intimidating. Patients usually relaxed shortly round him, partly due to his aura and partly as a result of they had been at house with household.
A affected person at one residence, David Greenberger, 80, lay again on his pillow and gazed lovingly at his grandson, who sat dutifully at his bedside.
“This is how it should be,” Raz beamed. “He has the same treatment that he would have in the hospital, but without the dangers and the infections and the staff shortages.”
Two days later, Greenberger was capable of cease taking oxygen for the primary time in two weeks — proof of the charity’s success, Raz mentioned.
But the group’s want to work barely outdoors the system generally makes some well being care managers nervous.
Independent Haredi volunteers assist alleviate the burden on hospitals and preserve sufferers away from germ-filled hospitals. They present an attentive, reliable service — sending workers into houses to examine on sufferers each day, ensuring they’ve what they want, and referring them to medical professionals or amenities when wanted.
But some specialists worry that these volunteers is likely to be too sluggish to detect when a affected person wants hospital care.
“Basically I think it’s a good thing,” mentioned Ronny Numa, a senior well being ministry official who oversees Haredi affairs. “But it depends on cooperation and transparency. If something goes wrong, we need to know as fast as we can.”

According to Jewish custom, our bodies are ready for burial by a Jewish burial society, or “chevra kadisha.” The society’s members wash the corpse, costume it in burial garments, and canopy it with a shroud. Before burial, the shroud is briefly loosened to permit family to verify the identification.
The pandemic has altered even this holy course of.
Now the corpses of virus victims are washed in separate places from the opposite cadavers. The our bodies are sprayed with disinfectant and sealed in a clear, nylon material earlier than being taken to the funeral. Wrapped beneath the nylon, the shroud can’t be loosened earlier than the burial. To determine the deceased, family should as a substitute depend on images taken by the society’s members in the course of the cleaning course of.
At the Jewish Burial Society heart south of Tel Aviv, the principle preparation website for the our bodies of coronavirus victims in central Israel, the elevated workload has taken a toll on the workers — significantly in the course of the current third wave of the virus.
Yehudah Erlich wheeled one more COVID sufferer right into a walk-in fridge. “The last few weeks have been a catastrophe,” he mentioned.
“I think they will process their emotions after the coronavirus is over,” mentioned Avraham Manela, the top of the society. “Now they are very much in the moment, and not dealing mentally with what they are going through.”
At her house in northern Jerusalem, Wertheimer’s household lastly agreed to ship her to the hospital after consulting with their rabbi.
She died shortly after reaching the hospital, as her second son, Moshe, waited within the darkness outdoors.
She was buried the subsequent day, underneath the midday solar, excessive up on the jap flank of the Mount of Olives.
A gaggle of 30 mourners, all males, picked their approach towards the grave. Their black coats and wide-brimmed hats disrupted the beige monotone of the mountainside behind them.
By the night, their public grief had given strategy to a personal calm.
They acquired visitors, sipped juice and ate meals ready by their feminine family, who labored in a kitchen cordoned behind a white sheet.
Outside, a bunch of neighborhood youngsters chatted about Wertheimer’s dying, questioning why she hadn’t been taken to the hospital sooner.

Her sons mentioned they’d no regrets. The timing of her dying was set by God, they mentioned. They had been glad they’d stored her at house, comforted by her household, so long as they’d.
“The truth is,” Moshe Wertheimer mentioned, “if we had been stronger we would have kept her here. We wouldn’t have sent her to hospital at all.”