Jabless and jobless: What being an anti-vaxxer in Israel should cost - editorial
The government’s recent “go get vaccinated” campaign is good, but this does not go far enough. Sanctions against the unvaccinated should be considered.
Haredi sage Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky declared on Tuesday that any rabbi or educator in a yeshiva who has not been vaccinated should not be allowed into the school to teach.
On the surface, this seems like just plain common sense, not anything particularly brilliant or worthy of a headline. But when the comment comes from Kanievsky, the foremost halachic authority in the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox world, it takes on added significance for two reasons.
First, because this shows the distance the rabbi has traveled since the outbreak of the coronavirus last year, when he triggered outrage by refusing to order haredi schools and yeshivot to shut down in the face of the pandemic, even though the state school system had done so.
Second, his directive puts him a step ahead of the government, which less than a week before the first day of school is still dithering about how to deal with an estimated 30,000 teachers – 10% of all teachers in the country – who have not yet been vaccinated. Should they be placed on unpaid leave, forced to take a coronavirus test twice a week if unvaccinated, or be fired?
We believe that, following the US Food and Drug Administration’s granting of full approval Monday to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, it is unconscionable for people not to get vaccinated – thereby endangering themselves and others. The government should now follow Kanievsky’s lead, and say this to the teachers: no jab or regular coronavirus testing, no job.
Before the FDA’s final approval, the anti-vaxxers had a leg to stand on – albeit a very rickety one – by saying they were not convinced that the vaccine was safe. But that rickety leg has now been removed, and there is simply no excuse not to get inoculated.
Those who, for whatever reasons, still decide that they do not want to get the shot need to know that there is a price to be paid for their obstinacy.
While they may have the right – as mistaken as it might be – to not want to let the virus antibodies into their bloodstreams to fend off the pandemic, their employers have an equal right to make this a condition of their employment so as to preserve a safe work environment for all.
The Tel Aviv Regional Labor Court upheld this right earlier this month, ruling in favor of the national water carrier Mekorot against an unvaccinated worker who objected to mandatory twice-weekly coronavirus tests. A legal precedent was set: employers can make inoculation or regular testing a job requirement.
In the wake of the FDA decision, the US financial monolith Goldman Sachs told its 20,0000 employees on Tuesday that anyone entering its facilities around the US will have to be vaccinated – employees and clients alike.
What is good for a US bank should be good for Israeli schools as well: If you’re not vaccinated, stay at home. And since teachers can’t teach from home while their pupils are behind desks in school, it means that teachers unwilling to get vaccinated or be tested regularly should look for employment elsewhere.
But, some will scream, what about personal freedoms and civil liberties? Personal freedoms and civil liberties, as precious as they are, do not grant a license to infect others, and it’s high time the government takes a clear stand on this matter.
The government’s recent “go get vaccinated” campaign is good, as is the Health Ministry’s decision to bring inoculations directly to people’s homes, but this does not go far enough. With the spread of the Delta variant and the possibility that yet another mutated strain may invade our shores soon, sanctions against those who shirk their communal responsibility should be considered.
What type of sanctions? For starters, raising the health insurance rates of the uninoculated.
The vast majority of those now hospitalized with COVID-19 were not vaccinated, and they are placing an enormous financial burden on the state. That burden should not be borne by all, but should be carried by those who knowingly are not doing the bare minimum in the fight against the pandemic.
https://jpost.com/opinion/jabless-and-j ... ial-677719
