Zealous social-media lectures against COVID-19 vaccination by an Israeli rabbi who is not a physician but claims he is a “man of medicine” has helped discourage Israelis – especially young women – from getting the protective shots on the grounds that they “cause infertility.” 

The unproven claims of Kabbalist Rabbi Yuval Asherov, whose videos have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of Hebrew speakers and whose arguments have struck a chord among ultra-Orthodox and modern Orthodox Jews and even secular “celebrity” women, have infuriated Israel’s Health Ministry – which is working to have his videos removed and to disprove his arguments. 

So far, nearly 5,200 Israelis of all ages have died of the pandemic, including the shocking figure of 1,500 in January 2021 alone. Since the influx of the British mutation and other variants and as most over-60s have been fully vaccinated, a growing share of younger people even in their 20s and 30s and pregnant women have been hospitalized in serious condition. 

Gynecological specialists and vaccine experts around the world – and the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company that produces the COVID-19 vaccines that have already been given to 3.5 million Israelis – insist that the shots have no effect on fertility. Neither the virus nor the vaccine, they declare, reaches the uterus or other female reproductive organs. The vaccine was not intentionally tested by Pfizer on pregnant during clinical trials, but some women who turned out to be pregnant were not harmed, nor was their fetus or their fertility. 

Asherov’s speeches, which are constantly dotted with medical terms, begin with a disclaimer that the information “provided here does not replace conventional medical advice and the law must be respected,” but he goes on to virulently attack the government’s vaccination campaign and claim that the public have become “human guinea pigs” in the company’s and the Israel’s desire to overcome the deadly virus. He also contends that COVID-19 is just a “seasonal flu,” even though this has been vociferously denied by epidemiologists and other medical experts here and abroad and in the World Health Organization. 

The four public health maintenance organizations that treat Israelis have complained that a considerable number of anti-vaccine activists have been calling them to make an appointment for Pfizer shots and then failed to show up, apparently to confound vaccination activities and to cause of the loss of vaccines that have to be used quickly after being defrosted and which cost some $25 each. 

The pace of vaccination in Israel had dropped by half in the past week since the Health Ministry and government decided to allow vaccination of all residents over the age of 16.

A survey reported on Channel 12 (Keshet) TV said that Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, which has a significantly large religious staff, has managed to vaccinate only 73 percent of its physicians and nurses, while nearby Hadassah University Medical Center, which has fewer observant employees, has vaccinated by consent 90 percent of its doctors and nurses. The scientifically baseless “fertility” issue has apparently “frightened” off many of them.

Einav Greenbaum-Shimron, the Health Ministry’s information chief, stated that the ministry will soon set up on its website a fact-checking section disproving Asherov’s arguments. 

There is even a “political party” running in the upcoming Knesset elections that claims the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed almost three million people around the globe.  

Similar “fake news” claims about the “danger” of the vaccines have been promoted in the US, especially in towns and neighborhoods where ultra-Orthodox Jews whose childbearing abilities are prized reside in large numbers.