Israel must learn and change after this crisis

Watching the lengths to which Israel goes to protect its citizens is moving. Plane loads of Israelis have been brought in from far flung places. Four airplanes spent 43 flight hours bringing 1,000 Israelis home from Peru. An Israeli plane flew straight (around Arab air space) to Melbourne to bring back citizens. And Israel has been closed to non-residents for weeks now.

But planes are still flying. Ten flights bring eggs from abroad will ensure that kitchens across Israel have enough for the Passover season.

The Mossad brought in tens of thousands of testing kits from around the world, and 11 airplanes containing millions of pieces of medical equipment, including ventilators, face masks and protective suits should arrive in the coming days. Hotels have been set up as quarantine hotels housing thousands of infected Israelis.

We are good in a crisis. We are not as good at long term planning. Entire neighborhoods are closed down, because their populations were too late in following the rules, leading to a massive outbreak. These include a number of Strictly Orthodox cities and neighborhoods.

The rate of infection among the Strictly Orthodox is far higher than the general population and can be directly tied to the long standing distrust of secular authority as well as a lack of information from outside sources. In the US and UK too, these communities have been particularly hard hit with multiple funerals a day.

There will be a reckoning in the days and weeks after. How did we get a population within a population? One that sees itself beyond the rules? That continued to gather, pray, congregate and defy all the rules of social distancing as though the plague would not affect them?

It is certainly true that the community lifestyle, which is physically as well as socially close, aids in the rate of infection.

But it is also true that precious days and weeks were lost as schools and yeshivot stayed open and weddings and funerals were well attended despite the rules against it.

We are now seeing the results of a Health Minister who flouted his own rules (allegedly he prayed with a quorum for days after it was banned) and is now infected along with his wife.

Internet had to be installed in his home so he could work in isolation and a number of high-ranking government officials went into quarantine due to having been exposed to him.

Israel is good —so good — at cleaning up messes and responding to emergencies. Grandiose gestures and daring rescues are our thing. But we need to do better at avoiding them in the first place.

We must gain the trust of the Strictly Orthodox population and hold them to the laws just as other Israeli citizens.

This holds true for our Arab population as well. Better communication and trust will go far in gaining compliance and responsible behavior. (Jaffa broke out in riots when a man was arrested for breaking his quarantine.)

Once it is out of mourning, the Strictly Orthodox community also must take stock. It can no longer see itself as separate, not beholden to the rules.

It must recognise that rabbis are not the authority when it comes to safety and health — certainly not when they give directives in violation of the law.

While it is a beautiful thing that Israel is spending the equivalent of £17 million to evacuate 4,500 men and women over 80 from Bnai Brak to protect them from infection, it should never have had to be done in the first place.

If we are to be able to sit among the flowers next spring, we must spend the coming year planting and tending to society or we will once again reap what we sow.