The Jewish community of Jaffa in Tel Aviv does not have an easy life and local Arab residents frequently exhibit their hostility by targeting area shuls.
The latest incident occurred two weeks ago, on shabbos, when a local Arab resident fed a fire hose through a shul window and turned on the water, during davening, leaving many mispalalim quite wet. The shul located on Michelangelo Street began filling with water rapidly the BaKehilla report states, compelling mispalalim to take the Sefer Torah outside to prevent it from being water damaged.
According to one mispalel, contractor Chaim Simantov, “police simply do not take our complaints seriously. Even the cops who responded were not too concerned.”
Chaim explained that the vandal’s identity is no secret, the son of a local official from the mosque on Jerusalem Blvd. but the police were not interested in what he had to tell them.
Mr. Simantov added that an elderly woman keeps the shul going, taking care of the day-to-day needs. She was already threatened by the same son of the mosque official, who told her “don’t worry; I will get you and the shul out of here”.
When asked to comment, police state, “when we arrived on the scene, the parties had already reconciled and they were speaking with one-another”.
Elsewhere in Jaffa, the shul of the Admor M’Bitschkov Street has also been the target of repeated vandalism attacks by local Arabs. The Rebbe himself was accosted and assaulted by a number of Arabs a few months ago.
Of late, the local Muslim hoodlums have been disassembling a perimeter wall that surrounds the shul. According to Rav Dovid Rosenbaum, the Rebbe’s son, “last shabbos they came to the shul during davening and threw the rocks [from the wall that was disassembled].
The Rebbe turned to city officials who promise to repair the wall.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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One Response
Next time Cheredim are arrested or complained about for “rioting” in places like
Mea Sharim they should refeer to this attack on Jews by Arabs and say “if it’s ok for the Arabs it has to be ok for us since we all care about “equality”.