Moshe Friedman, a leader of the chareidi violence in Beit Shemesh was released from jail after his 14-day lockup which followed the attack against Natalie Moshiach but he was distanced from the community pending the outcome of the trial against him [and other defendants].
Friedman became a regular outside the Orot Girl’s School in the area, albeit an unwanted regular, shouting “geeevaaaald” and “get out of our community” as the young students arrived and left the school, simply harassing them for their different lifestyle, which he and his colleagues feel simply does not comply with his standard of Yiddishkheit.
While the young girls, the oldest being 12, are dressed modestly, Friedman insists their standard is unacceptable, telling Channel 10 “from age 3 a girl must be dressed modestly when she goes outside and they simply are not. In addition, it is not just the girls, but their mothers who are dressed totally chiloni”.
For 27-year-old Friedman, who is married and the father of two and his cohorts, they did this on an almost daily basis for about three months.
CHANNEL 10: Do you have daughters? Would you like someone to shout at them as you do?
FRIEDMAN: No, not at all. I would not bring them to an area that bothers others however.
CHANNEL 10: But there are parents who explain their daughters are not sleeping at night because of what you are doing.
FRIEDMAN: Why am I to blame? That I shout out at them because they are “zonos”. The settlers who go to live next to Arabs don’t sleep either. Let them go live in a normal place. What can I do about it? They are there just to fight. There is no other reason. Why do they come here? Why can’t they go to another place?
PROTESTOR in the BACKGROUND: All of you, yes all of you are called Nazis here. We are not ashamed. All of you!
ATTORNEY YAIR NEHORAI: I think Friedman and others were arrested because of the public battle. In regular times, he would not have been arrested for his actions. There appears to be a trend, to arrest people for things that in the past they would not have been arrested. At most, they would have received a warning.
FRIEDMAN: They came in the middle of the night to arrest me. They broke the door and came in, without any warrants. This is what they do to avreichim but I continue.
NOTE: The special report filed by Eyal Berkowitz seeks to show the side of “extremists”, explaining that do date, most of what has been aired shows the side of the “liberals and the non-frum because they are more accessible and cooperate with the media and because their plight is easier for us to identify with. It is difficult for us to hear a philosophy that does not recognize the legitimacy of our existence. To really understand what is going on, we are compelled to hear it from the other side too, including the man at the heart of the battle.
FRIEDMAN: If I would place chareidim in the heart of a totally secular neighborhood what would they say and do or this you would understand. Suddenly you don’t understand?
CHANNEL 10: But you are attacking women!
FRIEDMAN: Look, you don’t believe in my Torah. For me, whatever is contrary to Shulchan Aruch is chiloni. There are no chochmos here – no matter knitted kippa, small or big, its Shulchan Aruch. This makes no difference. At the very least, permit us to live our lives according to our lifestyle in our own community.
(NOTE: The interviewer for Channel 10 wears a kippa sruga)
CHANNEL 10: What do you think of the violence? In Beit Shemesh there is real violence.
FRIEDMAN: There is no violence.
CHANNEL 10: There is no violence?
FRIEDMAN: There is no violence. There is a great deal of media and police.
NATALIE MOSHIACH (NM): I am the head of a sales team. I simply came here to post a notice. They poured bleach on me. I was seated here (points to passenger seat of her vehicle) and when I turned around there was someone there, who threw a rock at my leg.
CHANNEL 10: What happened with that woman please?
FRIEDMAN: She came into a shul. She knows exactly what she did. She knows. Things that I do not even wish to articulate. It appears she did not get here by mistake and as a result, events occurred as they did.
NM: I thought it was all over. I already thanked Hashem for all he has given me. It was about to end.
CHANNEL 10: Do you know the people who attacked her?
FRIEDMAN: No I do not.
CHANNEL 10 BACKGROUND INFO: The report explains the Eida Chareidit is vehemently anti-Zionist and laments the creation of the state and the disastrous results of the Zionism over the last 100 years. They are not Shas and Agudah. They do not vote in elections and they do not view themselves as part of the masses.
FRIEDMAN: It is a religious war – simple as that. This is what Zionism is about and the principles on which it was established to destroy Yiddishkheit and when they realized they were unsuccessful in their mission, they stepped up their efforts. It is as simple as that.
CHANNEL 10: More BACKGROUND: At the helm of the Eida is Rabbi Tuvia Weiss. The Eida Chareidit includes Toldos Aaron, Dushinsky, Satmar and some of Neturei Karta.
Did you ask the Gavaad before beginning the protests?
FRIEDMAN: I don’t have to ask the Gavaad. I can stand in front of her house and yell “Zona”.
CHANNEL 10: Who funds you?
FRIEDMAN: Every kollel has its man, the person who supports it.
CHANNEL 10: Is there state money as well?
FRIEDMAN: We do not accept state funds, not in kollel and not at work. We do not accept funds from the state to live.
CHANNEL 10; Then how do you live?
FRIEDMAN: There are people who donate. Hashem knows how to send money when he wishes to. The state does not have to intervene.
CHANNEL 10: What do you think about those chareidim who wish to accept state funds?
FRIEDMAN: Let them go learn in a yeshiva that accepts state funds. It is forbidden to accept state funds and therefore forbidden to learn in such a school. This is my opinion and that of the Eida Chareidit because this will lead to them telling us what to do.
