Rabbanim of the Eidah Charedis held an emergency meeting on Sunday night, to discuss the Meron tragedy that took place early on Friday morning of Lag Ba’Omer.
Hagon HaRav Moshe Sternbruch led the discussion that included all of the Dayanei Badatz of the Eidah. During the discussion, Rav Sternbruch broke out in pitiful cries over the horrible tragedy that claimed the lives of 45 people. Rav Sternbruch blamed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the incident.
“During the Meron tragedy 45 people were killed. During the recent (Corona) plague more than 45 people died. Hashem is knocking on our door trying to bring us closer to him.”
Rabbi Sternbruch said about Netanyahu, “They (the Charedi MKs) are not speaking to us, they only speak to Netanyahu. They say that he is the big boss and that we owe him our thanks. He is a rasha and is evil. He desecrated Shabbos, eat neveilos, uproots Israel, he is the one who is doing all of this evil to us.”
Rabbi Sternbruch concluded by saying: “We have a lot of power of half-a-million Jews who follow us. Only 7 percent of them go with leadership. Each and every one of us needs to strengthen ourselves with the commandments between man and his fellow man. We may not speak ill of anyone, even about those people we don’t agree with.”
The Beis Din published a statement that the Rabbonim unanimously agreed to hold a memorial ceremony on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. which will be a public display of mourning. It will be held near Kikar Shabbos. According to the announcement, everyone who considers themselves to be a part of the Eidah Charedis is obligated to participate in the gathering. This includes both the men, the women, and the children.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
34 Responses
Let the blame game begin.
I think anyone that has been there the last few years has realized the dangerous crowding was a disaster waiting to happen. Did none of the Rabbonim lighting fires and helping draw people to this overcrowded place not realize this? I guess blame the tziyonim is a much better strategy then introspection.
With all Kavod to Rabbi Shternbuch – blaming anyone is a fools game. We’re not G-D and it’s obnoxious for the Rav to believe HE knows why this happened.
“He is a rasha and is evil. He desecrated Shabbos, eat neveilos, uproots Israel, he is the one who is doing all of this evil to us.”
“Each and every one of us needs to strengthen ourselves with the commandments between man and his fellow man. We may not speak ill of anyone, even about those people we don’t agree with.”
What?
This isn’t an outcome of the tragedy. This is the cause for the tragedy.
To all those above responders.
I suggest that you publicly ask Mechila from rav Moshe Shternbuch shlita. Wether you understand or not what he said, you are talking about one of our leading Gedolim that probably did not stop learning since he’s a child.
If you don’t understand what he says, than perhaps ask someone with knowledge and respect, to what the Gadol was trying to say.
He didn’t blame Netanyahu for the tragedy.
Rabbidovid, post #3, you can bet your bottom dollar that it wasn’t reported exactly as the Rov said it. He’s not a fool and doesn’t need you call him out on it. You know how information gets distorted. This site is prime and on their best when creating rift between Jews. Don’t take it at face value.
The Rov shlit”a is 100% correct.
Not that I’m needed to point out the obvious.
I hope you guys don’t know how much Torah Rav shternbuch knows
You don’t fight with a King Kong (paraphrasing from R Dovid orlofsky)
Don’t know. The way he’s quoted here it’s a very incoherent message, to say the least…
The rav’s name is Shternbuch, not Shternbruch!
With all of the Hatzalah there, in the first few critical minutes the policeman and onlookers didn’t know what was happening and hence didn’t know how to extract people correctly wasting precious minutes for those on the bottom. By the time the Hatzalah came it was to take the niftarim away. In my opinion, the set up of manpower such as police and Hatzalah in different locations was done wisely hence causing precious minutes to be wasted until Hatzlah was called on the scene. They did a great job at saving lives, but more couldn’t been done if they would’ve been more involved with the actual set up of locations around the police. Poor children who waited too long to be saved. It didn’t have to happen that way.
And the fact that Netanyahu eats Neveilos apparently… and doesn’t keep shabbos really is relevant. We can really understand now that he is the cause of all our troubles.
(Just reminder, vast majority of Jews world wide are not shomer shabbos or kosher, most Jews are not born into frum families, so maybe a different example to prove evil status would be more appropriate)
I do agree natanyahu is evil, but don’t see any connection to this incident. Why not call him out on his actual crimes against the Jewish people?
And why not think about what the Charedi leadership should change? Instead of blaminh someone else, and waiting for someone else to solve the problems in your community.
This article should be removed, as it makes no sense and is probably fake news.
במחכ”ה Netanyahu eats neveilus and doesn’t keep Shabbos? He has been Prime Minister for more than a decade and hasn’t been seen eating non-kosher all this time. His son was on a game show and when the game show host was telling him about how great shrimp tastes he said that he wouldn’t know because he only eats kosher. Same with Shabbos. I don’t claim that he is a צדיק. But he is way different than barak, sharon and Olmert where this criticism was appropriate.
“Each and every one of us needs to strengthen ourselves with the commandments between man and his fellow man. We may not speak ill of anyone, even about those people we don’t agree with.”
Except when it comes to Netanyahu than it’s OK to speak ill about him….
“We have a lot of power of half-a-million Jews who follow us. Only 7 percent of them go with leadership. Each and every one of us needs to strengthen ourselves by each one of us voting at every Israeli election:- This shall in no time more than double the # of Religious party MK’s. It is this simple. If sternbuch doesn’t appreciate the wonderful work being done by “Gimmel” & “Shas” then run your own party & win seats in the Knesset, but stop boycotting Israeli elections.
Declares Public Mourning Event on Thursday Clearly out of touch:- Today Sunday has already been a day of national mourning.
