A Victory For The Chareidi Tzibur In Haifa Against City Hall After Evicting Yeshiva

44 YatedNe’eman 25 Teves 5778 | January 12, 2018
By Tzvi Yaakovson
Haifa is the third largest city in Israel after
Yerushalayim and Tel Aviv. It is a port city
with a rich history. During the British era,
it was virtually on the level of a capital city.
Haifa was the base for the British. Today, it is
home to a population of about 300,000. Haifa
has been nicknamed the “red city” because
it was home to the largest number of members
of the Histadrut. Until several years ago,
the Histadrut was essentially the ruling force
in the country and was even more powerful
than the government itself. As a result, Haifa
was always the most secular city in the country.
Since the days of Ben-Gurion, the Histadrut
has always been identified with Mapai.
Sadly, Haifa is the one city in Israel in which
public transportation functions on Shabbos.
That was the situation even in the British era,
before the founding of the state, which made
it a fait accompli. The very same status quo
that we use as the basis of enforcing Shabbos
observance throughout the country actually
works against us in the case of Haifa, as the
chiloni populace argues that the status quo is
in favor of maintaining public transportation
on Shabbos.
No mayor of Haifa has ever been known
as a great fan of Yiddishkeit, but the current
mayor, Yonah Yahav, seems to have set a
record of sorts. On a personal level, he is a
charming person. He was previously a member
of the Knesset on behalf of the Labor
party, and I got to know him while he was
there. He was never anti-religious in the past;
however, his attitudes changed when he became
the mayor of Haifa. In all likelihood,
that change is a function of politics. In the
past, any mayoral candidate affiliated with
Mapai would have been elected by an overwhelming
majority of the vote, but election
that was no longer the case in the previous
mayoral. Yahav is probably concerned that if
he appears to be “giving in” to the chareidim,
it will harm his campaign in the upcoming
municipal elections.
Yahav tries to remain on good terms with
the chassidishe communities in the city (Ger,
Belz, and especially the large Seret-Vizhnitz
community, which is located in Haifa along
with the Seret-Vizhnitz Rebbe) and with their
institutions. He also maintains good relations
with the Sephardic community in the
city. With the Litvishe community, though,
he has absolutely no ties. That includes his
arch nemesis, Michoel “Mickey” Alper, the
representative of Degel HaTorah in the Haifa
city council.
Rav Chaim’s Prediction
Despite it being a “red city,” Haifa is
also home to plenty of Torah learning. In the
past, there was Yeshivas HaGra, which was
headed by the well-known dayan Rav Yaakov
Nissan Rosenthal zt”l (rebbi of Rishon
Letzion Rav Shlomo Amar), who also served
as the av bais din of Haifa. Today, the city
is home instead to Kollel HaGra, headed by
Rav Yisroel Rosenthal. Rav Yoel Kloft also
lived in Haifa, and Rav Yehoshua Kaniel
served as the rov of the city. Rav Eliyahu
Bakshi-Doron also served as the rov of Haifa.
Much of the spiritual revolution that is
unfolding in Haifa can be attributed to Yeshivas
Nachalas Haleviim, which was founded
in the city in the year 1986 with the encouragement
of Rav Elazar Menachem Man
Shach. The rosh yeshiva is Rav Yisroel Meir
Weiss, son-in-law of Rav Chaim Shmulevitz,
and the mashgiach is Rav Uri Weissblum,
one of the foremost talmidim of Rav Shlomo
Wolbe. Rav Weissblum is a native of Haifa.
His father was the rov of the Hadar HaCarmel
neighborhood in the city, and he is a
seventh-generation descendant of the Noam
Elimelech and a brother-in-law of the Tolna
Rebbe. Nachalas Haleviim is one of the foremost
yeshivos in the country.
Another well-known yeshiva in Haifa
is Tiferes HaCarmel. The city also contains
many other yeshivos and kollelim, both chassidish
and Litvish, as well as a large community
of Litvishe yungeleit who were attracted
by the prospect of inexpensive housing in an
actual city with a flourishing religious community.
