Four Arabs who rented an apartment in Tzfat insist they moved out of the apartment as a result of threats from local chareidim.

According to a Walla News report, the four, members of Israel’s Druse community, signed a lease for the apartment in the southern area of the city, planning to reside there while they attend school. They fled the area however after the landlord told them “The chareidim are waiting for you guys”. They explain the decision to leave was not theirs, but they were being evicted.

According to one of the four, the landlord actually instructed them to vacate since the local chareidim were not about to accept the fact that the apartment was rented to Arabs.

Arab civil rights activists blame rabbonim in Tzfat, particularly Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu for his letter, in which he writes renting or selling a home to an Arab is a violation of Halacha.

The Tzfat Jewish community on the other hand points to the growing number of Arabs as the cause for anti-Semitic incidents on Shabbos and during the week, as well as an unwanted result of their presence, their efforts to attract Jewish females from the community.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)