He then declared Sunday to be a day of national mourning.
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In the end, how do we unravel this horror and make sense of it somehow?
What is clear is that the site at Meron was a tragedy waiting to happen. There had been extensive warnings about the situation there over the years.
But what also emerges is the fact that there was no clear governmental jurisdiction over the site. This was, as I have come to understand it, at least in part a function of the enormous de facto autonomy exhibited by the Haredi community (which actually consists of a number of different groups).
This autonomy – which is in fact a defiance of governmental jurisdiction – is a deep problem within our greater society. The Haredim answer to their own leaders, rabbis first and then political figures. They do not consider themselves beholden to governmental authority.
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My understanding of this phenomenon is that it was carried from Europe, when Haredi populations often endured virulent hostility exhibited by state officials. Ways in which it was possible to defy those state officials and proceed according to their own lights were encouraged and reinforced within the Haredi communities.
Unfortunately, in at least some measure, they brought these attitudes with them when coming to Israel, and they have persisted. We see it in the refusal to cooperate with the draft, or to structure school curricula according to government regulations (regarding, for example, core subjects such as math). We saw it in defiance of corona rules – when they insisted that gathering in yeshivas was more important than those rules.
And so was it the case with Meron. They were determined to come in large numbers, to do their celebrating. And I consider that civil officials now accused of being remiss for not stopping them from coming have some merit in their claim that there would have been no way to "stop" 100,000 Haredim bent on coming.
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There was, for example, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, of the Sephardi Shas party, who, according to Yosef Schwinger, head of the national holy places center, "fought like a lion" to "save" the Lag B'Omer celebrations from being scaled down.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SJkoWMhvd
Deri argued that "attendees would be protected by the spiritual influence of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai."
"Shlomo Levy, former head of Meron HaGalil Regional Council, reported that for years he tried to improve the conditions at the mountain where Meron is located, but without success: "…it is impossible to move a stone there without running into this or that Hassidic group, and if you do move something there, half an hour later you get a phone call from Jerusalem." Religious groups, he said, use government connections and…have the place "in a chokehold."
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SJuXYhovu?utm_source=Taboola_internal&utm_medium=organic
And Sigal Bar Tzvi, head of Community Policing for Israel Police spoke of the fact that the police did not have the authority to limit the number of participants in the gathering on the mountain. "We do what we are told to do, within the framework of our abilities; there is freedom of religious assembly." (Emphasis added)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-tragedy-multiple-reports-of-political-pressures-not-to-limit-meron-event/
The point here is that the Haredi autonomy superseded official police judgement on the matter: the police had reservations about the safety of the gathering, but Haredim decided to participate anyway.
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I do not mean to simplify the situation. There will be an official investigation and heads may yet roll.
On Sunday Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau told Army Radio that in light of what has happened, "the state is obligated to take responsibility for [the site]." While Moshe Gafni, head of the United Torah Judaism (Haredi Ashkenazi) party, said that "government decisions need to be made, [in which] the government says what it intends to do with this place."
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I offer here an insightful article on this entire issue by Aviv Rettig Gur. The Haredim, he writes, are now questioning the price they have paid for their insistence on autonomy:
"But the shattering images from Meron cut through the glib self-assurance and silenced, at least for the moment, any boasts about Haredi self-rule.
"And as the confident voices dwindled into shocked silence, other voices came to the fore, cries of angry self-critique that are rarely heard from the mainstream of Haredi society.
"The voices all carried a single message: The state's kowtowing to our leaders has brought this disaster upon us." (Emphasis added)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/
Perhaps the social dynamic will see a long-overdue shift.
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