There are entire neighborhoods in
Haifa – especially the Hadar and Vizhnitz
neighborhoods, along with Akiva, Geulah,
Michoel, Chermon, and Bar-Kochva Streets,
among others – that appear completely cha-
The “red city,” which was
almost completely devoid of
Yiddishkeit in the past, has
seen the rise of a chareidi presence
in recent years. Litvishe
and chassidishe communities,
yeshivos and kollelim, dozens
of shtieblach, and entire streets
that have turned chareidi have
transformed the landscape of
Haifa. This growth can be attributed
in large part to Yeshivas
Nachalas Haleviim and to
the Seret-Vizhnitz community,
two longtime fixtures in Haifa.
Nevertheless, it seems that the
mayor of Haifa decided that
he would not win the coming
elections unless he fought
the “chareidi takeover,” and
last week he took a step that
shocked the entire country,
as municipal workers brutally
destroyed the new home of a
respected yeshiva. Rav Chaim
Kanievsky expressed his wish
for the mayor to be defeated,
and his downfall was not long
in coming. This is the story that
has shaken the chareidi populace
throughout Eretz Yisroel.
Degel
Councilman
Michoel Alper
and Mayor
Yonah Yahav.
January 12, 2018 | 25 Teves 5778 YatedNe’eman 45
reidi. Rav Yechiel Bamberger, the rov of the
Litvishe community in the city, is considered
one of the foremost community rabbonim in
Eretz Yisroel today, and is a leading figure
among the Torah communities of the north.
(He is a son-in-law of Rav Shlomo Wolbe.)
With that background information about
the city, let us move on to the events of this
past week in Eretz Yisroel.
For several years, the chareidi public in
Eretz Yisroel has been aware that the mayor
of Haifa, Yonah Yahav, has been operating by
the principle of “divide and conquer.” On the
one hand, he gets along with some chareidim.
He visits the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe, and he
has had separate meetings in his office with
both Yaakov Litzman and with MK Yisroel
Eichler. On the other hand, he has completely
dissociated himself from the chareidi public.
This generally does not have ramifications on
a national level, but what happened this week
shook the entire country.
With his actions this week, Yonah Yahav
undoubtedly lost the approval of the entire
chareidi public. It will be very difficult for
any chareidi Jew to take Yahav’s side and to
argue that his dispute with Degel HaTorah
was anything other than part of a feud with
religious Judaism as a whole.
The bais medrash of Yeshivas Yad Ha-
Rambam in Haifa looked as if it had just been
through a pogrom. Walls had been smashed,
seforim shelves have collapsed, tables were
overturned, and torn Gemaros and seforim lay
in disgrace on the floor. The images seemed
to have been taken straight out of the pages
of Megillas Eichah, where the novi laments,
“Sacred stones were spilled at the beginning
of every street.” But the men who stood in the
entrance to the building were not Cossacks.
They were security officers employed by the
Haifa municipality. And this scene was unfolding
not in Europe, but on Rechov Dovid
Assaf in Haifa. These men had been sent by
the municipality and did not allow anyone to
enter the building, even the frightened bochurim
who wanted only to recover their tefillin
for Shacharis. They were forced to daven
outside the yeshiva that morning. Inside,
the municipal workers had left the building
utterly devastated.
The chareidi public in Eretz Yisroel was
informed of Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s reaction
when the roshei yeshiva came to him to describe
their experiences and to seek a brocha.
Rav Chaim listened to their tale of what appeared
to be religious persecution perpetrated
by Mayor Yahav. In the video footage of their
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46 YatedNe’eman 25 Teves 5778 | January 12, 2018
meeting, which was widely disseminated
throughout the country, Rav Chaim is heard
responding, “He is a rasha. He will have a
major downfall.”
Incredibly, that downfall came only three
days later. The yeshiva petitioned a court in
Haifa against the municipality, and the court
responded very harshly to the city’s actions.
