23 Responses

1. makes us a real Ohr La’goyim. A Hillul haShem of epic proportions. We should learn about many things from this disaster. Compare the Levayah of Rabbi Dr. Lord Sacks ztl to what is seen elsewhere.

2. By “national average” does that mean you are comparing Orthodox Jews in London, to Orthodox Jews in the rest of the United Kingdom? Or are you comparing them to the overall population in the rest of the United Kingdom? Or are you comparing them to non-Orthodox Jews in London? Or are you comparing them to the overall population of London? And by having had “Covid19” do you mean testing positive, or developing symptoms unique to Covid (as opposed to having a common cold, while testing positive to Covid19), or do you meaning dying of Covid19. Do the figures reflect that Orthodox Jews have a much higher birthrate than most other people in the United Kingdom? Does the research adjust for the fact that Covid19 tends to be more common in large urban areas rather than in rural areas, and Orthodox Jews prefer urban areas?

   Did the “research” reveal something interesting, or merely illustrate why yeshivos should include a course in statistics as part of their secular curriculum?

3. “Israel Frey, an ultra-Orthodox journalist who has been critical of the community’s response to the pandemic, told the Jerusalem Post he does not see ‘even a gram’ of introspection or change in direction in the leadership’s attitude to the crisis”

   Obviously, this insanity that has taken hold of the frum tzibur in the UK has taken hold in EY and the U.S. as well. Forget about all those who are dying daily but not chashuvah rabbonim whose pictures we see almost daily on the news page of YWN, since they must be regarded as dispensable in the name of having big simchas or crowding together for a levayah. For years into the future, yidden in yeshivish lvush will be remembered along with spring break college party animals as those who ignored public health guidelines and accelerated infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths for the community-at-large.

4. ‘That is what sustains ultra-Orthodoxy – its entire basis is communal gatherings.’

   That isn’t Torah Judaism. The basis of Torah Judaism is adherence to halachah. If I really wanted communal gatherings I could go to a church. Less talking during services.

5. These figures are all baseless. These fabricated reports were originated by a circulation called ‘JEWISH NEWS’ run by a group of ULTRA ANTI-ORTHODOX who try to bash the Orthodox community at every given opportunity.

6. To Englisher:
   Stop making up stories. What’s going on in UK is indefensible – you know it, I know it, the entire world knows it. It’s exactly the same in Israel, these Rebbes making huge weddings, thousands of people at levayas, nobody cares. Calling it a chilul Hashem doesn’t come close.

7. This article is wildly inaccurate. Here’s the story, as reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Service, which isn’t exactly a pro-Chareidi news service:

   LONDON (JTA) – In a study of 1,800 people from a single Jewish haredi community in London, 64% of those tested appeared to have contracted and beat the coronavirus, researchers said.

   The article goes on to state that the study was done at the request of the community itself. The community remained unidentified.

8. Akuperma professes difficulty understanding what if anything this study reveals.

   Any way you try to spin this, it shows that a higher percentage of UK Chareidim had COVID antibodies (i.e. previously had COVID) compared with ANY other group ANYwhere. If you read this about the hypothetical high incidence of AIDS in illegal immigrants, you would immediately understand what that says about the behaviour of that group.

   Why is this any different? Could it be that you simply cannot acknowledge that the Chareidi oilom has been consistently careless? That zei lachen zich ois about safety guidelines and laws designed solely to protect the public?

9. To all the commenters, can I just point out a sentence that seems to have been somewhat overlooked by you all?

   “According to the study, the main source of infection among Chareidi Jews in London was at Purim gatherings ”

   That was back before the first lockdown.

   Whatever your opinion is on what’s going on now, please don’t appropriate tragic events early on in this disaster to push your agenda.

10. Certain commentors appear to have difficulty in understanding the definition of charedi, but are only too quick to render a halachic ruling on what constitutes chilul HaShem. DrYidd, for example cites the Purim celebrations as being a cause. Well, DrYidd, they actually took place BEFORE our Govt accepted that Covid-19 was worse than a bad flu. Boris Johnson was still singing from Trump’s songsheet at that point – and for quite a while afterwards, and his delays have been repeatedly clamed for the UK having the highest mortality per capita in the world. Lockdown in the UK was postponed by a fortnight so that an all so important horse race could take place, because the Health Minister had strong financial supporters amongst the owners of those horses.
    Moreover, the survey did not indicate (or apparently even consider) that the Borough of Hackney, where the community is centred, had a disproportionately high rate of contagion and mortality, it being an inner-city borough with all the accompanying problems of overcrowding, poverty, and huge immigrant population of ethnic minorities (who are apparently more susceptible to infection and death), on which the delay in lockdown had a disproportionate effect.
    Additionally, Charedi families are usually large, and one infected member will infect a much larger number of people at the same address at a time than in a smaller family.
    However, I am listening to your concerns: Yes there are still charedi Jews left in the world. You’re not the first to bemoan the fact. However, we would be grateful if you make every effort to disassociate from them. Tell everyone you know that they represent an ancient, almost forgotten, lifestyle, that has been hounded and deprecated for thousands of years, and with which you wish to have no part.

