Haredi leaders on adherence to the lockdown regulations

PM Netanyahu and the Health Ministry have been putting a  lot of effort to try to get the Haredi community on board with the lockdown regulations. They have been meeting or calling different rabbonim and community leaders to explain the urgency of the matter and to ask for their voice in calling on people to adhere to the regulations.

Some of those efforts have borne fruit, while others less so.

To start, it is worth pointing out that according to the regulations, all shuls must be closed (Yom Kippur was a built-in exception) and all services must be held outdoors (still with limitations on numbers of participants).

We already saw that some of the chassidic groups are openly flaunting the rules. That is their approach. I guess we'll see if the government is willing to come down hard on them to force them to play along and if they are willing to pay the price for not following the regulations, but that is their approach.

The Sephardic Council of Sages issued a directive the other day ordering all minyanim to be held outdoors and the shuls closed and no minyanim indoors anywhere, along with adherence to the other regulations (distancing, masks, etc).

On the Litvishe end of things, Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Gershon Edelstein released a letter last night with their directives on the matter.

The Litvishe gedolim have put out the call for shul gabbais as much as possible to prepare outdoor areas in the shul courtyards so people can daven outside. In addition to that they instructed people to follow the rules of no hosting or being guests in other people's sukkas, wearing masks around other people, etc

They called on outdoor minyanim as much as possible, which falls short of ordering the shuls closed.

Don't forget, by law all shuls must be closed, at risk of heavy fines and even possibly criminal charges.

Mostly I would say this is pretty much a failed effort by the Prime Minister and the Health Ministry. Leaders of two of the three streams of Haredi society refused to instruct the people to close the shuls, though two of the three did call for following all the other rules, so that's a plus. Last night it seems the Health Ministry decided that enforcement would be strict, so forewarned is forearmed.

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