Meron tragedy reflects relationship between Israel and the ultra-Orthodox
The legal complexities of who controls what land and which buildings at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron have for years stymied efforts to develop the site.
By JEREMY SHARONUpdated: MAY 2, 2021 22:13Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mount Meron after the tragic incidents on Thursday night, April 30, 2021 .(photo credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
Just before midnight on Thursday at Mount Meron, amid the ecstatic Lag Ba’omer celebrations, Rabbi Yossi Schwinger, head of the National Center for Development of Holy Places, gave a fascinating interview.During the live interview, Radio Kol Chai’s Avi Mimran praised Schwinger and the center for the successful event. But Schwinger wanted to give credit to someone else as well.“I want to mention one other person in whose merit this celebration happened,” he said. “It is my good friend Interior Minister and Minister of the Periphery and the Galilee Rabbi Arye Deri. I witnessed a cabinet of three ministers who deliberated with the senior leadership of the Health Ministry and all the legal advisers.“I don’t want to disturb you with the things that were said there and how the celebration would have looked if Rabbi Deri had not saved the whole thing. He fought like a lion, and he softened plan after plan, thank God, and here we see the results.”Indeed, Deri did fight hard to ensure that there would be no limit on the number of pilgrims who could rejoice at Meron despite Health Ministry concerns that it could cause a spike in COVID-19 cases.The interior minister said so himself in two separate statements to the press in early April in which he said he had pressed for allowing the maximum number of people to attend the celebrations during meetings with ministers and other government officials on the issue.To be clear, the devastating tragedy that took place on Thursday night at Meron could have happened in any of the past 15 years, with or without Deri’s pressure.But what is critical is Deri’s efforts “to soften” the regulations that expert officials sought to impose on the event and his insistence that the maximum number of people be allowed to attend regardless of what those with knowledge of the possible consequences advised.For many years, warnings were sounded about the dangers of Lag Ba’omer at Meron, the haphazard, makeshift infrastructure and the enormous number of people who flock to the site, far exceeding its capacity.State Comptroller’s Reports came and went, the Knesset held hearings, the police issued its own report, and the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) media pointed out on several occasions the deficiencies of the site.
But the legal complexities of who controls what land and which buildings at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron, and the accompanying financial interests, have for years stymied efforts to develop the site into a place fit for mass pilgrimage.Even though Meron remained a potential death trap every Lag Ba’omer, action to limit the number of pilgrims allowed at the site was never taken, and although tragedy was somehow avoided for many years, the inevitable finally happened last week.Shahar Ilan, a commentator and expert on haredi society, said until now, the political determination to prevent a disaster at Meron was simply lower than the determination to preserve the vested interests at the site, which led to such fierce opposition to regulation and change at the site.“Right now, after this disaster, is the first time there has been a discussion of how many people can come to Meron,” he said. “No one would have dared to say we need to restrict access to the site before this incident.”The prevailing perspective among haredi politicians, politicos, media and even the haredi public is that any restriction on the community’s way of life is some form of discrimination or attempt to dictate how the haredim live their lives, Ilan said.Crucially, the sector’s political heft and its compact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given it an outsized ability to get its way, whether over the Western Wall, enlistment to the IDF, coronavirus policy or Meron.The COVID-19 crisis, in which large segments of the haredi community routinely and openly violated Health Ministry regulations, is a perfect example of this.During the crisis, it was largely the rabbinic leadership who determined that the communal need to persist with all the components of haredi life, communal prayer, mass celebrations and uninterrupted educational frameworks outweighed the dangers to the lives of their congregants and the wider public.After sustaining heavy criticism from the haredi public at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis for not opposing government lockdowns on COVID-19 hot spots, such as Bnei Brak, and failing to ensure that communal prayer could continue, the sector’s politicians took up arms against the government they were part of.Geographic closures based on the rate of coronavirus infections were rejected because they would single out the haredi cities, and increasing fines were rejected because haredi yeshivas would suffer.“If you can put the whole country into lockdown just so the haredim won’t be in a lockdown by themselves, then Meron is simply the extension of such an attitude” Ilan said.According to haredi journalist Israel Frey, the prevailing perspective in the haredi community is that issues such as safety regulations and proper event management are not crucially important, and that in a trade-off between such needs and the requirements of a religious festival, the latter would always win out.“It’s a shtetl [mentality],” he said. “There are no rules. No value is attributed to these things, and no value is attributed to the state as a framework for such requirements.”Like Ilan, Frey said the Lag Ba’omer celebrations at Meron and the perilous nature of the event, given the overcrowding there, represents a failure of the state to assert its authority over the haredi sector.“Holding this [Lag Ba’omer] event [at Meron] is a capitulation by the country to the autonomy and power of the haredi community,” Frey said.In this light, Deri’s successful efforts to “soften plan after plan” suggested by the Health Ministry to restrict the festivities for the sake of public health are just part of the broader pattern.The demands of the haredi community, whether from the leadership or the general public, are the preeminent concern, and the politicians will insist that these demands are met on pain of political loss.The tragedy of the catastrophe that befell 45 people, their families and loved ones on Mount Meron on Thursday night should lead to a complete overhaul of everything to do with the mass pilgrimage and celebration at the site in the years to come.But it should also serve more broadly as a catalyst for change to the way the state relates to its haredi minority.
