Following a Haaretz Investigation, Israeli Police Have Opened a Case Against Rabbi Efraim Tessler, the Former Head of the Damesek Eliezer Yeshiva in Jerusalem, on Suspicion of Sexually Assaulting Students There
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A masked woman passes by the Star of David outside a shul. Jewish communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Jewish News)
Reading with disgust the articles and comments, I feel obligated to speak as one who has lost his father to Covid-19 and one for whom the Sholoshim has just ended.
Haviv Rettig Gur is The Times of Israel s senior analyst.
Police clash with Haredi men as they enforce coronavirus restrictions, in Jerusalem, January 26, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Monday afternoon in the Knesset. MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism heads to the dais to speak about a bill advancing through parliament that will allow police to slap steep fines on schools that violate virus restrictions and even to close them by force.
He’s visibly angry; his comments are short and to the point.
“You’re only bringing this bill to vilify the Haredi public!” he declares.
Then he adds, in comments that would later go viral on Israeli social media, “It’s not our fault! You, who sent us to live in such crowded conditions, it’s your fault!”
The Viznitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Hager in Tzfat, August 14, 2020.
The Viznitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Hager on Saturday ordered the opening of all Chassidic educational institutions on Sunday, in defiance of the Health Ministry’s coronavirus lockdown rules. But on Sunday morning, according to a News12 report, no studies were held in the main Vizhnitz Talmud Torah in Bnei Brak. The yeshiva’s gates were covered with a sheet of jute (hemp), and the classrooms remain empty.
But while the Vizhnitz educational institutions in Bnei Brak remained closed Sunday morning, several Chassidic yeshivas opened in Modi’in Illit, where, in the Talmud HaTorah Mea Shearim on Rabbi Akiva Street in the city run by the Breslav movement, dozens of students were observed at the site.