The judges announced that the city had broken
the law, insinuating that they had even
lied to the court. The court also ordered the
city to remove the barricades that blocked the
entrance to the building, and a fine was imposed
on the city.
A Long-Running Feud
The truth is that the chareidi residents
of Haifa, along with everyone else who has
been watching the municipality’s actions,
were not exactly surprised by what happened
this week. The relations between the chareidi
populace and the secular mayor of Haifa
have been stormy for several years. It began
with Yahav’s opposition to Michoel Alper,
the chareidi representative on the city council,
and it continued with the creation of an
internal rift between the chareidi parties in
the city and with various other conflicts. The
events of this week merely brought the conflict
to a new low.
The current saga began not long ago.
There is a Torah institute in Haifa known as
Yad HaRambam, which was founded by Rav
Yehuda Assaf. Rav Assaf has been one of the
most prominent figures in the Torah world in
Haifa for many years, and today lives in Boro
Park. His wife is a well-known educator. The
spacious building next to the institute was recently
rented to a famous yeshiva ketanah in
Haifa, which moved from the Neve Shaanan
neighborhood of the city and had garnered a
reputation as one of the leading yeshivos in
the north. Over the years, the yeshiva has
attracted talmidim not only from Haifa and
the surrounding cities, but from other parts
of the country as well. By the standards of
the port city of Haifa, the yeshiva essentially
became a beacon of Torah in northern Israel.
The majority of its talmidim hail from
the religious communities in Haifa. Most are
children of alumni of Yeshivas Nachalas Haleviim,
which is the foremost yeshiva in Haifa
and the root of the spiritual revolution taking
place in the city. I imagine that similar cases
can be identified in the Torahdige communities
in America outside New York in which a
single yeshiva became the basis for an entire
community’s formation.
In any event, the yeshiva’s transfer to its
new location was not merely a geographic
change. Yad HaRambam is in an institute devoted
to delving into the Rambam’s magnum
opus, Yad Hachazakah, and at the institute’s
request, the yeshiva’s schedule was redesigned
to include many hours dedicated to
learning through the Rambam. This is something
that is not included in the programs of
other yeshivos.
The roshei yeshiva deliberated at length
before agreeing to the change, although it was
a very tempting offer. Aside from the material
benefits offered by the institute, there was the
promise of producing many bochurim who
would be well-versed in the Rambam’s Torah,
which encompasses the entirety of Torah
Shebiksav as well as Torah Shebaal Peh. Although
the move was preceded by extensive
deliberation, the gedolei hador ultimately decided
in favor of the move and the unique approach
to learning that would accompany it.
Celebrating the
Yeshiva’s New Home
Thus began the marathon efforts to prepare
the facility for the arrival of the yeshiva.
The infrastructure was set in place to absorb
the talmidim, and the building was renovated
to accommodate the needs of the yeshiva.
All of this cost hundreds of thousands
of shekels. “We built new rooms,” one of the
askanim related. “We brought in beds and invested
hundreds of thousands of shekels preparing
the facility to absorb the talmidim.”
Just a few weeks ago, the work was finally
completed. It was around the time of
the Rambam’s yahrtzeit that the dozens of
talmidim entered the building and began their
intensive regimen of learning.
But with all due respect to the hundreds of
thousands of shekels that had been invested
in the project, Mayor Yonah Yahav was not
ready to join the celebration. In recent years,
there have been repeated claims that the mayor
has been working to combat the so-called
“chareidi takeover of Haifa,” as it is dubbed
in the halls of the municipality. The mayor
himself has proudly announced his intentions.
And a new building for a yeshiva had
no place in his plans for the city.
The askanim of the city and the yeshiva
administration made an effort to avert any
complications before they could arise, making
sure to obtain all of the necessary permits.
