Police operate to enforce lockdown in Bnei Brak, January 21, 2020 (Israel Police)
Ultra-Orthodox politicians on Friday raged at police after major clashes broke out overnight in Bnei Brak between cops and rioters opposed to lockdown rules, with police in turn saying that officers were “brutally attacked.”
The skirmishes, which began Thursday night and continued into the predawn hours of Friday morning, came after a mob in the predominantly Haredi city injured a police officer on patrol.
At least six people were arrested for disturbing public order and police said seven officers were injured.
The rioting was condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed to act with a “heavy hand” against those who violated lockdown rules and assaulted police, but his ultra-Orthodox political allies lashed out at police over the rioting.
Follow
Jan. 22, 2021
For most of the period since the coronavirus pandemic began, the main discourse concerning the pandemic in ultra–Orthodox media and social networks was directed outward: the secular media that was “persecuting” the Haredim, the police that were conducting “selective enforcement” and violations of regulations by secular Israelis during anti-Netanyahu protests.
But recently, there has been evidence of a change. The record–high morbidity, the frequent funerals, and most of all, the reports of young women, some in advanced stages of pregnancy, who are hospitalized in serious condition, seem to be having an effect.
More and more voices in Haredi circles are calling for self-reckoning in the community, that members look within and admit regret. Senior Haredi leaders’ remarks in prviate conversations have been unusually resolute. No one is pointing a finger directly at specific rabbis and Hassidic rebbes (admors) this is still a red line for every Ha
336 shares
Maya Segev describes being mobbed by Haredi extremists in Bnei Brak on January 22, 2021. (Screen capture/Israel Police)
A police officer who was lightly injured by an ultra-Orthodox mob in Bnei Brak on Thursday said that while the incident unfolded she “feared for [her] life.”
“There were five minutes where we feared for our lives we saw the cruelty in their eyes,” Maya Segev said in a video statement released by police on Friday. “We would not have gotten out of there alive if forces hadn’t come to rescue us.”
She and one other officer were traveling in an unmarked car when they were identified as police by the mob.
Skirmishes break out after mob attacks officers, injuring policewoman; Netanyahu vows to act with a 'heavy hand' against those who violate virus restrictions
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav with his mother Sarah in an undated picture. (Courtesy Mendy Hachtman)
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav waged an uphill battle for virus vigilance in the ultra-Orthodox community. But even his mother didn’t listen and held a party that led to her infection and death.
Meshi-Zahav says that rabbis have “blood on their hands” for the death of his mother, Sarah, on Monday. Because of their disdain for COVID-19 rules, his cautious voice didn’t stand a chance when she decided to hold a family Hanukkah party.
“She was a healthy 80-year-old, with no medical history, and the virus took her. In the morning, I said Shema with her, and later in the day, she died,” he told The Times of Israel this week.