Don’t turn Bnei Brak into a ghetto, mayor cautions

Bnei Brak Mayor Avraham Rubinstein is pleading with authorities not to place a cordon on his virus-hit city, comparing it to the darkest period in Jewish history.

“You cannot build a new prison, the Bnei Brak prison. Reality will not allow it,” he says from self-quarantine. “Residents won’t stand for a closure, and this recommendation will have the opposite affect. You cannot turn Bnei Brak into a ghetto. A lockdown will not heal the disease.”

Israeli police talk to a driver at a checkpoint in Bnei Brak, a predominantly ultra-Orthodox city east of Tel Aviv, on March 31, 2020, as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Authorities are reportedly near signing off on the placement of a cordon around the city, effectively cutting off access and forcing people to remain at home. Some residents of the ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb of 200,000 have proven reluctant to comply with social-distancing measures, an attitude repeated in several places with large ultra-Orthodox populations.

So far, 517 people in the city have been confirmed to have the disease, second only to the number of cases in Jerusalem. Residents of neighboring areas have expressed fear that the virus could easily spread beyond the city’s borders.