BNEI BRAK (VINnews) — The city of Bnei Brak, which has the highest proportion of coronavirus patients in Israel, has been cordoned off from the rest of the Greater Tel Aviv area and declared a “restricted zone”, with police patrolling the exits to the town and nobody allowed to leave or enter except for essential needs. Apparently essential needs do not include purchasing or bringing Matzos from outside the city, even when one’s Chaburah (group baking matzos) was in another town.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
MK Yisrael Eichler called on the government to ease the siege on Bnei Brak and said that if the required food and assistance does not arrive there will be a need for “food convoys” to break the siege and provide the necessary requirements.
A senior officer in Home Command said that by Pesach the army will bring 100 tons of food into Bnei Brak, but will the locals eat those Hechsherim (kosher supervision)?
הזוי: מצות זה לא חיוני מי היה מאמין שככה יראה המצור על גטו בני ברק חייבים להפסיק את זה כמה שיותר מהר pic.twitter.com/vKXIK4ytMy
— משה ויסברג (@moshe_nayes) April 6, 2020
OK, I give up. What is Hechsherim?
Matzos????? Suddenly they remembered to bake matzos 2 days before Pesach?????
Haven’t they done enough damage already? Now they demand To spread the disease looking for their special hechser? Lives are more important than their matzah hechsher. They can take what is provided – for free – and stop complaining just for once in their entire lives. Show some gratitude instead to the people giving them food for free – just one time.
Given the failure of Bnei Brak residents to engage in social distancing and take other steps to reduce the spreading the coronavirus infection complaints, about not being able to buy Matzohs fall flat. Let them eat cake.
Let’s get some hate please on the Haredim, but at the end of the day the government of Israel is a police state , a benevolent one, but a police state . The fact they have socialized medicine is why they can’t cope with even low rates of disease and they locked up a city because they couldn’t communicate with the community leaders to explain what was going on to the general public through their own newspapers and hotlines in time
Wow…reading these comments keeps me entertained…The articles are endless poor me garbage.
The comments is where its at.
Quite frankly the Haredim will learn to figure out that no ones gives a damn about them or even themselves.
In times like these even G-d feels, let the chips fall where they may.
Pray all you want curse how much you want cry as much as you want. In the eyes of the virus we are all flesh to be devoured.
Israel is not a police state–even the meraglim did not speak such calumny. Any country that hopes to stay out of chaos must have officers of the law. Nor does Israel have socialized medicine. Citizens choose among a number of insurers. What makes Israel different is that premiums are paid by the state if someone loses a job or goes on welfare. Everyone is insured. The response to the coronavirus has been similar to other countries, bearing in mind Israel’s special needs and population. It took a while longer for Haredi neighborhoods to get the info (also passed on by their insurance kupot) but the main problem was a small percentage of smarter-than-thous who quickly wreaked havoc.
I feel bad about the situation but kind of felt it was coming. How long did people think that engaging in activity that was spreading the virus was going to work. I know they did not want to close the Yeshivos because Tinokos Shel Bais Rabban and did not want to close Shuls because T’filla B’tzibur has special power, but when every place hit first with this virus could not escape it via praying and learning your way out, what were the charedim thinking? Did they think they were holier than their brethen in Europe, NY or NJ and therefore they could act negligently here and a miracle would save them? Did it work here in NY when they were too slow to shut Yeshivos and Shuls despite many trying to warn about this (how many died because of people being slow to realize that a virus requires you to engage in distancing and quarantines to help limit the spread)?
The Israeli government cannot allow people from an area with significant community spread to engage in chaburos for Matzah now as that would be ignoring pikuach nefesh. So, it does seem a necessity that people in very affected areas might just have to rely on what is available. I would not suggest that various hechsherim are as good as the charedi ones, but on the other hand, those non-charedi Rabbis did seem to be more careful with pikuach nefesh, so maybe you can rely on them for kosher (at least in this time).