TV screens are full of images of mass gatherings at two main locale: the left-wing protests outside the Prime Minister's Residence on Balfour St. on Saturday night, and the funeral of the rebbe of Solovetchick in Jerusalem on Sunday. In both cases, these gatherings were risky – people crowd together and expose themselves to COVID, regardless of race, sex, religion, or political views. In both cases, these are sectors who believe with every fiber of their being that their gatherings are justified.
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They jump to point out that the demonstrators have the law on their side. Protests are allowed under the COVID restrictions, whereas religious gatherings are not. But this is part of the problem: Legislators (or our non-functioning government) has drawn a distinction based on values, and this is the root of the problem. We can't talk about equal enforcement before discussing equal legislation.
The Haredi claim that the funerals, weddings, and gatherings in rebbes' courts are a "demonstration" of their own values – foolish as they might be in light of the pandemic – has some substance in terms of the law and principles. If secular Israelis can ignore public health orders for the sake of their values, why can't the Haredim? And with all due respet, the Haredim don't need to invent a nice new doctrine about the irrelevance of unequal laws – they have common sense, and that's enough.
Israel finds itself in an embarrassing situation. To get COVID under control, we need everyone to join the effort, follow the public health regulations like mature adults (including forgoing things technically allowed under the law), cooperate with the government, and demonstrate public discipline.
But what we have is the Left and the Haredim in a tug-of-war, for similar reasons. The leftists – mainly the extremists who comprise most of the protesters – are motivated by the old Marxist conspiracy theory that the "regime" is exploiting the pandemic to harm the citizens (the "proletariat") or to allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to "avoid his trial" or simply in order to promote a dictatorial scheme; and activists have to take a stand.
The Haredim, meanwhile, are motivated by a conspiracy theory that is just as destructive, according to which the "government" is working against the "world of the Torah" and should be treated with suspicion and disobeyed in matters that harm their spiritual world. Talmud Torah schools will open, masses of Jews will take part in the funerals of great scholars, and holidays will be observed as usual, all under the nose of the "government."
Israel needs governability, urgently, in the basic Ben-Gurionic sense: that the individual sees the state and the nation as the basic reference point. Without Marxist maneuvers and without games by the Hassidim.
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