After the deluge of negative headlines over the last several weeks, when COVID-19 is finally beaten back, it will be the scenes of police cordoning off Bnei Brak like a medieval plague city that will define the corona crisis for most Israelis and international observers. These media attacks, which… Read more »
Tagged haredi Israelis
Haredi rabbinic leader calls on followers to pray alone
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a prominent leader in the haredi Orthodox community, called on his followers to pray alone without a prayer quorum. The ruling on Sunday came after a steep rise in the number of coronavirus cases in Bnei Brak, a mostly haredi city in Israel,… Read more »
Hundreds attend funeral of religious leader in central Israel, flouting Health Ministry directives
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hundreds of members of Israel’s haredi Orthodox community attended the funeral of a religious leader despite government restrictions on the number of people who can participate in such ceremonies due to the coronavirus crisis. About 400 mourners gathered in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak… Read more »
As draft law nears passage, haredi Israelis take to streets
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Beneath banners invoking historic calamities from the Egyptian enslavement to the Holocaust, hundreds of thousand of haredi Orthodox men gathered on the streets of Jerusalem to recite psalms and penitential prayers as they inveighed against an enemy they consider on par with Hitler and the ancient… Read more »