לא תעמוד על דם רעך hence Netanyahu donated blood and is a צדיק גמור :- Have you sternbuch done your civic duty & donated blood?
To : rabbidovad
with all respect to all yidden, # 1 , , we respect our sages, which
is rabbi Sternbach, was a Goan by the 20 years and is a Zadik etc.
not everybody has the right to say his comments especially if just
calling himself Rabbi etc
Seriously!!?? Sam33, no offense but ur stupid. It doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want just because it’s preceded by giving kavod. Shame on you!! What do you think we have gedolim for? To tell us what needs to be fixed.
Now as a side point, not all rabonim would agree to what he said, hameivin yavin, but you definitely have no right to say anything!!
Blame for negligence about attending to common sense safety concerns has to fall somewhere, and apparently there’s nobody else who can singlehandedly own the blame.
The attitude of the police seems to also have played a part, and the general attitude these days of empowerment around elevating the stature of those who have sacrificed themselves (literally!) to take the secular-science recommended vaccine, and allowing those in authority to find excuses to denigrate those who haven’t is a heavy-handed and corrupt policy that has not been stymied from the top — in fact there are many reports of authorities relishing this opportunity to overly punish ‘non-vaccinators’ (and complacent mask wearers, etc.).
Leaving the presumably mostly secular police to man a corridor bound to be overcrowded with chassidim is something that should also be looked into as it could easily be seen as an invitation for any with a grudge about the ultra-orthodox to take advantage of a situation like this.
Aside from hafganos, many police and others in authority are now extremely empowered by new draconian regulations that are allowing them to use force and snide to segregate those without a ‘vaccine passport’ from places and opportunities available to those with one.
This is not meant to stir up subtle inferences. These are obvious issues that should have been addressed — and continue to be addressed, by those regulating authority. It must be done with unusual sensitivity because of overly discriminatory regulations instituted in these fragile times.
the police blocked exits
B’mchilas Kvod HaRav – this responsibility for this disaster is widely shared, particularly amongst those who organized the event; however, now is a time for Klal Yisrael to mourn together, and not to point fingers at this or that specific individual or group. There will be plenty of time for a review of what happened and what went wrong afterwards.
an Israeli Yid
You can’t have 100,000 or more people descend at the same time to this place and expect a disaster not to happen. Why not allow 10,000 people in every hour on a rotating basis for about the 10 hours of night that exists at this time of year.
There is plenty of blame across the board both for Netanyahu who will do anything to avoid offending the religious parties whose support he disparately needs to stay in power and the few rabbonim whose modos supervise the site and for years have ignored repeated pleas to either expand access points or limit attendance. They did neither. What was beyond disgusting was that as soon as the zaka and MDA vehicles had hauled away the bodies of those who were niftar, they allowed more people to enter the site
The mans losing his marbles
Why in the world did 147’s comment get through the moderator. It’s sickening!! While I personally don’t either agree with all Harav Shternbuch’s shitos there is a right way a wrong way to go about it. Yeshiva world what low have you stooped to allowing such comments?!
To unisraeli Yid – you are supposed to point a finger at the wicked and call them out. We don’t say the Natzis were not to blame for the Holocaust. That is not a contradiction to Bashert.
ponovitch
What rav shtermbuch has said is clear. It’s time to shut up. Shutting up will help prevent us from saying lashon hara, from embarrassing people, from talking during davening, and will prevent bittul torah.
Let us be משתתף our שפתים. (Shut up, שתף, our שפת.)
Bzchus that, we should see mashiach, in this year, of תשפא.
He is a rasha and is evil. He desecrated Shabbos, eat neveilos, uproots Israel, he is the one who is doing all of this evil to us.”
[…]
“We may not speak ill of anyone, even about those people we don’t agree with.”
One of these things does not go with the other.
AppleJuice – there are two ma’amarei Chazal that come to mind – Kabel es Ha’emes mi’mi she’omro, and Eizehu chacham – halomed mikol adam. I take no position in my post on whether Netanyahu is a Tzadik or a Rasha, but blaming him alone for this disaster, and ignoring the poor planning by the many organizing bodies (both state and non-state) that helped lead to this disaster, is simply foolish.
As to your comparison to Nazis, YM”SH – first, I never, ever, ever support comparing Jews to Nazis. Second, poor planning can in no way be compared to acts carried out with extreme malice. You are setting up a straw man to tear it down.
an Israeli Yid
This article is tabloid journalism taking a Godol’s words out of context, with typical poor editing making a mockery of Gedolim, and inspiring mecharef umegadef comments like those of the guy who has 3 digits for his username.
After the age of seventy, a member of the sanhedrin retired. These days they only take the mike after that age.
I’ve known him for nearly 50 years and …
There is a time for introspection as well.
How does anyone expect that when 100,000 people cram into an area that would comfortably hold only 1,000 that any small event is going to be magnified 100 or even 1000 times.
It is no longer viable to continue, not in its current shape, and not in any other.
Really, Rabbi Sternbuch? Had the Bardatz agreed to give over Meron from the hand of the chassidim to the Israelis, my brothers friends would be alive today.
It is the irresponsibility of the organizers who is responsible, not Netanyahu. It is the Bardatz who made plenty machahs to stop the Israelis from rebuilding the complex into a safer building who are responsible.
Your hands shed this blood.
“He is a rasha and is evil. He desecrated Shabbos, eat neveilos, uproots Israel, he is the one who is doing all of this evil to us.”
vs.
“We may not speak ill of anyone, even about those people we don’t agree with.”
The system is broken. Time for a rethink.