But Yahav had a very clear plan for
the chareidim in his city. According to one
askan, the city’s battle against the yeshiva began
long ago. “They have been harassing us
for years,” he related. “Until a short time ago,
the yeshiva was located in a building adjacent
to a nursing home. Several months ago, certain
individuals in the city government, who
carry out the mayor’s policies, demanded
that the nursing home administration remove
us from the premises. We thought that when
we moved into this building, which has been
part of a Torah institute that has been operating
in the city for years without interference,
the city’s efforts to harm us would stop. As
it turned out, though, there is no end to the
oppression of chareidim in this city. It seems
that there will be no end to the mayor’s single-
minded obsession with harming everything
associated with Yiddishkeit.”
It should be mentioned that the yeshiva
did not actually acquire all of the necessary
permits. At the same time, the location
was appropriate and had been prepared for
use as a yeshiva, and there did not seem to be
any reason for the permits to be denied. The
municipality created many obstacles for the
yeshiva, and a demolition crew was ultimately
sent. Regardless of all the other details, the
judge who heard the case ruled that the city’s
actions were illegal. She proceeded to penalize
the city and to order them to reopen the
yeshiva.
“They Came with
Hatred in Their Eyes”
A few weeks went by after the yeshiva
moved to its new premises, and it began to
seem as if everyone could begin breathing
easily. It seemed as if the yeshiva’s presence
had become an established fact. But then
came that fateful Motzoei Shabbos, when the
country learned that Yonah Yahav would stop
at nothing in order to thwart the growth of a
chareidi presence in his city.
The talmidim of the yeshiva found it
painful to relive those difficult moments. By
the time I spoke with them, they had been
spending an entire week shuttling from one
temporary building to another, yet they had
continued learning with full intensity. Still, I
managed to hear all the details of the devastating
event.
Like sophisticated thieves, the municipal
officials had waited for a perfect opportunity
to wreck the building. That opportunity came
on Motzoei Shabbos of Parshas Vayechi,
when the talmidim attended a special siyum
that was held for him in a hall in the city.
While they were at the event, dozens of municipal
workers broke into the Yad HaRambam
building and began wreaking havoc.
“In the middle of the siyum,” one of the
bochurim related, “we began hearing rumors
of vandalism taking place in the yeshiva. At
first we thought that the perpetrators were
criminals. There had been incidents in the
past of hateful graffiti being scrawled on various
yeshiva buildings. Within a few minutes,
though, the full picture became clear. The
municipality of Haifa itself was responsible
for the destruction of the yeshiva.”
The bochurim and the faculty hurried
back to the yeshiva, where they were greeted
by a sight that they will never forget. “There
were dozens of workers there,” the bochur
related in a choked voice. “They attacked
the bais medrash with venomous hate. They
smashed the walls, mercilessly destroying
everything in sight. They didn’t even care
about the seforim that were strewn across the
floor. We asked a rov if we needed to fast after
witnessing those sights,” he added.
“We tried to go inside and assess the damage,
but our efforts were in vain. Municipal
security guards refused to allow us to enter
the yeshiva. Even when I asked to retrieve my
tefillin from the bais medrash, they looked at
me with complete apathy and refused to allow
it.”
Rabbi Yaakov Lecher, a resident of Rechasim
and a Hatzalah volunteer, was in the
area when the municipal workers destroyed
everything they could reach. His office is located
nearby. He told me, “As soon as it happened,
we received word on our radios and
hurried to the site. We couldn’t do anything,
because the municipal workers came with
police reinforcements. They claimed that the
building was illegal and they had to demolish
it. They also implied that they had a court
order, although we found out later that they
did not.
“Nevertheless,” he went on, “the worst
part of it was the hatred in their eyes. They
didn’t act like workers demolishing an illegal
building; they acted as if they were destroying
the home of terrorists. They were driven
by hate.” This is a reference not only to the
municipal workers, but also to the city council
representatives who accompanied them
and gave them instructions. In fact, I believe
that the director-general of the municipality
himself was present at the scene.
The Mayor’s Thuggery
Within hours, pictures of the scene of destruction
had been spread by the media and
sparked a major outcry. The desecration had
to receive a response even on the national
level. This story quickly reached the desks
of the chareidi members of the Knesset, who
began intensive efforts to prevent Yahav from
continuing his campaign against the yeshiva.
