Bnei Brak

by Sharon Pulwer from Tel-Aviv, Israel

The city of Bnei Brak in Israel was going through the 10th day of complete lockdown when a fellow journalist and I decided to try to go inside the town and document it.

We stopped our car in front of the barricades that were placed around the Ultra-Orthodox city, and waited nervously while five police officers approached us, wearing masks and gloves. “We are journalists” we said while we were holding on to the papers that allowed us to move freely. One of them looked into the papers carefully, and then signaled to the rest to move the fence blocking the road aside.

“Good luck in there”, He said in a sarcastic tone –
“May God be with you.”

The city of Bnei Brak has almost 200,000 residents – that mostly identify as ultraorthodox.

It is one of the poorest and most densely populated cities in Israel, and the tenth most densely populated city in the world.

The people of the city mostly follows strict restrictions that forbid contact with the secular world, and doesn’t allow access to the internet, social media platforms or any mainstream media outlets. While the Coronavirus spread in the world and in Israel, many of them were unaware of the reports and dangers.

They followed the instructions of their Rabbi’s, that saw a greater danger in closing synagogues down, then in the pandemic. By April 2nd, the Israeli authorities estimated that 1 of 100 residents of Bnei Brak – had been infected the virus. Due to the rising numbers the Israeli government declared a 14 days lockdown on the city, and had the military and police block all entries and exits.

We walked down the empty main street of the city when we heard from a small street the sound of prayers. As we walked closer and followed the music we saw two orthodox men, one with a microphone, and the other, six feet away from him, leaning over an organ.

they played traditional religious songs in the front porch of a local synagogue. In all the windows that surrounded them there were families that joined in singing from their homes. The town was dealing with this crisis in one of the holiest times of the year in Judaism – during the celebration of Passover.

As we were leaving the city I looked around me, at the people in the windows, and thought that it is quite an interesting way to celebrate the holiday of freedom.

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