Coronavirus cabinet disbands without decision on new restrictions

The country is expected to be handed down its latest list of recommended restrictions by the coronavirus cabinet on Wednesday, which could include shuttering synagogues and demonstrations alike, as well as include reducing work in the private sector.The coronavirus cabinet met for more than eight hours on Tuesday, debating how to stop the spread of infection that threatens to overtake the country. However, the meeting disbanded without any decisions being made. There were 3,858 new patients diagnosed with coronavirus on Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported, plus another 990 between midnight and press time. Of those screened – only 34,400 – 11% tested positive.Some 668 patients were in serious condition, including 159 who were intubated.  “The decisions will be no later than tomorrow,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. There were many ideas considered at the meeting, according to media reports, from reducing employee numbers in the private business sector activity by 50%; reducing public sector workers to emergency numbers only; closing synagogues; banning gatherings over the Sukkot holiday; closing down marketplaces, including those for the ritual four species used on Sukkot by religious Jews; and heightened enforcement on restrictions for mikveh use, which are widely used by men the day before Yom Kippur. However, if these regulations are likely only to be implemented after the Yom Kippur holiday due to the political obstacles involved.  At the meeting there were fierce disagreements between members of the cabinet, particularly the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) ministers who were against closing synagogues and Blue and White ministers who want to see protests continue, despite new reports from the United States that gathering at protests leads to a spike in infection. Several ministers, including Interior Minister and Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri said that if synagogues are closed then the protests must also be stopped, a position reportedly supported by Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, with Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn opposing such a step. Netanyahu said that “if you make restrictions on public gathering, they must be made equally. The entire country is talking about this.”As the cabinet’s recommendations started to be disseminated, Chief Rabbi David Lau warned that if the lockdown is not enforced on the rest of the public it will not be enforceable on synagogues, in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein on Tuesday.”If there is no enforcement on gatherings in other things, then it is impossible to close synagogues because people will not listen,” said Lau.The Religious-Zionist rabbinical association Tzohar called on all those organizing prayer services to “act responsibly” and hold the services in open outdoor spaces and to limit the length of the service as much as possible.  But Tzohar also called on those organizing demonstrations to suspend the protests until the end of the lockdown “as a means of acting in solidarity with the Israeli people during this time of crisis and to stand united in the effort to defeat the virus.”Also, on Tuesday, Beit Shemesh Mayor Aliza Bloch stressed that “synagogues are not the enemy of the nation.””Yom Kippur is a day that centers on the common good of the people of Israel,” said Bloch. “All of Israel visits the synagogue on Yom Kippur in all Israeli communities. Everything must be done to see how even on this day this year Yom Kippur will continue to center on the common good.”She added that “Rosh Hashanah taught us that the public understood the importance and made adjustments to its customs from years past. The discussion should be that one does not close a synagogue but how to preserve the sanctity of Yom Kippur along with keeping all the rules and precepts on the health of the worshipers.”One rabbi even said that if the government voted to close synagogues before Yom Kippur that the haredi community would not listen.Chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee MK Yaakov Asher, where much of the government’s coronavirus decisions are deliberated and voted on, also sharply attacked the proposals for synagogue closures and restrictions on the sale of four species, saying they were as important as supplying food. Asher, of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said the system and guidelines for prayer and four species acquisition approved by the government had been meticulously worked out by the Health Ministry to ensure public safety and that there was no need to change them. “Such a step would unravel the regulations that were agreed upon with hard work and harm the ability to halt the increase in infections,” said the MK.Also, around protests, there are differences of opinion. The Crime Minister” movement is insisting on continuing as usual. The Black Flag Movement has said that it would accept pausing mass gatherings until after a lockdown.  Economy Minister Amir Peretz opposed the new proposed restrictions in general, saying further changes would create confusion amongst the public. “The public is internalizing the regulations and beginning to implement them, there is no reason after five days to issue new instructions,” said Peretz. The new restrictions come in light of several Israeli hospitals who said they are overcrowded and require shutting down internal medicine wards and elective surgery to accommodate coronavirus patients.  However, the Health Ministry stopped reporting data on the crowding of the hospitals on Wednesday amid debate as to how crowded these hospitals really were.Dr. Zeev Feldman, chairman of the Organization of the State Employed Physicians of Israel and deputy president of the Israeli Medical Association, said that medical personnel “were there from the first moment … and treated everyone to the highest standard” and they will be there “even when the system reaches insufficiency due to lack of resources and manpower, and we will continue to give the best care in the hope that we will not have impossible decisions.”He called on the politicians to “remove your hands from the doctors. Let us continue our holy work.”
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