There's a huge spike of COVID cases in Hasidic communities, and everyone—but chiefly their own Hatzalah members and community leaders—are downplaying the severity. They tell me I'm delusional. "It's mild," they say. "No one has been ventilated." Both my parents are sick.

Thread

Rosh Hashanah happened. Yom Kippur is happening. Sukkahs will happen.

No one cares that a fire is raging, licking its way toward greater destruction. I keep repeating the words, "I don't care. I don't care. I don't f*cking care."

If I say it often enough, I really won't care and my body will resist a spiral into the abyss of March and April. It won't punish me like it did from May through August—a crash so devastating, I still haven't fully recovered.

Maskless masses shopping, going to large, indoor weddings, sitting for hours on end in shul. They know the guidelines. They ignore it. In a community where "vus yener tit"—what the other person does—matters more than what experts say, you can't win.

They know better than experts do because hoydel and ploydel said so. At this point, no amount of education will seep into a psyche that's been saturated with conspiracy theories and disbelief of secular authorities.

The few sounding the alarm are not only being ignored—they're being laughed at. My friends in the community tell me they can't do it anymore. They're done. And all you armchair experts with your genius ideas to take out ads in community papers, you know nothing. Nada.

I have been a laughingstock for months now because I refuse to attend simchas.

They know the dangers; they've chosen not to believe it.