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Will Ramadan rekindle the global plague?

“What we’re seeing now in Bnei Brak and the haredi community is just a promo to what we’ll happen in the Arab sector during the month of Ramadan,” the senior official said.

By World Israel News Staff

Worries about corona’s spread during Passover may pale in comparison to the dangers awaiting during Ramadan, Israel Hayom reports on Tuesday.

Israel has taken extreme steps to prevent large gatherings on the first night of Passover, banning intercity travel from Tuesday through Friday and confining citizens to their homes Wednesday evening, when a traditional religious festive meal, or Seder, is held commemorating the Exodus from Egypt.

The goal is to prevent a spike in coronavirus infections, which happened after Purim, a Jewish holiday that took place on March 10.

However, Ramadan, the Muslim holiday starting on April 24, poses another challenge and Israel Hayom reports that the Israeli government doesn’t yet have a plan to cope with it.

A senior official of the Arab sector in Israel, about 20 percent of the country’s population, told the paper that the health ministry has only just started to meet with heads of the community and with members of the Joint List, an Arab party in the Knesset, with the intention of building a united front to ensure that Israeli-Arabs abide by the ministry’s guidelines.

“What we’re seeing now in Bnei Brak and the haredi community is just a promo to what we’ll happen in the Arab sector during the month of Ramadan,” the senior official said.

The month-long holiday celebrates the commemoration of the Muslim Prophet Muhammed’s first revelation and is marked with daily fasts punctuated by large meals in the evenings. The holiday is also notable for mosques filled to overflowing and the visiting of relatives, especially the elderly.

In other words, from the perspective of the global corona fight, Ramadan is a nightmare.

The problem is not limited to Israel, the paper notes. In the West, particularly in Europe, with its high Muslim population, and in Muslim countries, there’s a fear that people won’t pay attention to the health risks as they celebrate the holiday.

The paper reports that Arab media have begun quoting Muslim religious figures who are calling for special religious injunctions against going to mosques this year and for smaller festive meals.