In the COVID 19 pandemic, governments have encouraged snitches, busybodies, Yentas, gossips, Karens (my apology to anyone named Karen).

This is perhaps the basest of destructive personalities in any country–they destroy the cohesiveness of a society all while believing themselves to be heroes who are saving lives. They are probably most often unhappy people who never got much respect for their pitiful accomplishments, but now they can feel themselves superior to others because the government and the media have empowered them.

I have a friend from Ukraine that said that snitches are frowned upon there because if you snitched on someone they would disappear. Snitches thus cause authorities to pounce on their neighbors–and this is bad because in tyrannical societies, innocent behaviour becomes criminal. Thus, snitches aid the government to tyrannize their neighbors.

Being a snitch is the opposite of the Torah command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”