Information, Anxiety, and Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) during COVID-19

This chapter aims to examine an association between information on COVID-19 and anxiety among the Haredim in Israel. The study will draw on a quantitative survey by the author of 405 residents of the city of Bnei Beraq. Bnei Beraq is a city outside of Tel Aviv exclusively lived in by ultra-Orthodox Jews or ‘Haredim.' The Haredim are a strictly religious Jewish sect is characterized as withdrawing from secular, Western influences. Fifty-five percent of the Haredi respondents in the author’s Bnei Beraq survey report that it increased their anxiety, while only 12% feel it calms them. An additional 23% said that the information confuses them. There was a tendency to increase media exposure in the hope of clarifying the news and reducing the confusion (But in practice, according to the author’s survey, there was no clear correlation between the level of confusion and the length of media exposure: 30% of those who consumed news for up to 30 minutes, 19% of those watching for 30-60 minutes, and 26% among those who spent to 2-3 hours consuming media information).