In Israel, a minister of health who worries the population

Israeli Minister of Health Yaakov LitzmanIn visits a group of quarantined people on March 2 in Tel Aviv. ARIEL SCHALIT / AP

LETTER FROM JERUSALEM

Haro on the Minister of Health. Yaakov Litzman, arguably Israel’s most unpopular minister, has come under fire since he was diagnosed on Thursday, April 2, as a carrier of the coronavirus, as was his wife. This revelation resulted in the isolation of the head of government, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been with him on numerous occasions, as well as the chief of staff, Aviv Kokhavi, the boss of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, and of senior management of the Ministry of Health.

According to channel 12, Mr. Litzman, a member of the ultra-Orthodox community, had ignored the instructions for social distancing from his own administration. According to press reports of neighbors, he continued to go to a synagogue near his home in the Ezrat Torah district of Jerusalem to pray there as a group. Yaakov Litzman has denied the accusations.

Political post

While the country has 9,755 people infected and 79 dead, calls for resignation have elicited no reaction from Netanyahu. According to various concordant leaks on the agreement that the Prime Minister is negotiating with his opposition, in order to form a unity government, Mr. Litzman seems doomed to keep his job.

Without scientific education, this minister holds an eminently political post. He has represented since April 2009 in the government an ultra-Orthodox party with seven seats in the Knesset, and firmly anchored in the right-wing coalition of Mr. Netanyahu. “He is the most loyal soldier that Netanyahu will ever have. This is why he will defend it. (…) even if dismissing or changing jobs would be an overwhelmingly popular decision ”, Channel 13 analyst Barak Ravid notes.

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Mr. Litzman, 71, belongs to the Hasidic community of Gour. Very close to his religious leadership, he represents his party, Agudat Yisrael, in a state that the ultra-Orthodox hold in great distrust. It thus contributes to maintaining public subsidies for their religious schools and the exemptions from military service granted to their students.

Corruption and fraud

Mr. Litzman has long been the object of resentment by traditional secular and Jewish Israelis, who accuse the ultra-Orthodox (representing approximately 10% of the population), of living at the expense of their fellow citizens, in a state of relative self-sufficiency and of impunity for their leaders.

Before the pandemic, however, the Israeli police and the Advocate General recommended legal action against Mr. Litzman for corruption, fraud and breach of trust. He is suspected of having pressured psychiatrists affiliated with the ministry so that they declare the penal responsibility of Malka Leifer, a former director of ultraorthodox high school, accused of having committed multiple sexual abuses in a establishment of Melbourne, in Australia, this to prevent his extradition. Making matters worse, everyday Haaretz also revealed that Litzman used his ministry to facilitate financial and real estate contracts for his community.

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