Photo: Rabbi’s Office
“I have heard with great pain and shock about the severe violence and the blasphemy, which has taken place in recent days in several places around the country. This is the violent behavior of a handful of teenage boys from the Torah, dimensions and way of life,” he said.
“Certainly there is no justification for such serious acts,” he stressed. “Those who do such deeds in the name of the Torah – they desecrate heaven there in public. It is a sacred duty for the mayors and welfare authorities in the city of Bnei Brak to mobilize for immediate care of these youth, who after all is part of our flesh and of course does not teach the rule,” he said. “This minority tarnishes the image of the ultra-Orthodox public, most of whom are very far from these behaviors.”
Bnei Brak mayor’s vehicle attacked // Photo: Shimon Baruch, field news by telegram
The Chief Rabbi of Israel called on the police “to exercise restraint, because we are brotherly brothers. We are all sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, her ways are ways of grace and all her paths are peace, and we are all commanded to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.'” He asked “the educators in the educational institutions at each and every site to keep in constant contact with all the students throughout the difficult period we are going through, and to teach them Torah, virtues and Derech Eretz.”
Meanwhile, the mayor, Rabbi Avraham Rubinstein, held a round of working talks this morning with Tel Aviv District Police Chief David Bitan and Dan Area Commander Mishna Shalom (Momi) Borya.
Riots in Bnei Brak: Bus set on fire, driver attacked // Photo: David Keshet
“It is understood that alongside the strong condemnation of police activity in its unusual form on Thursday, we will in no way accept a reality in which a handful of extremists riot and rage in the city and sow destruction in it as an outlet for passions and the creation of anarchy,” the municipality said in a statement.
The municipality called on the parents to “take care of their children and prevent unnecessary wandering and proximity to these gatherings.” She announced that “according to the deployment of emergency cameras in the city, any case of violence documented on the overt and covert emergency cameras will now be fully published in accordance with the guidelines of the law, and will be dealt with in a targeted and prompt manner as has already begun in recent hours.”