“This is an act of thuggery on the part of a
mayor, who has shown that he is capable of
flagrantly striking out against talmidim learning
Torah,” declared Moshe Gafni, the chairman
of Degel HaTorah, who has long been
familiar with Yonah Yahav’s machinations.
Just this past year, Gafni and his fellow
members of Degel HaTorah traveled to Haifa
in order to show their solidarity with Michoel
Alper, the local representative of their party,
who had come under fire in the city. Yahav
tried to make light of their show of support,
but his efforts were of no avail.
Nevertheless, Gafni felt that the recent
events warrant a renewed reckoning. “Everyone
is shocked by the terrible images that
emerged from the yeshiva,” he said. “I am
speaking not only from a Jewish perspective,
but from any angle from which one could
look at this. Yonah Yahav is a failed mayor
who does not care about the needs of his
city’s residents or its institutions. That is not
even speaking about what he is doing to the
chareidi public, which has long been feeling
the effects of his conniving and selfish agenda.
We will do everything possible to see to
it that he is punished and this disgrace comes
to an end.”
Gafni also obliquely criticized the mayor’s
advisors who call themselves chareidi.
“I am surprised at those who agreed to take
Rav Yechiel Bamberger with
Rav Chaim Kanievsky.
At a meeting of rabbonim and
askanim in Haifa. Seated at
the head of the table are Rav
Yechiel Bamberger and Rav Berel
Rechnitzer of Belz in Haifa.
January 12, 2018 | 25 Teves 5778 YatedNe’eman 47
part in this terrible desecration for the sake
of monetary gain,” he said. “They are not
ashamed to continue justifying the mayor’s
thuggery, even when the pictures of the devastation
speak for themselves. They are definitely
part of this; they are part of the pogrom
against those who learn Torah.”
In the chareidi community in Haifa,
many hope that this incident will wake up
other sectors of the population, who have
always blindly followed the mayor and accepted
his evasive explanations. “This is it,”
a local askan declared. “There will be no
more excuses and no more evasion. There
is a limit to the amount of sand that can be
thrown into the chareidi public’s eyes. The
holy seforim that were scattered on the floor
and the destroyed walls of the bais medrash
are the proof that this is not merely a political
dispute, but an effort to drive out the chareidi
community. It is a failed effort to cause harm
to the Torah and the institutions where it is
learned. History has taught us well that these
efforts will fail. We are certain that no weapons
will succeed against our yeshivos.”
The Court Against the City
An equally dramatic scene unfolded on
Sunday morning at the home of Rav Chaim
Kanievsky in Bnei Brak. The roshei yeshiva
and its administrators arrived at Rav Chaim’s
home to inform him of the events of the previous
night, and Rav Chaim became enveloped
in distress. He was pained by the bittul
Torah of dozens of talmidim, as well as by
the attack directed against all that is sacred.
The roshei yeshiva were alarmed by the
gadol hador’s revulsion at the news and by
his harsh reaction. “May Hashem help that
that rosha will have a great downfall,” Rav
Chaim declared. He also gave his brachos
for the talmidim of the yeshiva to continue to
learn and for its administration to overcome
the challenges that had suddenly beset them.
In case anyone thought that the city’s actions
were part of a legal procedure, or that it
was a standard response to illegal construction,
those illusions were dispelled by a judge
from the Shalom Court in Haifa. In a lengthy
ruling, she attacked the municipality and its
officials for acting contrary to the law and
to all reason. The judge’s ruling came in response
to a petition filed by the yeshiva the
very next day, on Monday, asking the court
to issue a temporary injunction against the
Haifa municipality. The roshei yeshiva were
not surprised to see that the court accused the
city of acting illegally and without authority.
The public, though, was shocked. It was the
strongest condemnation of the mayor of Haifa
that had been heard in a long time.
Judge Idit Weinberger noted in her decision
that the municipal workers had destroyed
the yeshiva, and that the municipality
had confirmed that “it did not have any order
or court decision” that called for their actions.
