Any other year, the streets of Bnei Brak would be bustling. Just ahead of Passover, the residents would be flocking to stores to stores that sell clothing and shoes, as well as dishes and flowers, to stock up for the seder.
On Wednesday, Rabbi Akiva St, the city's 5th Avenue, was nearly empty. So were the other streets.
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"The city has gotten used to the new reality, albeit late," says Avraham Kagan, who lives in central Bnei Brak.
"For example, look at the advertising leaflets that are stuffed in mailboxes. They're all full of ads for Passover sales, but each ad has a circle saying that the store is shut and offers delivery only. There are also a lot of ads about one-time holiday sales by shop owners who are stuck with a huge amount of stock but have no customers," Kagan says.
Meanwhile, prayers in public or at synagogues was officially stopped as of Sunday, when Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky announced that no prayer minyans must take place in the city.
In effect, as of Wednesday, a small group of worshippers was still trying to flout the instructions. A riot even broke out on Dessler St. when a few worshippers who entered a synagogue for morning prayers were greeted with shouts of "Murderers! Murderers!" aimed at them from nearby balconies, as well as threats to call the police. City workers welded shut the doors of a synagogue on Hashomer St. that belongs to the extremist Jerusalem Faction sect, which was still trying to hold minyans there.
'The majority are being careful'
"But even with the Jerusalem Faction, most people are being careful," says Yehuda Rapaport, who lives in the west of the city.
"At the funeral of the sect leader on Saturday night, there were hundreds of people, and they caught it. [On Tuesday] there was another funeral for the wife of a well-known rabbi from the 'Faction,' and it took place according to regulations," Rapaport adds.
"You need to realize that most [Bnei Brak] residents aren't online and don't listen to the radio," says ultra-Orthodox journalist Yisrael Cohen, also a resident of the city.
"They don't know about the Health Ministry regulation. Last week a few police cars went through the city, warning people, and it worked. Now everyone is staying home," Cohen says.
Shlomo Margaliot, who heads a Chabad synagogue in Bnei Brak, says that he and his family have not left their home in two weeks except to shop for food.
"When we saw what was happening in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, we internalized that the situation could get very complicated very quickly, and we kept at home. Still, we're Chabadniks, so we're informed, and this week we saw for the first time that the rest of our haredi neighbors don't understand how serious this story is. We explained how dangerous it was. There are those who understood and those who didn't," he says.
According to Margaliot, as of last Saturday there were still prayer minyans in the streets, but starting Sunday, after rabbis banned prayers in a minyan, "it was over."
People are disciplined, he says. "It's just that until last week, they didn't understand the extent of the problem. In my opinion, there is now no need to quarantine Bnei Brak. The residents aren't stupid, and the moment they realized the situation, they behaved like everyone else in the country. You don't see people in the streets," Margaliot says.
In Bnei Brak, like other haredi cities, an alternative has been found to minyans: Prayers on balconies, each worshipper from his own home. One resident of Hashomer St. put a giant loudspeaker on his balcony for afternoon prayers.
In the city's Pardes Katz neighborhood, two residents who ventured out to purchase food for the weekend, wearing masks, were arguing about the preparations the city was making.
"The city was too late in taking up the reins. At first, they dismissed the regulations, they didn't think it would be serious. Now, Bnei Brak leads in the number of corona cases," argued Shlomo Benin.
Benin's friend Kobi Anavi explained that the residents were cut off from the media: "Most of the people didn't know what was happening in the world, didn't realize lives were at risk."
But both men agree that this Passover, which begins on the evening of Wednesday, April 8, will be the most unusual one the city has known.