11. As a Londoner (despite the moniker) – yes, the post Purim period was dreadful. Most people had it then. I fully believe that the 65% figure is accurate, almost everyone i know had some sort of symptom and there was no testing available then.

12. All the photos we see nightly on YWN news pages of gadolim who were niftar, body bags, simchas and levayahs with black hats crowded together with no mask, hospitals with patients lying on the floors in hallways etc, must all be FAKE NEWS. Shame on YWN!!

13. In response to the concerns raised by “Occasional Visitor”:

    Instead of whining that this study is agenda-driven and not current, all you needed to do was search “London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine”, which would have taken less time than the time it took you to write your above post. You would have immediately seen a link to the study. It was initiated at the request of a Rabbi Hershel Grunfeld, hardly the typical name of a Chareidi hater with an agenda. The blood samples were drawn in Nov-Dec 2020, not in March. And there isn’t a single word in the paper about Purim.

    L’mayseh, you’re just another lazy guy who can’t resist the temptation to cast doubts on others’ good work, as opposed to doing your own quick research to determine the facts.

14. As seen this week with 3 major large funeral crowdings just this week, it is no wonder that the Chareidim are getting infected by leaps & bounds, and fanning the flames of strong anti religious feelings.
    B’H we have the technology of zoom, and all these people should have been watching or/& listening to these funerals on zoom or cell phones, and not crowding with large crowds, and especially so many of them without face masks.

15. Duh

16. To add a few further points to clarify: The virus was already wildly spreading on the continent by January 2020, albeit unrecognised as such. The London chareidi community has tight links with other communities, and London wedding parties were already becoming infected then – many asymptomatic or with light symptom, some with fatal results. These infected people then acted as unwittingly superspreaders throughout the community, reinforced by Purim and local weddings. And all this before any mention of masks, distancing, lockdown. For this reason the chareidi community was particularly hard hit during the first wave. During the same period the broader community was weathering a usual winter going nowhere that would aid unusual spread. Of course, once the virus was moving inside the community, it started to spread fatally, and if not for the heroic efforts of the internal Jewish emergency services, the result would have been much worse.

17. I’d like to focus on a different point.
    Let’s not talk, for a moment about the past. Let’s not focus on about if it was negligent or wrong for this community or others in America to get to the point where huge swaths of a frum community are “post Covid.”

    Let’s focus on the current reality. In these communities there is scientific and logical reason for many )perhaps not high risk individuals) to be able to relax their vigilance, based on the fact the overwhelming majority is post-Covid. This is allowing many individuals to make personal choices that benogitvth, choices that many men of science feel are responsible. And this can have tremendous benefits for these communities. They can have Yeshivas, Beis Yaakov’s, and other crucial institutions open in a way that benefits many without significant risk.

    Yet political correctness won’t allow the the recognition of that fact. We aren’t allowed to talk about being post-Covid. Because “we just don’t know”. In fact, we do know. We do know that instances of second symptomatic cases Covid are extraordinarily rare. Far more rare than instances of vaccinated individuals getting Covid. But this can’t be dealt with as a reality, even when it’s for the good of a community.

    I was at a wedding in a certain NJ community recently. There were almost no masks. I was wearing a mask, because BH I never got COVID. A number of my friends who are intelligent Talmidei Chochomim encouraged me to wear it and avoid the dancing. And they explained that everyone they knew who was dancing was post-Covid. Should we lambast them all on an dubious alter of political correctness? and not allow people to make weddings in a quiet way (yes it was done quietly)? Or do we say that it’s a Chillul Hashem r”l to do anything that non-Jews won’t approve of?

    Perhaps the brilliant pundits here on Yeshivaworld know the right answer.

    I don’t….

