Is Israel's police force scapegoating chareidim?

How quickly things change.

Mere months after Israel flattened the first coronavirus wave to world acclaim, with an early lockdown that featured heartwarming interactions between Bnei Brak residents and paratroopers, the country has become a COVID-19 basket case and chareidi-secular relations are on the rocks.

When the story of that deterioration is told, two moments are likely to stand out. One is the viral video that emerged last week of a 13-year old chareidi girl walking along Jerusalem’s Sarei Yisrael Street, looking after two little siblings, and being stopped by police for not wearing a mask.

“If you don’t tell us who you are,” they tell the crying girl, “we’ll have to take you to the police station.”

The incident that police later admitted was “foolish” generated widespread sympathy across Israel for perceived heavy-handedness in the enforcement of regulations. But on the chareidi street, it was a totemic moment that — rightly or wrongly — crystallized a sense that chareidim were being singled out for special treatment in the pandemic.

The second moment came a few days later. As anger spilled over at the lockdown of 7,500 families in the capital’s chareidi Romema neighborhood because of a surge in coronavirus cases, despite other infected areas being spared the restrictions, ugly protests broke out and there was a “split-screen” contrast.

A Motzaei Shabbos demonstration against the government’s economic policies in Tel Aviv’s Kikar Rabin was allowed to swell illegally to 10,000 people, despite being what the deputy health minister termed a “health terror attack.” But it was in Jerusalem that police came down heavily on protestors. Former transport minister MK Bezalel Smotrich highlighted the far more tolerant attitude of Tel Aviv police who tweeted of wanting to “allow freedom of demonstration” versus the uncompromising rhetoric of Jerusalem police.

Against the backdrop of a second night of demonstrations in Romema yielding unacceptable scenes of disorder, with young chareidim throwing eggs and taunting police, Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Yossi Deitsch spoke of the pent-up anger that had found expression.

“I’m seeing people I never thought I’d see at a demonstration,” he said. “In neighborhoods like Ramot and Har Choma there are the same number of infections, but they feel free to hit us with lockdown because chareidim are an easy target. We’ve become the scapegoat for the government’s failures.”

While police and politicians reject the charges of discrimination against the chareidi public, there are many critics who see the lockdowns as overkill.

“There’s a question whether they’re an effective measure. I think we have the tools to be able to fight this in a precise and pinpointed way,” Gen. (res.) Roni Numa, former head of the IDF’s Central Command and director of Bnei Brak’s COVID-19 response told Mishpacha.

But as Israeli labs continue the frantic search for a cure, perceptions matter; and after a long, slow deterioration, chareidi-police relations need urgent care.