She also stressed that “the respondent
[i.e., the municipality] made a serious legal
error, as the clauses of the law to which it referred
do not give it the authority to act as it
did.” She also ruled that “there is no basis for
the claim that the claimant is not an organization
with the right to lease the building.”
The judge’s criticism of the municipality
did not end there. She went on to write
that “the respondent [the municipality] would
have done well to examine the facts and the
legal situation in greater depth before acting
as it did.” Although the city claimed that the
yeshiva had violated the bylaws governing
the permitted uses of the building, “that does
not give the respondent the right to take the
law into its own hands and to evict the organization
or any other person who is in the
building with its permission.
The judge also found that the terrible destruction
was both illegal and unreasonable.
“One can see that the dozens of workers who
came to the building to carry out the eviction
broke the walls and destroyed the facility,”
she wrote. “The respondent’s counsel has
not given any explanation for this draconian
act on the part of the respondent, which was
committed without any injunction from the
court… The respondent has not demonstrated
the source of the authority that gives it the
right to revoke the claimant’s possession of
the building without legal process.”
The municipality, in its response, claimed
that they had not violated the rights of the
organization operating in the building, and
they hadn’t evicted its occupants, but the
judge refused to accept their claim. “This
claim is not being made in sincerity, since it
has been proven that the municipality evicted
everyone present and sealed off the building
to prevent anyone from entering it…. The respondent
violated the situation as it existed
before the petition was filed, and it took away
the right of use of the property that was held
for 35 years. Therefore, the claimant has the
right for an injunction to be issued to the respondent
to restore the situation as it was.”
The judge’s ruling ordered the city to return
the building to its occupants and to cover
their legal fees of 10,000 shekels.
The Power of the
Torah Triumphs
Mickey Alper is not at all surprised by the
story. Alper personally went to the yeshiva
on Motzoei Shabbos to observe the situation.
“I am a public official, and I have seen
many things in my life,” he related, “but I
have never seen this kind of brutality. When
I came to the yeshiva on Motzoei Shabbos
and I saw the criminality, the takeover of a
private building, and the way the city took
the law into its own hands, I felt that I was
witnessing something terrible. There is no
way that we can make peace with this kind
of anarchy.
“I am not speaking only as a chareidi,”
Alper continued. “These are my feelings as
a resident of the city. Today it is happening
to us. Tomorrow it might happen to a different
community. Yahav is failing in his position
as mayor, and we are going through very
difficult times with him running the city. We
are believing Jews who know that everything
comes from Hashem and that he is merely
a shliach, but we daven that his shlichus in
Haifa should end soon.
“For anyone who insists that this is merely
a political issue,” Alper went on, referring
obliquely to several officials in the municipal
government, “the pictures of the destruction
show us Yahav’s plans regarding the future
of Torah in Haifa. His downfall has already
begun, and it will probably continue.”
The municipality also responded to the
accusations against it. City officials claim
that no vandalism was committed and no seforim
were damaged. They maintain that the
building belongs to the city and was leased
to Yad HaRambam, and the organization did
not have the right to sublet it to another institution
without the city’s approval. “It is a
violation of the lease, and that is why we ordered
the eviction,” they claim.
This is a very sad story. In Israel of 2018,
it is difficult to believe that such a thing
could happen. If there is one ray of light in
all of this darkness, though, it is the talmidim
of the yeshiva themselves. Despite all the
trauma and destruction that they have been
through, they are continuing to amaze the
people of Haifa with their hasmadah. As one
of the rabbeim in the yeshiva told us, “The
bochurim will elevate this tragedy and turn
it into a source of chizuk and growth. They
are learning in temporary botei medrash, but
their learning hasn’t stopped for a moment.
The power of the Torah, together with the
brachos of tzaddikim, will always emerge
victorious.