18. What is the point of OUR religion. Does it not teach us how to behave and act. This kind of behavior is testing many peoples emunah and some are just opting out when they see how the “Hollier than thou”behave. What’s it all about.

19. >> to do anything that non-Jews won’t approve of

    Mr. Morris Ayin?

    I don’t think everyone vulnerable got sick during March. Let’s say 30% of older people did not get sick then, and continue to be affected till now, as we see from the sad announcements. Rosh Yeshivos are _not_ likely to infect each other, they get it from asymptomatic people who come to ask them shailos … Thus, it is an empirical fact that not only people with antibodies are dancing.

    But you can try this in your community – do antigen tests and give these people a green hat for Purim

20. @ronfromnj actually I was referring to the commenters, not the article.

21. FAKE NEWS

    Editor’s, if you indeed have any, be ashamed of yourselves!

22. In response to Maskildoresh: You ask an excellent question. Although I hardly regard myself a brilliant pundit, I will try to respond via the following several points:

    1. You state categorically that the “overwhelming majority is post-Covid” among the frum community. If this is true, which I doubt, then I suggest everyone go for antibody testing to prove that herd immunity has been achieved. It’s as simple as that. Have the oilom do that, then we can talk further.

    2. It is by no means a dovor poshut that symptomatic Covid reinfections are “extraordinarily rare,” since there simply hasn’t been enough time to judge one way or the other. In fact, a friend of mine has a son in an Israeli Yeshiva where numerous boys are now symptomatic with documented Covid reinfection. But even lu y’tzuyar that reinfected individuals are mostly asymptomatic, there is very serious concern that reinfected people, being oblivious to their own active reinfection, will transmit the disease to others who are indeed vulnerable. Before you tut-tut and say this is only theoretical, exactly the same thing was said the first time around by many in our circle. These concerns have to everything do with science, and zero to do with political correctness.

    3. You apparently assume that the oilom is responsible, like your friends who suggested that you avoid dancing at a chasunah because you had not had Covid yourself. My experience is totally different. On Simchas Torah, in a “masked” shul, I witnessed unmasked individuals physically pulling others who wanted to be careful into their circle to join the rikud. I have personal knowledge of one Rosh Yeshiva who tried to convince his own father to go to shul without a mask. Virtually every day, I see otherwise ehrlicher yidden davening in shul without masks, notwithstanding clear posted signage stipulating that masks are mandatory. I also know of bochurim who returned to Yeshiva at the beginning of a zman despite knowing they were infected with Covid at that very moment. I could cite many other egregious stories, but the point is clear – the community as a whole is not behaving responsibly. In other words, the very same negligence that led to high Chareidi infection rates at the beginning of Covid is still here. So I disagree with your proposal to forget the past and focus on the present. In fact, people have only dug their positions deeper.

    4. The principle of Lo Plug is a very serious one. We keep two days Shavuous in galus, even though the date of Shavuos has never ever been in doubt, since Shavuos is always 50 days after Pesach. Yet, Chazal mandated a second day of Shavuos, including Tefillos and Brochos that are basically unnecessary, solely because of concern that people might start taking Yom Tov Sheini of other Regalim lightly. I have personally witnessed heimishe yidden in shopping malls, in a dentist’s office, and most recently on an airplane as the ONLY unmasked individuals. The best I can be melamed z’chus on these people is that they already had Covid, so they assume that everyone near them is safe. But certainly some of the goyim also had Covid – yet the goyim apparently understand Lo Plug, even though they haven’t learned a single blatt Gemora. Perhaps you or one of the other brilliant pundits can explain that one.

23. As a member of the chareidi oilam in London, and with a scientific education to graduate level, I am devastated by the behaviour of my fellow Yidden. I’m not going to rehash all the excellent and correct arguments made by @ronfromnj and others. I will say only that b’mo einay I see constantly people behaving in ways that are unquestionably gorem ibud nefashos with blithe impunity, that cause colossal chillul Hashem and eivo (I suspect that the kiruv movement may have been set back a generation or more), and people left with life-changing impact of non-fatal Covid (apart from the avoidable deaths). There has been an utterly catastrophic failure of responsible leadership from “einey ho’eido” not only in the UK, but notably in EY too, that, in the view of countless thousands of charedi Yidden – let alone others – leaves them looking completely morally bankrupt and unfit to lead, with the notable exceptions of – alas! – too few shining examples who have been brave enough to speak out, but too few to shape the behaviour of the masses. It’s a multi-generational tragedy.