Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, has strongly condemned a statement by Haim Amsalem suggesting that women could fulfill their halachic obligation to ritually immerse by taking a bath, rather than going to the mikvah [ritual bath].
"This isn't a halachic ruling - it's a joke," Rabbi Eliyahu said. "There's no reason whatsoever not to go to the mikvah - they are cleaner than our homes are. They are disinfected and clean, and there is no way that the virus can survive in the waters.
"This statement by someone who was once a rabbi and now became a politician truly pains me," he added.