Israel: Recriminations over a long-predicted tragedy
The deadly stampede at an ultraOrthodox religious festival in northern Israel last week was entirely preventable, said Yaron Druckman in Ynetnews.com. Some 100,000 worshippers had thronged Mount Meron for the annual festival of Lag b’Omer, dancing and lighting bonfires around the tomb of the ancient Jewish mystic Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. “The government was warned more than a decade ago” that the holy site—a warren of steep alleyways, makeshift structures, and cramped plazas—was not safe for large crowds. And this year the longexpected tragedy occurred, when worshippers coming down the mountain slipped on a metal ramp in a packed alley. In the ensuing pileup, 45 men and boys were crushed to death, including four Americans. It is Israel’s worst-ever civilian accident.
The Israeli government has effectively ceded control of parts of the country to the ultra-Orthodox, said Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz. Many will blame Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, who himself attended the festival, and yes, “it happened on his watch.” Despite repeated warnings, Ohana did not dare restrict attendance because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised an ultra-Orthodox political party that there would be no cap. Ohana and Netanyahu were following the craven behavior of “each and every Israeli government since the state’s establishment.” The rabbi’s tomb, just like the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, is a place where “the state doesn’t even try to assert its sovereignty.” It bows to the demands of the Haredim, who claim they deserve complete autonomy because they “are the real Jews, the authentic ones” who have maintained the old traditions for thousands of years. Who is the state to boss them around?
That same logic allowed the ultraOrthodox to flout Covid restrictions, said Jeremy Sharon in The Jerusalem Post. The Haredim act as though “any restriction on the community’s way of life is some form of discrimination.” Many refused to wear masks or observe social distancing, and their neighborhoods became the source of Israel’s main virus outbreaks. But the ultra-Orthodox have “political heft” that lets them dictate policy: Seven of the last nine Israeli governing coalitions have relied on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties. In fact, Israel’s third countrywide lockdown, in January, should have been focused on specific areas, but the Haredim refused to have their Covid-rife neighborhoods singled out for restrictions.
We ultra-Orthodox know we share the blame for this tragedy, said Yifat Erlich in Israel Hayom. We recognize that “Haredi officials and rabbis” stifled attempts at regulating crowd size, and we are “talking about the community culture that disregards safety and puts lives at risk.” This is a moment of reckoning. “The culture of glorifying the dead at the expense of the living” is unsustainable. I hugged my son when he returned from Lag b’Omer, and I grieve for those whose children did not come home. “May the Meron catastrophe bring about” a needed change.