from our correspondent
JERUSALEM – Fourteen religious soles have been transformed into what the Israelis call crown hotels. Students of the yeshiva which are positive they cannot leave the classrooms where day and night they study the sacred texts, the infected pupils in other institutes are transferred here. The measures have been decided – explains the newspaper Haaretz – by Roni Numa, the general who coordinates with the ultra-Orthodox community intervention by the army to slow the spread of the epidemic. Confinement in schools wanted prevent the boys from returning home for Yom Kippur, which ends at sunset, and infect older relatives. Some of these makeshift hospitals on the outskirts of Tel Aviv have caused the protests from neighborhood dwellers: they fear that young devotees will not respect the rules, that the call to honor the Day of Atonement is stronger than the standards set by the state. On the eve of Kippur the Israeli government has imposed even stricter measures for the second lockdown decided a fortnight ago and some religious leaders called on followers to respect the rule that limits gatherings indoors and outdoors to a maximum of 20 people.
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The spread of Covid-19 remains out of control in neighborhoods and cities with an ultra-Orthodox majority. Last Friday 2,692 new infected were registered among the haredim, one third of the cases diagnosed that day (double if we consider the proportion of the God-fearing to the total population). Since the beginning of the epidemic, the rabbis (especially those of the Hasidic groups) have been inciting rebellion, not to respect the restrictions that would stop studying in religious schools or reduce the number of faithful in synagogues to celebrate the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar, which began a week ago. Twenty-four hours of fasting and atonement. Reflection on what happened in the past year. This time the break on Yom Kippur is for the Israelis to try to understand how it could have happened, how is it possible that as a green and virtuous nation – in May in new cases of Coronavirus they went towards zero – the health crisis has turned deep red: 1,512 patients are in hospital, 749 in serious condition, close to that quota of 800 ICU beds that experts consider the first limit for medical meltdown. The dead reached 1,450 out of 9 million inhabitants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admits he was wrong to reopen everything too quickly last May, especially criticizes the opposing parties in parliament that would have prevented him from quickly passing the necessary laws. The opposition accuses him instead of wanting to use the new restrictions on the movement of citizens to disperse the protests in front of the residence on Via Balfour in Jerusalem: thousands of demonstrators have been meeting for months and shouting at the head of the government to resign, they accuse him of mishandling the epidemic because his head was immersed in the corruption trial. Today the deputies are debating the rules that should stop the demonstrations for health reasons. Netanyahu wanted to pass the rules a few days ago with the state of emergency, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and other allies in need prevented him.
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September 28, 2020 (change September 28, 2020 | 14:02)
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