Last Saturday, during a social period after services, my synagogue of roughly 15 years set up a serving table prominently marked "Vaccinated Adults Only". This followed an earlier edict for the High Holidays that only vaccinated people would be allowed inside the synagogue building, with other congregants relegated to outdoor tents for public prayer.
This kind of forced segregation of those who are not COVID-vaccinated is, alas, quite popular in my area. Many of the local synagogues practice some sort of separate treatment, such as requiring masks for the unvaccinated or precluding the unvaccinated altogether from services or public activities. One synagogue even keeps an informal list of those presumed to be unvaccinated!
How did the Jewish people get to this point, where we freely persecute our own much like others have persecuted us ... where we blame the unvaccinated for the international failure to rein in COVID, much like Jewish communities were blamed for the Black Death (and persecuted and massacred accordingly).
We, who have suffered from segregation, blacklists, oppression and the resultant hatred ... how do we not see the hypocrisy of such behavior?
The Context
In the US alone, the Biden administration has made it a top priority to shame, scapegoat and bully those who refuse these vaccines. It has done so by encouraging private companies to require vaccination, mandating (through executive orders) that federal employees and contractors get vaccinated or risk unemployment, and promising a new OSHA regulation requiring all businesses with 100+ employees to mandate vaccines.
Other countries are even more tyrannical, with Canada seeking to lock down all unvaccinated people through travel restrictions and proscriptions on work (even remotely from home). Not to be outdone by its ally, Australians are keeping the unvaccinated under indefinite curfew, and looking toward other social and economic isolation measures. Israel and a number of European countries have implemented a "green pass" that strictly regulates the public activities of the unvaccinated (now including those without a booster). Israel's behavior is so extreme that Likud member of knesset Gadi Yevarkan pointed out, in alarm:
What the Health Ministry is doing against the unvaccinated is horrible incitement, people are going to be murdered...
Indeed, the result is a painful and dangerous social ostracization that results in terminating jobs, withholding education, and refusing medical care (even for a life-saving kidney transplant).
The Myth of Safety
Alex Gutentag noted, quite poignantly, in her Tablet article The Plague of the Poor (frustratingly censored by Linked-In) that segregation of the community into vaccinated vs. unvaccinated is based on a fundamental misconception that people who receive the COVID vaccine are protecting others from infection.
There was early evidence that the vaccines might reduce viral load in the infected, and this was plausibly hypothesized to reduce transmission. When delta variant results showed similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated, they also showed the former group more quickly regained lower loads, meaning that they might be infectious for shorter times.
Unfortunately, there is also a fair amount of observational evidence that vaccinated people can get infected and transmit the disease widely, with mass outbreaks occurring even in well-vaccinated populations. There is also evidence that natural immunity (gained from actually contracting and recovering from COVID) is potentially much more effective in limiting serious infection than the vaccine. Moreover, the young are far less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID, and there are some rare risks from the vaccine that make it unclear whether we should even be vaccinating those under 30.
The COVID vaccines appear to differ starkly from the smallpox or polio vaccines in that they do not generally stop transmission. Whatever extent that they reduce transmission risk may be mitigated further among the elderly and immunocompromised - would anyone dare subject these populations to the same segregation as the unvaccinated?
The odious insinuation that the unvaccinated people are responsible for disease spread is thus simply unfounded.
Is unity an inherent good?
Returning to my smaller world, I would like to point out that, despite the external view of a monolithic entity, the Jewish world is remarkably diverse in almost all of its views, even those at the very core of the religion.
For example, on the quintessential theological concept of God, there are notable Jewish leaders who believe, but also those who re-envision, and disbelieve. The fundamental text of the Jewish religion, the Torah, is viewed by different groups as (i) transmitted directly from God, (ii) only inspired by God, (iii) holding "a vote and not a veto", or (iv) a "a protest against chaos and a world run by power". There are also significant differences of understanding about who is a Jew, what is a Jewish family, and whether the State of Israel is a theological abomination or the flowering of a messianic redemption.
Indeed, there are almost no theological, social, or political points about the religion (or is it a people) on which there is universal agreement within the Jewish community.
But wait, there is one!
I say almost because, thanks to the COVID pandemic, the Jewish community has unearthed one area upon which there seems to be a widespread and "overwhelming consensus". Almost all Jewish groups have roundly endorsed the imperative of vaccination against COVID, including a wide coalition of rabbis in the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist communities and, of course, the state of Israel.
Looking back for guidance
Jewish unity is a theological ideal, but is it an inherent good in and of itself? Let's consider a few points in Jewish history, through my admittedly subjective assessment of their ultimate effect:
Tower of Babel - Ok, technically this was before there were Jews, but based on God's resulting wrath (destroying the tower and dispersing the people geographically and linguistically), I would put this in the kind'a bad category.
Korach's Rebellion - A cousin of Moses gathers together 250 of the most respected leaders among the Jews and challenges the leadership of Moses. Whatever you may think of his excuses for the challenge, the ultimate result of this unified cause (i.e., Korach and his supporters are buried alive) firmly puts it in the bad category.
Golden Calf - Moses climbs up Mount Sinai to get the ten commandments from God, and immediately the Jews unite (sans the tribe of Levi) to produce (with the acquiescence of Moses's own brother, Aaron) an idol to allay their fears that Moses will never return. The resulting massacre suggests this was a bad move.
Jewish Unity, not Uniformity
A closer reading of my examples above makes clear that a misdirected unity enhances evil rather than good. A crew with a united purpose and mission can accomplish amazing things beyond the reach of any one individual. However, the same group with a uniform position that marginalizes and shames all dissent can lead to horrible suffering and mayhem.
In this sense, unity can be viewed as opposing uniformity of thought; in the words of Rabbi Aaron Potek, unity demands "an appreciation for each person's individuality ... upholding the dignity of every person." Indeed, people are diverse thinkers with different environments and backgrounds, and we should be deeply skeptical when a large group of people come to enforce the same "irrefutable" conclusion upon a disagreeable minority. This is all the more so for Jews, who have all too often been the "disagreeable minority" that the world too happily persecutes for its own purposes.
We must fight against the human desire to flock around a reassuring narrative. In the words of the ineffable Walter Lippman (or was it Benjamin Franklin?):
“When all think alike,
then no one is thinking.”
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The author would like to acknowledge critical feedback from Daniel Thumim and a number of readers who strongly preferred to remain anonymous.