Hundreds of yeshiva students have been staying in the various Corona hotels in recent weeks. In a briefing held today (Wednesday), the commander of the hotels’ brigade, Col. Nir Bar-On, explained what was happening behind the scenes at the hotels.
At the beginning of the briefing, Bar-On explained the numbers and volumes in the hotels as of this hour: “We have 7 recovery and isolation hotels in the isolation and recovery center of the Alon headquarters. Within this story we have 5 recovery hotels and 2 isolation hotels. The recovery hotels have 3 That they are for the ultra-Orthodox public. “
“Currently,” Bar-On added, there are about 2,377 people in the Corona hotels, of whom 1,949 are from the ultra-Orthodox sector, which is 82% of all those staying in hotels.
Regarding yeshiva students and seminary girls, the current figures speak of 1,256 yeshiva students and another 693 ultra-Orthodox families and girls.
“There is an order of magnitude of 33,000 households in our homes under the” Bnei Chayil “program. The plan includes assistance in providing food packages, buying medicine and food, etc. “.
“Beyond that,” Bar-On added, “we have the isolation hotels where there are about 500 people, of which 50 people have returned from abroad. “We are dealing with this issue according to what is defined by law. We take, for example, returnees from South Africa as returnees who must return to solitary confinement in a motel. Everyone who needs solitary confinement on behalf of the state receives it.”
According to Bar-On, the current situation is similar to the previous two waves, there are two months with a decrease in morbidity and then there is a month of increase, but according to him, in this wave there is a significant increase in the morbidity of yeshiva students.
Morbidity in meetings
Regarding the yeshiva students, Bar-On said: “If I look at the previous wave as a comparison, we then had about 5 yeshivas that we referred to hotels and another 40 yeshivahs with which we created an intra-yeshiva group solution together with Roni Noma and Miki Edelstein. Themselves and they receive appropriate resources. “
“The facility becomes a ‘corona facility’, where it is possible to continue to maintain the study routine in the yeshiva as much as possible. First and foremost in this solution the yeshiva heads take the necessary responsibility for the health of the yeshiva students.
“In this wave,” Bar-On explains, “the situation is quite the opposite, there are only 5 meetings with 1,050 guys who are isolated within the meetings. Of these, 40% are sick and the rest are isolated. However, the other guys are in hotels. There are currently 63 meetings with students in hotels.” .
The evacuation of the boys to the hotels
Bar-On explains the difficulty: “This reversal in the data unfortunately says something about this outline that was. Maybe something was missed and there was a different expectation. We can not get to the situation where the guys stay in their yeshivot. For the yeshiva students, we chose 2 suitable hotels in Jerusalem.”
“Currently, there are yeshiva students at Dan Panorama Jerusalem, which is 5 stars and also the Grand Court Hotel, which is 5 stars. They are the best hotels there are. We have given the best conditions.”
Regarding Torah lessons inside the hotels, Bar-On claims: “We allow Torah lessons in some places, when it can be noted that last week there was also a performance at the Dan Hyatt Hotel just before closing. On the other hand I would like to say that despite these good conditions we provide there are few problems.”
“Alcohol and theft”
At this point, Bar-On went on to talk about the wrong phenomena that some yeshiva students have: “I want to convey through you the clear message that I do not want and am willing to accept disrespectful behavior from yeshiva students. I have been meeting more and more in recent days things that are not acceptable in any way.” .
“There is damage to the hotel equipment, vandalism. Smuggling alcohol in – it’s not respectful, I do not want to accept it. There is the Grand Court Hotel where there are videos that show exemplary behavior of yeshiva students, they learn in companies in an exemplary manner.”
“The message,” Bar-On said in an unequivocal tone, “should go through clearly. The guys have a strong desire to stay in hotels. I will take Dan Hyatt as a less good example that there was less acceptable behavior. I’m not talking about very large numbers, enough 10 Guys who behave in a less respectful way and that hurts everyone. “
“I had a hotel where four guys broke into the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerators. On the other hand, the Grand Court Hotel has 900 recoverers who behave exemplary. They study Torah, behave like guys who come to study and recover.”
Shabbat Square Questions
Do you regret opening hotels? “I do not regret that we opened the hotels for yeshiva students. I only deal with cutting off the contagion chains and that is one of our tools.”
“In our opinion, the natural solution was to keep the yeshiva students in their yeshivot, because they are in their natural environment and it is more comfortable and efficient. It is also cheaper. But I do not regret, because the hotel solution also interrupts the chain of infection effectively. Yes, we contacted the police in some cases.”
What about giving lessons to infected rabbis? “I allow meetings to be held in hotels, people who have been ill in the past sometimes come to transfer the classes. The request to transfer the class comes to me and I usually approve it.”
What about the claims of a poor spiritual level in hotels? “There are no televisions in the rooms of the hotels for the ultra-Orthodox. Whoever wants to bring a smartphone will put it in, I do not rummage through the equipment. Whoever connects a device he brings – it is his right. I do not allow the harm to spirituality but whoever wants. There were those we transferred between hotels because they asked not to be with women”.