Sep 8, 2020

The Haredi rebellion against the government

The government representatives today voted to impose the "night lockdown", a curfew but more than a curfew (as it also includes shutting the schools in affected areas plus some other restrictions), on about 40 cities around Israel. Some of the closures will be on entire cities and others will be on specific neighborhoods within the cities.

Haredi leadership, both rabbinic and political, has basically declared a rebellion on this decision. 

The rabbinic leadership, so far at least Rav Zilbershtein and Rav Kanievsky, has announced that schools must not shut down despite the orders but will continue operating as usual to avoid bittul torah. This likely refer specifically to boys schools and not girls schools - I didn't hear details about this.

The political leadership is rebelling as well. While many Haredi MKs have spoken out against the decision, local leaders, such as the head of Degel in Bet Shemesh, the Mayor of Betar Ilit, Agudat Yisrael leadership in Ashdod, and others, have announced that they will not cooperate with the closure nor with any orders that are against the haredi community and discriminatory against the Haredi community.

What I don't understand is that if the Haredi community, and leadership, feels so under attack, so discriminated against, by the government - by the government they themselves are a part of - what is with all this minor rebellion stuff? Why not leave the government? it is clearly, in their opinion, biased against Haredim. Why continue to be a part of it? Doesn't that legitimize it in some way? Why does the Haredi rebellion against the government only go so far, when it seems to be such a serious fight?




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1 comment:

  1. ironic. Just a couple of days ago Yvette Lieberman called on his followers to not follow Netanyahu's government set rules regarding COVID19. He said they are not legitimate, illegal, and should be ignored. Some of the Charedi politicians, and you even quoted Aryeh Deri, strongly criticized Lieberman for calling on people to ignore the rules. And now they are calling on their people to not follow the rules.

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