The Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office informed eight suspects in the “HaPeles” newspaper that “they are being prosecuted for many offenses of conspiracy to commit a crime, harassment and blackmail.”
The letters were sent to Natan Grossman, owner and editor of the newspaper, CEO of the newspaper Shmuel Elyashiv, and to Avraham Trager, Chaim Yavrov, Netanel Shtapfer, Shabtai Fein, Yisrael Israel Tropper and Moshe Berliman.
According to the letter, the suspects belong to the Litvish ‘Peleg’ faction or ‘Yerushalmi’ faction of the chareidi community, and HaPeles is distributed free of charge to its readers and financed by advertisements of business companies in the Israeli economy.
In February 2014 Yated Ne’eman and other media published a letter signed by rabbis calling on the public to refrain from bringing the newspaper to their home, and not to assist the Peles newspaper in any way, including not to be interviewed or published in the newspaper, and that it is appropriate to inform the advertisers in this newspaper that they are liable for creating a Chilul Hashem.
Following this call, Grossman, Elyashiv and Trager conspired to blackmail officers in large companies in the economy (hereinafter referred to as the “complainants”) with the intention of causing companies to publish in the Jerusalem newspaper and not in Yated Ne’eman.
For this purpose, Trager contacted the five other suspects in order to threaten the complainants and harass them in various media in such a way that their routine and work would be impaired and the harassment would cease only if the latter published ads in the newspaper and stop advertising in Yated Neeman.
In this framework, Trager and Yavrov activated telephone lines that served as a focus of the battle, using these phones to harass companies and officers in the hope of pressuring them into advertising in HaPeles. During the months of October 2015 – April 2017, on numerous occasions, many took part in obeying the battle cry and used the phones to call people at unusual hours, harassing them at all hours without cessation.
As a result of the harassment, the complainants suffered direct and indirect damage to their personal and business lives. They stopped answering the phones and some of them stopped publishing their products in the chareidi media, and their profits were damaged.
In line with the law, the suspects are permitted a hearing to explain their side prior to the filing of criminal indictments against them. This process takes place with the Tel Aviv Prosecutor’s Office.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
This shows how scared they are of the rebellion that HaPeles is conducting against the government’s efforts to destroy the Yeshivos, in which HaPeles has the support of many Gedolim and Roshei Yeshivos, even though other Gedolim and Roshei Yeshivos have a different approach to defending the the Yeshivos.