The tightly woven communities of Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Israel are being devastated by the covid19 pandemic. Their neighborhoods are the nation’s “hot spots” for this contagion.
Check out any of these recent articles from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz — here, here, and here).
One reporter goes so far as to say that Israel’s Haredi community is facing its greatest threat since the Holocaust. They literally may be wiped out.
The explanation for this tragedy is simple: insular, anti-intellectual religion very similar to American Fundamentalism.
First, Haredi families do not allow their children to attend school with “unfaithful unbelievers,” which includes non-Haredi Jews. Their children 
are required to attend Haredi religious schools with strict curricula where they can only mingle with other Haredi children.
Second, the Haredi curriculum excludes the study of modern science so their communities are ignorant of even the most basic knowledge of modern medicine. In addition, they are forbidden from listening to the radio or watching TV. They live in an information bubble.
Third, they are convinced that faith and Torah will always keep them safe. A firm enough belief in God, the authority of Scripture, and their tradition is all they need to be protected from infection.
Of course, this means that they must continue to gather together in the synagogues for services.
The government finally is deploying soldiers to Haredi neighborhoods in order to enforce government quarantine orders. These soldiers are frequently attacked, physically, by the devout who accuse them of being Nazis and the enemies of religious freedom.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Now, thousands upon thousands of these fervent believers are now dying, not in spite of their faith, but because of their faith.
I know. A fringe of religious-right, anti-Semitic nutcases are saying that their suffering is God’s punishment for being Jews. (Oh dear Jesus, please deliver your church from such destructive, apostate imbeciles. Amen.)
The obvious American parallel to this part of the Israeli story is seen in the U.S. pastors and churches that continue to defy the medical advice coming from places like the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute for Health by continuing to hold weekly services.
Or University presidents such as Jerry Falwell, Jr. at Liberty University, who parroted Fox New/president Trump talking points about the covid warnings being a “hoax” propagated by “Trump haters” and now insists on keeping the university open.
I cannot help but wonder how many of their followers are living inside their
own information bubbles, sealed off from the rest of the world by the disabling combination of Fox News with a heavy dose of Christian radio and TV.
Many of them subject to an irrational fear – propagated by their leaders – that our government is just waiting for the chance to shut down Christian
I am sure that most of us are now familiar with the mug shot of Rodney Howard-Browne, the mega-church pastor arrested for endangering his Tamp Bay congregation by continuing to hold church services.
Please, if your pastor is anything like Howard-Browne or Jerry Falwell, I urge you to find another church (or synagogue).
