Survey Reveals Surprising Findings Regarding Loyalty to Leadership in Shadow of Corona Crisis • Criticism of Delay in Implementing Health System Decisions • However, the majority will follow the rabbis in case of conflicting guidelines
Mixed answers among different communities
Photography:
Oren Ben Hakon (photographed has nothing to do with the news)
A new study by Prof. Yoel Cohen from the School of Communication at Ariel University reveals surprising findings regarding the ultra - Orthodox 'trust in rabbis in the shadow of the corona crisis.
The study, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Bruria Adini, head of the Department of Emergency and Disaster Management at Tel Aviv University and Dr. Ahuva Spitz, head of the nursing department at the Lev Academic Center, involved 405 ultra-Orthodox. In the rabbis due to the plague, but will still flock after them if they say something different from the directives of the Ministry of Health.
The researchers asked hundreds of ultra-Orthodox, among other things, to what extent they believe in information about the corona virus received from rabbis, and surprisingly, the Hasidim, who are closest to their rabbis, provided mixed answers.
Only 8.6% of the followers answered that they believe in rabbis to a very large extent, compared to 33.6% who answered that they believe in them to a great extent and 35.7% to a moderate extent.
23.1% of Hasidim responded that they believe in their rabbis to a small or very little extent.
In contrast, Lithuanians show great faith in rabbis.
38% of them answered that they believe in rabbis to a very large extent, 30.4% to a large extent, 16.5% to a moderate extent and 15.2% answered that they believe to a very or very little extent.
Among modern ultra-Orthodox 46.2% expressed very much confidence, 15.4% expressed great confidence, 28.2% indicated that they believe moderately and 18.3% responded that they believe little or very little.
In total, 53.1% of the ultra-Orthodox answered that they believe the information received from rabbis to a large extent, compared with 18.3% who answered that they believe to a small extent.
The followers expressed harsh criticism in the study of the ultra-Orthodox leadership, which delayed their taste in implementing the decisions of the Ministry of Health regarding Corona.
51% of the ultra-Orthodox responded that the leadership was very delayed and 32.9% responded that they believed it moderately.
Only 15.7% of the ultra-Orthodox thought that the ultra-Orthodox leadership acted as required.
The modern Lithuanian and ultra-Orthodox public have expressed greater confidence in the leadership.
59.5% of Lithuanians believe that the ultra-Orthodox leadership did not delay in implementing the recommendations.
Modern ultra-Orthodox seem unsure - 31.7% said they believe the leadership did not procrastinate, 32.1% said they delayed moderately and 36.3% thought they delayed.
Despite the criticism, the ultra-Orthodox express high loyalty to the rabbis and say that if there is a conflict between the directives of the health system and the rabbis, the rabbis' instructions must be followed.
Thus, no less than 74.7% of Lithuanians, 62.1% of Hasidim and 55% of modern ultra-Orthodox responded that they agree with this statement to a very large extent.
Overall, the ultra-Orthodox expressed confidence in the information received from the health funds.
51.2% of them answered that they largely believe in the information received from the health funds, in contrast to 21% who answered that they believe in it with little information.
40.7% of the ultra-Orthodox answered that they largely believe in the information received from their relatives, compared to 32.1% who responded that they largely believe in the information received from information leaflets from the municipality.
Among opponents of vaccines, it seems, there is a majority in the ultra-Orthodox community.
52.5% of the followers responded that they agree with the statement that "the ultra-Orthodox public thinks that the intervention of preventive medicine is excessive."
20.5% of the Lithuanian public responded in a similar way, as did 36.1% of the modern ultra-Orthodox.
39.8% of proponents responded that they largely agree with the statement that preventive medicine may be construed as interfering with top leadership.
The Hasidim were also surprised by the question of whether laws protect against disease.
Only 19.9% respond that they believe in it to a very large extent, compared to 65.4% of Lithuanians and 50% of modern ultra-Orthodox.
In total, 68.3% of the ultra-Orthodox responded that they believe that the laws protect against disease, compared to 8.5% who responded that they do not believe so.
The distrust of the ultra-Orthodox public in the general press is evident in this study.
68.9% of the ultra-Orthodox responded that they believe only to a small or moderate extent in the information obtained from the general press, compared with 31.1% who responded that they believe in the general press to a large extent.
The trend is reversed slightly when it comes to the ultra-Orthodox press, where 38.9% responded that they believe journalists at a high level.
The ultra-Orthodox, by the way, spend a lot of time researching the corona in the various media tools.
47.9% responded that they are exposed to media on the subject for half an hour to half an hour a day and 23% feed on information on the subject for an hour to three hours a day.
The full poll will be presented at the "Corona Time Communication" conference to be held early next month in Zoom.