Meanwhile, on Friday, reports said that one of the most important spiritual leaders in Israel's Lithuanian Haredi circles, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 92, has tested positive for COVID.
Kanievsky came under fire in the first COVID wave for refusing to order yeshivas to close their doors, although he later changed his stance.
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Meanwhile, ongoing mass demonstrations outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem have caused a number of Hassidic sects in Israel to turn their backs on public health regulations put in place to stem the tide of coronavirus, Health Ministry officials told Israel Hayom this week.
"We don't get into politics, but we can say one thing – if the protesters wanted to cause anarchy, they succeeded," one official said.
"A Haredi person says, 'If protests are a right, then prayer with the rebbe is also a right – it can save the world.' People believe that by learning Torah and praying, they are saving the world. Truth be told, we are running out of tools with which to handle some parts of the Haredi public who are refusing to follow the instructions," the official said.
Avi Blumenthal, who is in charge of outreach for the Haredi sector in the Health Ministry, explains that the ministry is trying to touch on these arguments in its contact with the sector.
"We tell that there are sacred values, but if they put someone's life in danger because you were walking around without a mask, no prayer will help," Blumenthal says.
After police officers clashed with Vizhnitz Hassidim in Bnei Brak on Tuesday, an event that ended when Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Bnei Brak Yisroel Hager spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone, the Health Ministry is preparing for more clashes after Haredi residents of Modi'in Illit protested the ban on public gatherings, and some people in the sector continue to refuse to wear masks.
"We intend to take a harsher tone in our outreach. If thus far the dialogue was friendly, new we intend to take an aggressive tone – accusations of murder and taking human lives for those who don't follow the instructions," Blumenthal.
"You need to understand, the is a lot of discontent in the Haredi communities that follow the rules and look at the people who ignore them. You can see the numbers, 30% of the confirmed cases are among Haredim. They understand that the situation is very serious, so the ones who follow the rules are getting very upset," he adds.
The Bnei Brak event may have been a watershed event. Unusually, the rebbe himself left the premises to face off against the police who arrived to break up the traditional "tish," which violated COVID regulations both by the number of people who were gathered at the sect's main synagogue and their failure to wear masks.
"They should prepare for an all-out war. We should have been prepared to prevent them [the police] from coming into the study hall," the rebbe fumed. He also ordered his Hassidim to open mikvehs, against Health Ministry orders.
"I will not allow mikvehs, synagogues, and schools to be closed," he declared.
Netanyahu spoke with the Vizhnitzer rebbe and presented him with the facts and figures about COVID in the Haredi population and explained the government's policy.
A source in the Hassidic community told Israel Hayom that the issue was a particularly sensitive one: "No one wants to be the first rebbe who closes down prayers and tishes. A rebbe who doesn't hold a tish for two months will lose his followers," the source said
On Wednesday, Health Ministry Director-General Hezi Levy told members of the Haredi media in a Zoom meeting that one-third of new confirmed COVID cases were among the country's Haredi population.
Levy also said he would not be surprised if the number of cases continued to rise in that sector due to illegal gatherings, such as a celebration by Vizhnitz Hassidim at the end of Yom Kippur. Police intervened to break up the event, sparking the aforementioned clashes.
"Gatherings like the ones we've seen that violate the Health Ministry guidelines can cause the virus to spread and more cases," Levy said.
Levy also addressed concerns that Israel would not see herd immunity, either among its Haredi population or the population at large.
"Herd immunity is not something we want … We haven't seen that it did much in countries that took that approach. It didn't reduce mortality," Levy told the media.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Roni Numa, who has been appointed to oversee the government's handling of COVID in the Haredi sector, has expressed concern about a spike in cases after Sukkot, which begins on Friday. After the Sukkot holiday, Haredi schools are expected to re-open.
In meetings this week, Numa said he expected to see a jump in new COVID cases among Haredi Israelis in the next few weeks as a result of the mass prayers in some synagogues on Yom Kippur. Numa praised the many Haredi communities who followed the public health restrictions, but said that many localities had handled themselves badly. Numa pointed out one synagogue in his own neighborhood of Ramat Gan, where he said worshippers gathered inside, as well as the Great Vizhnitz Synagogue in Bnei Brak, into which some 3,000 Hassidim crowded on Yom Kippur.
"That's much better than the 6,000 who pray there on normal days, but still, it's very bad," Numa said.
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