Is it true that the Israeli Rabbinate Court has ruled that coronavirus vaccines are “deadly dangerous”?

Screenshots of documents in Hebrew are being distributed on the Internet - users claim that this is an official decision of a religious court about the dangers of vaccination. We checked whether this is actually true.

The screenshots, which appeared in early September on several websites and various social networks, in most cases are accompanied by a caption stating that the picture shows “the decision of the Chief Court of the Rabbinate of Israel.” The verdict is allegedly based on “a thorough examination of the facts, a wealth of evidence that unequivocally proves the deadly danger of vaccination” and “applies to the territory of the State of Israel.” Participants in the religious court, according to Internet users, decided that it is necessary to prohibit pressure on those who do not want to be vaccinated, as well as vaccination of children and adolescents. Screenshots are quite actively distributed throughout "VKontakte", LiveJournal, Facebook, "Yandex.Zene", Cont.ws and on other platforms. September 7, 2021 about this “court decision” told live on YouTube, actress Maria Shukshina is one of the most media representatives of Russian anti-vaxxers, who has been repeatedly caught on the spread of fakes about coronavirus. At the time of writing this material, the video on Shukshina’s channel was watched almost 300,000 times.

In Israel, in addition to the secular judiciary, there are also rabbinical courts. They carry out decisions on family disputes and religious issues. In a number of other cases, the verdict of a rabbinical court is considered equivalent to that of a secular judge. In addition to the 12 regional rabbinical courts, there is also a Supreme Rabbinical Court, headed by one of Israel's two chief rabbis. On the official website institutions, we were unable to find the verdicts, screenshots of which are being distributed on the Internet. Moreover, decisions on health-related issues are not the responsibility of this judicial body.

Israel is pretty fast became one of the leaders in the level of vaccination of the population. Although now this indicator remains At a fairly high level, the authorities were faced with the same problem as in many other countries - anti-vaxxers and skeptics. At the same time, how show In sociological surveys, Israeli Arabs, emigrants from the countries of the former USSR and representatives of ultra-Orthodox Jews expressed a particularly low desire to get vaccinated. Although some rabbis publish photographs from hospitals where vaccinations are being carried out and encouraging people to get vaccinated against coronavirus, many of their colleagues took or continue to take the opposite position.

Screenshots of the documents that are attached to the supposed news about the court decision are combined into one picture - using a photo search it can only be found on the Russian-language Internet. The image quality is quite low, so we couldn’t discern anything in the screenshot in the lower right corner. At the same time, the other two “court decisions” were adopted by different initiative groups and at different times.

The largest of the screenshots (on the left) began to be replicated quite recently - at the end of August in Hebrew and in early September in Russian. It was his text that Shukshina read out at her round table. Although the document was signed by four rabbis, it has no relation to the Supreme Rabbinical Court (and, therefore, legal force). The screenshot says that after a discussion with experts (their names were not named), the signatories came to the conclusion about the potential danger of coronavirus vaccinations - the text cites, in particular, the popular delusion about the effect of the vaccine on fertility. Based on the side effects of vaccines, the signatories conclude that, according to Jewish law, vaccination (and forced vaccination) should be abandoned, especially when it comes to children. The statement was signed by Zvi Greenhoys, Janun Malachi, Ovadia ben Hagar Yakov Yosef and Moshe Mordechai Karp.

Note that the title of this document coincides with the title of the online conference, which spent at the end of July 2021, the organization “Informed Choice” (the video appeared on its website later, on August 12). We cannot reliably state the connection between the document and this discussion - judging by the video, the rabbis who signed the document did not take part in it. Nevertheless, if they were based precisely on this discussion, then the selection of its participants clearly indicates the “independence” of the experts on whose evidence the statement spread on the Internet is based. Among the speakers was, for example, one of the former executives of Pfizer, and now "anti-vaxxer hero" Mike Yadon, American cardiologist Peter McCullough (in the spring of 2021 he statedthat people under 50 years of age have no health risks if they get sick) and New York doctor Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko - he offered treat coronavirus with a mixture of anti-malarial drugs and groundlessly claimed that this method was approved by the American authorities (subsequently, because of this, an investigation was launched against him).

The second picture (top left) started place on social networks at the end of 2020. The document is entitled “Warning and Strict Prohibition on Receiving the Coronavirus Vaccine” and is indeed signed by several rabbis: David Michael Schmiedel, Zvi Aryeh Zarger and Haroim Chaim Rabinovich. In January 2021, this statement was even told in some Israeli media, while reporting that Rabinovich later stated that the signed document was published “without his knowledge and to his displeasure.” This text, as well as the one discussed above, reflects popular fakes about vaccines - not only about the risk of infertility, but also about their capabilities change DNA. Moreover, the authors claim the existence of several (and not directly named) drugs for COVID-19, the use of which is “blocked by the medical establishment” - this is also quite popular among anti-vaxxers delusion, largely related to the above-mentioned Zelenko.

Thus, the screenshots circulated on the Russian-language Internet are in no way connected with the Supreme Rabbinical Court of Israel. We were able to trace the history of two of the three documents being distributed - they were both indeed signed by rabbis, but they had no legal force and contained appeals rather than references to official rulings. These calls, however, are based on already repeatedly debunked false claims about the coronavirus and vaccination. Moreover, since the end of 2020, a number of rabbis have publicly supported vaccination, and at the end of August 2021, one of the most authoritative rabbis in Israel statedthat teachers who have not been vaccinated should not teach in local religious schools. As The Times of Israel notes, this position is even more radical than that of the secular authorities regarding teachers in regular schools (the latter can be provided, for example, with a negative PCR test instead of a vaccination certificate).

We thank our reader Mikhail Yutsis for his help in preparing the publication.

Cover photo: Yaacov Cohen / Flash90

Mostly not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. The New York Times. Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World
2. Washington University in St. Louis. Fear of safety and mistrust cause vaccine hesitancy in Israel
3. Reuters. Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Jews get COVID vaccine but still face resentment
4. Is it true that vaccination leads to menstrual irregularities, uterine bleeding and even infertility?
5. Do vaccines really change our DNA?