For Yosef Moshe Lefkowitz, this erev shabbos is one that he and his family will never forget. R’ Lefkowitz and his son were heading to the Kosel on eruv shabbos ahead of the son’s aufruf in Bnei Brak on shabbos. They were running a bit late so they traveled via the Shimon HaTzaddik (Wadi Joz) route, which remains predominately Arab. R’ Lefkowitz explains that he saw many border policemen, stopping twice to ask them if it is okay for him to proceed. He explains that he did not receive a response. “They just yelled at me and told me to move because I was blocking traffic”.

Not too long down the road, he realized there were “hundreds of Arabs armed with pipes, clubs, rocks and other items”, but it was too late to back out and before he and his son knew what was happening the mob pounced their vehicle, trying to kill them. Windows were smashed including the windshield, with a large heavy Jerusalem stone, the type used on the face of a building in construction.

“I don’t know how, but somehow I hit the gas and Hashem got us out of there”. Lefkowitz was hit in the face and teeth, and he and his son were injured, but Baruch Hashem it appears they escaped B’chasdei Hashem with minor physical injuries, but the emotional trauma was significantly more serious. They were showered in glass.

“On shabbos, in addition to an aliyah, we also recited ‘birchas ha’gomel” explains Yosef Moshe, who referred to the situation as “mamosh Chelm”, where police demand that he return to the same predominately Arab area, with the vehicle with smashed windows to file a complaint. He decries the fact that a yid cannot drive to the Kosel on erev shabbos in Yerushalayim without coming under a life-threatening attack, adding “the city is indeed divided de facto”.

He adds that minutes after making his way to the nearby Mt. Scopus, area, where police assisted him and his son, he heard shots fired, later finding out that it was the Arab driver who tried running over a border policeman. He questions why shots are not fired when regular citizens are in the midst of an attempted lynch.

Interestingly, police did not report any “unusual events” in that area on erev shabbos. In short, the attempted lynch did not receive news coverage.

The victim concluded “perhaps only when one returns to Olam Shekulo Tov do police feel it justifies recording such an incident”.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)