The Health Ministry on Wednesday issued an immediate injunction ordering ultra-Orthodox schools to shut down.
The emergency order was issued after many schools flouted existing ministry directives regarding the coronavirus outbreak, over the orders of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the leader of the Lithuanian stream.
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Earlier this week, Kanievsky ruled that suspending Torah studies "is more dangerous than the virus" and ordered all schools in his community to remain open, despite the national shuttering of the Israeli education system, on all levels, over the global pandemic.
Given how crowded haredi schools are, fears rose of a mass infection among the ultra-Orthodox sector.
This prompted the Health Ministry, headed by Yakov Litzman, leader of the Ashkenazi haredi party United Torah Judaism, to issue the highly unusual order, ruling that this was a situation of "pikuach nefesh" – the Jewish principle declaring that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule.
The order has shuttered all schools, yeshivas, and religious seminaries, the ministry said, adding the police will be asked to enforce the directive.
