Wedding and event halls reopened on Sunday despite the spike in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, with halls permitted to host events with up to 250 participants.
About 25,000 couples have registered to be married in the next few weeks, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein stated last week.
“Even at these happy events, adhere to health ministry regulation: wearing masks, maintaining hygiene and distancing of two meters,” Edelstein wrote. “Without these – unfortunately – the reopening of the economy won’t last.”
Wedding and event halls are currently only permitted to host weddings and other religious ceremonies, such as bar or bas mitzvah or bris ceremonies.
The event halls must be large enough to allow each of the 250 participants (not including staff) to have two meters of space. The names and phone numbers of all participants at each event must be recorded by the hall owners and made available to the health ministry if a guest is later confirmed to be a coronavirus carrier.
Gathering for non-religious related ceremonies are still limited to up to 50 participants in an open area.
Violations of health regulations regarding wedding and event halls will be considered criminal offenses.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
What is the public health rationale for allowing 250 attendees for “religious” celebrations but not allowing the same number of attendees under the same rules for a birthday party for some politician or a fundraising event for some mosdos. Seems like a political gesture designed to offset some of the anger from 3 months of yeshiva and shul closures which were remarkably well-observed and enforced in EY.
This is not good for the Jews.
Israel seems to know something that our stupid politicians either don’t know or just plain corrupt. Because while they clearly in a second wave they still reopening in targeted ways and the death toll is still around only 300. I suspect major fraud over here on the numbers as well as a lot of murder in the hospitals with no visitors allowed no one knows what really happened