Haifa city inspectors arrived at the city’s Great Synagogue to evict a number of avreichim who are part of the city’s litvish community. They arrived in the library under the shul on Monday night, the eve of 26 Tishrei 5774. It appears city officials decided to respond with a firm hand.
When the approximately 120 avreichim arrived on Sunday night they felt that after it was decided by a beis din that the library area is public domain, they have every right to be there. They removed the locks and began bringing in their benches, chairs and other furnishings to set up their beis medrash in the library area Police responded and three avreichim were detained, who were later released after a local askan intervened on their behalf. Police then brought new locks to close the area again.
The avreichim returned on Tuesday morning again and they began davening. The inspectors arrived during shachris, instructing them to leave the area immediately. Simultaneously, inspectors moved benches outside and ultimately, they welded the door shut.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Why can’t we have Shalom al Yisroel
huh what is this all about?
Money, politics or what?
These are litvish avreichim. It is all about Tayre, or money or politics!
What’s this fight over? Usually a fued bet 2 parties doesn’t get an inspector to shut doors, remove benches, arrest people. It’s the cops that get called for trespassing etc. Beis din, public domain does however make it sound like a fued bet 2 parties.
Inspectors on the other hand sounds more like a safety/etc issue. in which case beis din doesn’t come into the picture. nor does basement library public domain make sense to me. Which one is it?
Dumb. This is not (officially) a theo-cracy, so if a Library is deemed “Public” It is NOT de facto a place to conduct religious group sessions, especially if it is distracting to the “PUBLIC.” Who does not know what a library is or what decorum is expected there? This is foolishness. These lovely avreichim have a shortage of standard Batei medrash in that neighborhood? Of course it’s being upstarts. What do they expect? Also this media coverage. –if it was little kids, we would say what it really is: They JUST WANT ATTENTION!