From the Liveblog of
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Flouting wartime restrictions, over 1,000 men gather in Bnei Brak for address by top Haredi rabbi
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Despite Home Front Command restrictions on the size of public events during wartime, over a thousand ultra-Orthodox men attend a holiday gathering in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak headlined by Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Knesset’s Degel HaTorah party.
A spokesman for Rabbi Lando insists that at the event, held at the Machnovka yeshiva, “both the rabbi and the audience are situated in protected spaces.”
According to Home Front Command guidelines, gatherings in central Israel can be held with up to 50 people if there is access to a nearby shelter.
In a statement, the Israel Police say that an initial request for a permit for an outdoor event was rejected and that after learning of this evening’s underground event, where there was no “immediate danger,” law enforcement “immediately” entered into dialogue with organizers and “at this stage, the event is beginning to disperse.”
Rabbi Lando’s mass event is being held only a day after Degel HaTorah chairman Moshe Gafni accused the High Court of Justice of issuing an illegal ruling, after the court handed down an interim order effectively forbidding law enforcement from forcibly dispersing anti-war protests of fewer than 600 attendees at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, and fewer than 150 attendees in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Kfar Saba.
In the decision, judges accused police of selectively enforcing the restrictions.
The Times of Israel Community.