By GREER FAY CASHMANIsraeli police officers take out ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, as part of an effort to enforce lockdown in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, April 2, 2020.(photo credit: FLASH90)
In last Friday’s Jerusalem Post, there was an op-ed piece by Manfred Gerstenfeld protesting the stereotyping of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Jews in general. An internationally recognized award-winning expert on research into antisemitism, Gerstenfeld noted that while the COVID-19 statistics in some ultra-Orthodox communities were substantially higher in the per capita ratio to every 1,000 people, than in general Israeli society, these figures referred to only a limited percentage of all haredi citizens.There is an illogical tendency not just among Israelis or amongst Jews, but in many societies, in which the other is regarded with suspicion and often with outright hostility. The upshot is that the many are judged by the misdeeds of the few. The same goes for any group. While regular police, Border Police and IDF soldiers who have been delivering food packages have, with few exceptions, struck up friendly relations in Bnei Brak and in Arab villages where they were previously unwelcome, they have been less successful in this regard in Mea She’arim and in certain parts of Beit Shemesh – where in both cases, extremist rabble-rousers have provoked violent clashes between residents and police. In Mea She’arim the situation became very tense and even violent, when police tried to disperse a crowd that was numerically far in excess of guidelines set down by the Health Ministry. Lack of cooperation on the part of most people in the crowd caused the police to throw stun grenades, as a result of which a nine-year-old girl was injured. With her head bandaged, she said later in a television interview that she was afraid to go back into the street.Some but not all media reports gave the impression that the police bullies were at it again. This was yet another example of stereotyping, suggesting either that the police were out to get all haredim, or alternatively, as appeared in some other publications, all the haredim are rebels who deliberately violate the laws of Israel. Neither of these impressions is true. The police force has become tainted by a couple of rotten eggs, and so have residents from Mea She’arim and Beit Shemesh.■ POLICE WILL even allow citizens to break the rules if it is for a good reason. Yinon Chwat lives in the neighborhood of the Mount of Olives. His grandmother Rena Quint lives on the seam of Talbiyeh and the German Colony. On the night after the Sede, Yinon came with two of his four children to sing under his grandmother’s balcony. When the police saw him, they initially wanted to turn him away and send him back home. But he explained that his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, had for years taken care of others, including her 20+ grandchildren, and now that she had been forced to spend Seder night alone when she used to host large Seder dinners, the least he could do was come and cheer her up the following evening. The police gave him the green light but cautioned him against going inside. Yinon was back again almost every night during Hol Hamoed, and on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he spent much of the day where his grandmother could see him from her balcony.■ EVEN MORE heart-warming vis-a-vis police is the incident related by Emanuel Miller, who joined an outdoor mincha/maariv minyan at which the Health Ministry stipulates that there can be a maximum of 19 participants. Miller counted 18, including himself. While the service was taking place, two policemen walked along the street, noticed what was going on and joined in. But who counts?■ EVEN WITH the easing of regulations most synagogues remain closed, though synagogues that have ample space front and/or back, conduct an outdoor minyan, if not on a daily basis, at least on Shabbat. The powers that be in the Hazvi Yisrael congregation tried to get a regular outdoor minyan, with a maximum number of 19 participants standing at a distance from each other, but the effort was not always successful. Most congregants decided that it was safer to pray at home. Yet for those who are interested in joining a private, presumably outdoor minyan, Reuben Asch will be hosting a private shacharit minyan on weekdays and Avi Moshel will host mincha and maariv minyanim.
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