Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis participated Sunday in the funeral of a prominent rabbi in Jerusalem, flouting the country's health regulations banning large public gatherings.
The funeral procession for Rabbi Meshulam Soloveitchik, who died age 99, wended its way through the streets of Jerusalem in the latest display of ultra-Orthodox Israelis' refusal to honour coronavirus restrictions.
The phenomenon has undermined the country's aggressive vaccination campaign to bring a raging outbreak under control and threatened to hurt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March elections.
Police officers stood by as masses of people gathered outside the rabbi's home, in a public rejection of restrictions on outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people.
An enormous crowd of black-clad ultra-Orthodox mourners - many without face masks - marched behind the ambulance bearing Soloveitchik's body.
Israeli media said Soloveitchik, a leading religious scholar who headed a number of well-known seminaries, had recently suffered from COVID-19.
Israel's Health Ministry has recorded over 640,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and at least 4,745 deaths since the start of the pandemic. At the same time, Israel has vaccinated over three million of its citizens, one of the highest rates per capita in the world.
Health experts say it will take several weeks for the vaccination campaign to have an effect on infection and hospitalisation rates.
But large public funerals like that for Soloveitchik in Jerusalem, and for a prominent Arab sheikh killed in Jaffa last week, have confounded efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.
A disproportionate number of Israel's coronavirus cases are within the country's ultra-Orthodox minority. The strictly religious community, which makes up around 11% of Israel's 9.2 million people, has accounted for around one-third of the confirmed cases of the virus.
Many ultra-Orthodox sects have kept schools, seminaries and synagogues open, and held mass weddings and funerals in violation of the law. Recent weeks have seen violent clashes between members of the ultra-Orthodox community flouting the rules and police officers trying to enforce them.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders say they have been unfairly singled out and say the country's secular public does not understand the importance of public prayers and religious studies in their community.
Israel's Cabinet was set to extend the country's general lockdown for an additional week on Sunday evening as the infection rate remained high.
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