With shabbos on the horizon, things are heating up in Jerusalem’s Kiryat Yovel neighborhood. A resident was arrested on Thursday after he was apprehended sabotaging the Jerusalem Religious Council eruv.

The suspect, 25-year-old engineering student Ilan Englis was apprehended, seen as he was tearing the eruv in the neighborhood where secularist are championing their battle to prevent their neighborhood from becoming chareidi. Englis was also present last week during an anti-chareidi rally at Mt. Herzl.

Englis remain in lock up during the night, refusing to cooperate with police, and in the morning, police requested he be released on bail with an order to distance himself from the eruv poles and conflict.

The defendant’s attorney told the daily Haaretz that the arrest of his client is an “outrage”, questioning how one is placed under arrest for cutting a few “illegal strings”. He stressed such an occurrence is totally “unacceptable in a democratic society”.

Several dozen neighborhood residents siding with the accused protested outside the Russian Compound Detention Center in support of English.

Last year, a university professor was arrested after it was learned that he sabotaged the eruv.

The frum community in Kiryat Yovel has indeed endured difficulties, abuse and unprovoked hatred from neighbors, who appear threatened by their frum lifestyle. Sadly, such incidents seem to serve as a springboard for anti-religious elements to join the battle for the sake of inflaming the movement against shmiras shabbos and a life of adherence to Torah and mitzvos.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)