3 Responses

luckshun kugel says:

January 4, 2018 1:53 am at 1:53 am

what did the yeshiva do or not do to deserve to be evicted? should be stated….
docelisheva says:

January 4, 2018 5:04 am at 5:04 am

why wasn’t the city ordered to pay for the damages they did?
david israel says:

January 14, 2018 10:01 am at 10:01 am

44 YatedNe’eman 25 Teves 5778 | January 12, 2018
By Tzvi Yaakovson
Haifa is the third largest city in Israel after
Yerushalayim and Tel Aviv. It is a port city
with a rich history. During the British era,
it was virtually on the level of a capital city.
Haifa was the base for the British. Today, it is
home to a population of about 300,000. Haifa
has been nicknamed the “red city” because
it was home to the largest number of members
of the Histadrut. Until several years ago,
the Histadrut was essentially the ruling force
in the country and was even more powerful
than the government itself. As a result, Haifa
was always the most secular city in the country.
Since the days of Ben-Gurion, the Histadrut
has always been identified with Mapai.
Sadly, Haifa is the one city in Israel in which
public transportation functions on Shabbos.
That was the situation even in the British era,
before the founding of the state, which made
it a fait accompli. The very same status quo
that we use as the basis of enforcing Shabbos
observance throughout the country actually
works against us in the case of Haifa, as the
chiloni populace argues that the status quo is
in favor of maintaining public transportation
on Shabbos.
No mayor of Haifa has ever been known
as a great fan of Yiddishkeit, but the current
mayor, Yonah Yahav, seems to have set a
record of sorts. On a personal level, he is a
charming person. He was previously a member
of the Knesset on behalf of the Labor
party, and I got to know him while he was
there. He was never anti-religious in the past;
however, his attitudes changed when he became
the mayor of Haifa. In all likelihood,
that change is a function of politics. In the
past, any mayoral candidate affiliated with
Mapai would have been elected by an overwhelming
majority of the vote, but election
that was no longer the case in the previous
mayoral. Yahav is probably concerned that if
he appears to be “giving in” to the chareidim,
it will harm his campaign in the upcoming
municipal elections.
Yahav tries to remain on good terms with
the chassidishe communities in the city (Ger,
Belz, and especially the large Seret-Vizhnitz
community, which is located in Haifa along
with the Seret-Vizhnitz Rebbe) and with their
institutions. He also maintains good relations
with the Sephardic community in the
city. With the Litvishe community, though,
he has absolutely no ties. That includes his
arch nemesis, Michoel “Mickey” Alper, the
representative of Degel HaTorah in the Haifa
city council.
Rav Chaim’s Prediction
Despite it being a “red city,” Haifa is
also home to plenty of Torah learning. In the
past, there was Yeshivas HaGra, which was
headed by the well-known dayan Rav Yaakov
Nissan Rosenthal zt”l (rebbi of Rishon
Letzion Rav Shlomo Amar), who also served
as the av bais din of Haifa. Today, the city
is home instead to Kollel HaGra, headed by
Rav Yisroel Rosenthal. Rav Yoel Kloft also
lived in Haifa, and Rav Yehoshua Kaniel
served as the rov of the city. Rav Eliyahu
Bakshi-Doron also served as the rov of Haifa.
Much of the spiritual revolution that is
unfolding in Haifa can be attributed to Yeshivas
Nachalas Haleviim, which was founded
in the city in the year 1986 with the encouragement
of Rav Elazar Menachem Man
Shach. The rosh yeshiva is Rav Yisroel Meir
Weiss, son-in-law of Rav Chaim Shmulevitz,
and the mashgiach is Rav Uri Weissblum,
one of the foremost talmidim of Rav Shlomo
Wolbe. Rav Weissblum is a native of Haifa.
His father was the rov of the Hadar HaCarmel
neighborhood in the city, and he is a
seventh-generation descendant of the Noam
Elimelech and a brother-in-law of the Tolna
Rebbe. Nachalas Haleviim is one of the foremost
yeshivos in the country.
