UTJ MK said to tell PM that Haredi schools will stay open at top rabbi’s order

MK Moshe Gafni, the No. 2 in the ruling coalition’s United Torah Judaism party, tells Prime Minister Netanyahu that Haredi schools will reopen at the order of prominent rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, according to Hebrew media reports.

Though only preschools and daycares can open under eased lockdown measures that took effect today, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox boys schools opened in defiance of the restrictions.

“We believe no error will come from the greatest of his generation [Kanievsky],” Gafni is quoted as saying by the Ynet news site.

He also reportedly discussed with Netanyahu a potential framework that would reduce the number of students in classrooms.

Gafni is a member of UTJ’s Degel HaTorah subfaction, which represents the non-Hasidic branch of Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox Judaism, of which Kanievsky is a leader.

United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni (L) visits shakes hands with Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky at the latter’s home in the central city of Bnei Brak on September 17, 2017. (Yaacov Cohen/Flash90/File)

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