Coronavirus: ‘What’s good for the goose, good for the gander’ - analysis

Why is a holy and wholesome wedding in the age of coronavirus any less important than thrice weekly protests in Jerusalem against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

By HERB KEINON
A NEW bride and groom visit a blossoming almond grove in Latrun on their wedding day in 2019. (photo credit: HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90)
A NEW bride and groom visit a blossoming almond grove in Latrun on their wedding day in 2019.
(photo credit: HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90)
If there is anything Israelis hate, it is being played for a sucker, a freier in Hebrew.
This “fear of freing” is as much a part of the Israeli makeup as is having chutzpah, being blunt and rallying together during a security crisis.
It is part of the Israeli DNA.
And this not wanting to be played for a sucker explains much of the outrage that came out after footage emerged of a massive wedding in Jerusalem Wednesday night – during the height of the coronavirus crisis – of the grandson of the Belzer Rebbe, Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach
While other couples were being married in private gardens with just a handful of their closest family members – needing to count both relatives and friends out of the wedding loop – there was the rebbe’s grandson celebrating his nuptials in front of some 5,000 dancing, singing, adoring hassidim, few of them social-distancing, and some of them wearing masks, in a corona “red zone” neighborhood in the capital.
While the huppah wedding ceremony was held outdoors, a festive reception for hundreds was held inside.
The double standard here cries up to the heavens. Why can the Belzer Rebbe’s grandson get a big wedding, while the grandson of an average citizen – say, Yankel Shmendrik – needs to suffice  with some canapés in a garden with his friends and relatives divided up into “capsules” of 20? It doesn’t seem fair, and Israelis hate unfairness, especially when it applies to them.
Which is what those same Belzer Hassidim were replying to those attacking them for the wedding.
Why is a holy and wholesome wedding in the age of coronavirus any less important than thrice weekly protests in Jerusalem against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
On Saturday night, upward of 10,000 people were estimated to be demonstrating near the Prime Minister’s Residence in the capital, singing, shouting and chanting, few of them social-distancing and most wearing masks. Is the virus able to differentiate between a protest and a wedding?
If thousands are allowed to gather for a demonstration, then surely thousands should be able to gather to celebrate a wedding. If thousands are allowed to gather and curse out Netanyahu, then certainly the same number should be able to gather and bless the grandson of the Belzer Rebbe. If not, it’s a double standard.
But wait, say the protesters, don’t compare the two events. We are exercising a fundamental democratic right, the right to protest. That is the bread and butter of democracy.
To which the hassidim reply that freedom of worship is also a fundamental democratic right, no less important than freedom to demonstrate, and that this type of weeding is a form of worship. Why does one democratic right trump another?
And therein lies the problem.
Millions of law-abiding, mask-wearing, hand-sanitizing, distance-keeping Israelis feel like suckers when they see the rules they follow being flaunted by those with money, power, fame, protexia (connections) or all of the above.
And this feeling of being a freier is compounded and made even worse by a feeling of anger. This is not just someone jumping the line at the pharmacy. This is someone whose actions could endanger the public and lead to a closure that could cause us all considerable economic hardship.
The double standard, the selective implementation of the regulations, has been a recurring theme since the country began battling the virus in March.
The examples are many: Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky giving instructions to keep yeshivot open, even though schools were closed; Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin inviting their children to Passover Seder, even though the rest of the country was told to celebrate pretty much alone; a model agency holding a rooftop gala for 300 people at a Tel Aviv hotel at a time when all other gatherings were limited to 50 people; an Israeli-Cypriot billionaire businessman being allowed into the country without quarantine while everyone else coming back home gets slapped with a two-week quarantine order; 17,000 non-Israeli yeshiva and university students being permitted entry for the year even as the non-Israeli spouses, partners and children of Israelis are told they must remain outside the gate.
And the list goes on and on, with the net result being that average regulation-abiding citizens find themselves asking why they should obey the rules while others do not.
If the country is to bring down the number of people infected by the virus, the rules need to be logical and applicable to all. Otherwise it creates an atmosphere where one sector is seen as having privileges over the other, a corrosive feeling that chips away at national solidarity at a time when solidarity is critical if the country is to get a handle on the galloping crisis.
And, besides, Israelis hate feeling like freiers.


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