CHANNEL 10; Showing footage from the motzei Shabbos Kikar Shabbos protest in which chareidi children were dressed in concentration camp uniforms and participants wore yellow stars.
Do you remember this protest? It is not a small faction, but an infrastructure and an organized effort by those who felt it appropriate to dress this way. They invited the media to document and air the provocation.
What did you think of that event?
FRIEDMAN: I was in jail when it took place.
CHANNEL 10: What did you think?
FRIEDMAN: Why not, what was wrong?
CHANNEL 10: They are killing Jews? Burning Jews?
FRIEDMAN: During the Holocaust anyone with a beard was targeted with cruelty. This is today as well, persecution of those who keep the Torah.
CHANNEL 10: Are they persecuting you. Are Jews being murdered?” I don’t understand. In the Holocaust, they murdered Jews. They burned them! This is what they are doing to you today?
FRIEDMAN: You know what, I don’t have feeling. I don’t know what was there and then exactly. I know they are persecuting religion in big way, like in Russia. I also know people who were there then, in the Holocaust, and they were also at the protest, and they told me this reminded them of that time.
CHANNEL 10; So you are the victim.
FRIEDMAN: Yes, we are the victims.
CHANNEL 10: It is difficult to comprehend, but this is their reality, their religious war. The Eida Chareidit is the most extreme in the chareidi community and opposes and fights everything the state stands for. Most chareidim are not in agreement but they are afraid to take them on.
FRIEDMAN: We daven daily Le’Havir Memsheles Zadon Min Haaretz
CHANNEL 10: And the Memsheles Zadon is the State of Israel?
FRIEDMAN: Who else? From the land, this is what we seek. Why do you think we daven? Who is in charge today? we say it three times daily. What do you think it means the United States? It says ‘the land’ and that means here.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
12 Responses
An Idiot.
Not worth reporting the words of an idiot.
He says thee National religious placed their school next the Chareidim leaving out that the neighborhood was noot chareidi until 10 years ag when the chareidim moved in.
He says they take no money from the govt., but they take all kinds of services daily. A discussion about making the chareidi area its own municipality was vetoed because the area couldn’t support itself without the finacial support of others.
Why attack the woman posting the ad? Just ask her to leave or wait a minute and she would have left on her own.
This guy’s twisting of the truth is amazing.
let him move to ramallah. let’s see how what will happen
I wonder who interpreted this interview? I heard him say “Prutza” not “zonos”. There is a BIG difference.
Do you have a bias against the Eida, or you are just reporting?
Just wondering!!!!!
“I don’t have to ask the Gavaad. I can stand in front of her house and yell “Zona”.”
So it seems he doesn’t quite “get it” about halacha and has set himself up as being more hashuv than any and all gedolim. Ours is a system based on rule of laws, and the rabbanim are the judges who interpret the law. Individuals ask the question, the rabbanim answer them. Apparently this gentlement doesn’t understand such things, or considers himself to be the gadol ha-dor.
#4, “prutza” and “zona” are the same in Modern Hebrew.
I wonder how he justifies living in an area that was built by government aid.
does this tzaddik check that the shoes, socks, and underwear that he buys are made in a shomer shabbos plant?? If not – woe unto him for being mechazek mecha’lei shabbos!
so what? here we have another soney yisrael, this time dressed in a black cloak and a funny hat. there are plenty of soney yisroel and until moshiach comes, there will always be. some are goyim and some are jews. ni, so what? each one will be judged the heavens.
our only responsibility, as yidden, is to loudly proclaim to everyone that this man and his type are not following the jewish way and they have a din of a goy for all purposes. i think we have done that. him and his type have been loudly and repeatedly condemned by all klal yisroel.
This is a growing group of families and individuals and we have not heard the ‘last of them’. The violence and harassment will increase and spiral out of control since these guys are self-motivated and interpret Hashem’s Torah on their own.
A true rachmanos..
I agree with besalel. The comment that bothered me as much as any is the following:
“CHANNEL 10: …. The Eida Chareidit is the most extreme in the chareidi community and opposes and fights everything the state stands for. Most chareidim are not in agreement but they are afraid to take them on.”
Our community leaders need to speak up. I understand that the issues are nuanced, but that does not justify silence in the face of such a chillul hashem. If our leaders do not take action to distance us from the Eida Chareidit, we are going to be in danger (spiritually and physically).
Since the attack on Natalie Moshiach, my family has decided to stop providing any funding to yeshiva institutions that do not speak out publicly against the kind of extremism that is trying to redefine what it means to be a Torah Jew.
We also are not comfortable with the actions of Mercaz Harav Yeshiva blurring out the face of a woman (in a family photo) on promotional material for the yartzeit event for her an her family.
I don’t know where the line is on this behavior that is claimed to be in the interests of tziut … but Mercaz Harav crossed it (in my opinion). You cannot even see the line from where the Eida Chareidit are holding.
Who are the donors supporting this?
All of you who call Reb Friedman nasty names aren’t answering the issues. Modernish parents in Beis Shemesh are sending their daughters out untznius to a school in a Jewish neighbhood that teaches kefira. A Yid stood up and shouted prutza. Why is he extreme and they are not?