On last Sunday (18 Tishrei), the Ushpizin of Aaron HaCohen, a gathering was hosted in a Southern Hebron Hills community with the main speaker being Rabbi Eliyahu Sukkot, a rav affiliated with Breslov’s Shuvu Banim Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem.

After a farbrengen the rav left together with bochrim who were escorting him back to Yerushalayim. They decided to stop in Halhoul to daven at the kever of the Prophet Gad, located in a mosque in that Arab community, a kever frequented by Breslov Chassidim.

As the rav approached the mosque undercover police jumped him, arresting him as the mosque arsonist, connecting the rav to the fire in Tuba el-Zangaria in the Galil.

The bochrim quickly intervened, explaining to police that the man is a prominent rav who simply stopped to daven on his way back to the capital. They told officers that the rav, in his 70s, was not connected in any way to arson or any attacks. Police however explained they were acting on intelligence information, hence the stakeout, waiting for ‘Price Tag’ villains who were planning to strike the Halhoul mosque.

After they did not find any incriminating evidence in the rav’s vehicle, he was released.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)