As night fell on Monday and the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar came to an end, chaos broke out. The leaders of the Israeli government’s coronavirus task force had met the previous day, just a few hours before Yom Kippur, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to enforce “guidelines” on how tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students would disperse to their homes at the end of the 40-day Elul term.

They had agreed with the deans of the yeshivas that students would undergo Covid-19 testing before leaving for home and those found positive would remain in isolation in a number of yeshivas which had been designated as “corona hotels”. But as the day of fasting ended, many, if not most, of the yeshivas quickly emptied as the students boarded buses home.

“The guidelines worked very well,” said an exasperated IDF officer who had been seconded to work with the Charedi community. “But only with the yeshivas who abided by them. I can’t take responsibility for those who won’t work with us.”

The commitment had been been that the students would not leave for the entire term, self-isolating for forty days while they studied Talmud. But data compiled by Weizmann Institute Professor Eran Segal show gradually rising levels of infections among the ultra-Orthodox over the past month, and in older age-groups as well. Some of the students had obviously been going home during term.

Public health experts expect to see yet another spike in infections within the ultra-Orthodox community next week as a result of the students’ return. As it is, the latest figures show that a third of all Covid-19 cases come from the community, which is just 12 percent of Israel’s population.

Meanwhile Dr Hezi Levi, director-general of the health ministry, admitted wearily at a public meeting on Wednesday that “we will probably keep the guidelines for the next yeshiva term, even though they didn’t work so well.”

He may be in charge of the health system in Israel but he is a civil servant and he knew that there was absolutely no chance that the government, dependent as it is on coalition members Shas and United Torah Judaism, would ever allow for the yeshivas to be closed. 

As it was, the police on Yom Kippur kept out of the Charedi neighbourhoods, while most synagogues, which were allowed to open by the government subject to strict limits in numbers of congregants and distancing precautions, were full throughout the day.  

It wasn’t just the Charedim of course — infection was spiking across the country, with the daily rate of new cases rising by the end of last week to over eight thousand. 

Numbers went down this week, mainly due to much less testing being carried out around the Yom Kippur break. But the proportion of positive results rose to fifteen percent. 

By Wednesday, the death-toll had risen to 1,547 and there were already 810 serious cases hospitalised — past the “red line” of 800 cases above which the hospital directors had warned they would be overwhelmed.

That had been averted by adding hospital beds and the opening of an IDF field hospital, so now the “red line” is estimated at 1300 severe cases. But in an emergency press conference held by the heads of the internal medicine departments, who are now also the coronavirus wards bosses, they warned that the level of treatment of all patients was deteriorating. And if that was not bad enough, in this wave half of the serious cases are of patients under the age of sixty. The doctors grumbled that the latest government decision to shorten internships and boost their teams was a stop-gap that would barely make any difference.  

Meanwhile, the government has continued to spend time on trying to clamp down on the anti-Netanyahu demonstration, finally succeeding in passing a vote on Tuesday night in the Knesset forbidding any demonstrations further than a kilometer from protestors’ homes during the lockdown. 
There was one glimmer of light in Israel’s dire Covid situation this week and, once again, it was the IDF riding to the rescue. 

At the headquarters of the Home Front Command in Ramle, 1600 contact-tracers were already working around the clock in an attempt to track down new cases and prevent further infection. In another month, promised Colonel Reli Margalit, the centre’s commander, there will be a full complement of 2,850 contact-tracers capable of carrying out 4000 epidemiological investigations a day. 

If only the lockdown, which was due to end in a week but has now been extended indefinitely, can bring down the infection to a manageable level, the centre should be able to help prevent a third outbreak. 

Colonel Margalit was given the mission a month ago, after Mr Netanyahu finally relented and agreed to transfer responsibility for contact-tracing to the IDF. What, he was asked, if he had been tasked back in March or April? 

He smiled. There are some questions a man in uniform cannot answer.