JERUSALEM (JTA) — Avraham Bedman, a 36-year-old man from Jerusalem, died of COVID on Wednesday. His fellow synagogue members are blaming his death on misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.
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According to Kikar Hashabbat, an Israeli news site, an email sent to members of Bedman’s synagogue claimed that Bedman did not get the coronavirus vaccine because he was afraid it would cause infertility.
That falsehood has become rampant in Orthodox communities in the United States and Israel, prompting some in communities that prize fertility and where large families are expected to fear the vaccine.
In Israel, despite the high death toll exacted by the coronavirus in the haredi Orthodox community, many have remained hesitant to take the vaccine. A vaccine drive in one haredi Orthodox city will serve cholent and kugel, popular foods typically served on Thursday nights and Shabbat in Orthodox homes, to convince Orthodox residents to be vaccinated.
In the U.S., Orthodox doctors and nurses in recent weeks have worked to debunk misinformation about the vaccine and fertility with fact sheets and information sessions for women held over phone hotlines, but the misinformation has persisted.
Bedman’s fellow synagogue members called those who spread misinformation about the vaccine “murderers” and encouraged others to be vaccinated to save lives.
“He had the opportunity to be vaccinated, already at the beginning of the vaccination operation, because he was at risk, but he said he heard that it might cause him to not become a father,” a leader of the synagogue, Rabbi Yishai Lesser, told Kikar Hashabbat. “The one who made him afraid is responsible for his death.”
Is this an example of false news?
Based on age and condition, would he have been eligible to get the vaccine 6 weeks ago? if not he might have succumbed no matter what.
Article with no context
An adult decides for himself how to live and risks he’s willing to endure
If he is rov/doctor told him don’t get vaccinated it’s a story
Believing everything you hear from the street is your choice no one else
Where is the big news when someone died after taking the vaccine? (Like rabbi schiner and rabbi twersky).then no one gets blaimed, what a hypocrisy.
It’s a very sad story indeed. And the truth is that it’s still an experimental treatment.
This is all Blimi Marcus’s fault and anyone else that pushes an experimental procedure.