Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been suffering from a debilitating headache over the last few days, in the person of the 92-year-old leader of the Lithuanian faction of the ultra-Orthodox sector, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. On the night of Oct. 18, the rabbi ordered that his community’s school must be opened at once. His ruling ran counter to the government’s instructions for the nationwide lockdown exit plan, set in place to help the country get through the second wave of the coronavirus.
Most people were furious about the rabbi’s decision. Some 2 million students have been forced to spend the last month at home to prevent the spread of the pandemic’s second wave. And yet dozens of ultra-Orthodox schools are acting in blatant disregard of the government by bringing their students back prematurely. When Netanyahu appealed to Kanievsky’s parliamentary representative, Knesset member Moshe Gafni (Yahadut HaTorah), he was informed outright that Gafni and his community take orders from Rabbi Kanievsky only.