Another well-known yeshiva in Haifa
is Tiferes HaCarmel. The city also contains
many other yeshivos and kollelim, both chassidish
and Litvish, as well as a large community
of Litvishe yungeleit who were attracted
by the prospect of inexpensive housing in an
actual city with a flourishing religious community.
There are entire neighborhoods in
Haifa – especially the Hadar and Vizhnitz
neighborhoods, along with Akiva, Geulah,
Michoel, Chermon, and Bar-Kochva Streets,
among others – that appear completely cha-
The “red city,” which was
almost completely devoid of
Yiddishkeit in the past, has
seen the rise of a chareidi presence
in recent years. Litvishe
and chassidishe communities,
yeshivos and kollelim, dozens
of shtieblach, and entire streets
that have turned chareidi have
transformed the landscape of
Haifa. This growth can be attributed
in large part to Yeshivas
Nachalas Haleviim and to
the Seret-Vizhnitz community,
two longtime fixtures in Haifa.
Nevertheless, it seems that the
mayor of Haifa decided that
he would not win the coming
elections unless he fought
the “chareidi takeover,” and
last week he took a step that
shocked the entire country,
as municipal workers brutally
destroyed the new home of a
respected yeshiva. Rav Chaim
Kanievsky expressed his wish
for the mayor to be defeated,
and his downfall was not long
in coming. This is the story that
has shaken the chareidi populace
throughout Eretz Yisroel.
Degel
Councilman
Michoel Alper
and Mayor
Yonah Yahav.
January 12, 2018 | 25 Teves 5778 YatedNe’eman 45
reidi. Rav Yechiel Bamberger, the rov of the
Litvishe community in the city, is considered
one of the foremost community rabbonim in
Eretz Yisroel today, and is a leading figure
among the Torah communities of the north.
(He is a son-in-law of Rav Shlomo Wolbe.)
With that background information about
the city, let us move on to the events of this
past week in Eretz Yisroel.
For several years, the chareidi public in
Eretz Yisroel has been aware that the mayor
of Haifa, Yonah Yahav, has been operating by
the principle of “divide and conquer.” On the
one hand, he gets along with some chareidim.
He visits the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe, and he
has had separate meetings in his office with
both Yaakov Litzman and with MK Yisroel
Eichler. On the other hand, he has completely
dissociated himself from the chareidi public.
This generally does not have ramifications on
a national level, but what happened this week
shook the entire country.
With his actions this week, Yonah Yahav
undoubtedly lost the approval of the entire
chareidi public. It will be very difficult for
any chareidi Jew to take Yahav’s side and to
argue that his dispute with Degel HaTorah
was anything other than part of a feud with
religious Judaism as a whole.
The bais medrash of Yeshivas Yad Ha-
Rambam in Haifa looked as if it had just been
through a pogrom. Walls had been smashed,
seforim shelves have collapsed, tables were
overturned, and torn Gemaros and seforim lay
in disgrace on the floor. The images seemed
to have been taken straight out of the pages
of Megillas Eichah, where the novi laments,
“Sacred stones were spilled at the beginning
of every street.” But the men who stood in the
entrance to the building were not Cossacks.
They were security officers employed by the
Haifa municipality. And this scene was unfolding
not in Europe, but on Rechov Dovid
Assaf in Haifa. These men had been sent by
the municipality and did not allow anyone to
enter the building, even the frightened bochurim
who wanted only to recover their tefillin
for Shacharis. They were forced to daven
outside the yeshiva that morning. Inside,
the municipal workers had left the building
utterly devastated.
The chareidi public in Eretz Yisroel was
informed of Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s reaction
when the roshei yeshiva came to him to describe
their experiences and to seek a brocha.
Rav Chaim listened to their tale of what appeared
to be religious persecution perpetrated
by Mayor Yahav. In the video footage of their
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46 YatedNe’eman 25 Teves 5778 | January 12, 2018
meeting, which was widely disseminated
throughout the country, Rav Chaim is heard
responding, “He is a rasha. He will have a
major downfall.”
Incredibly, that downfall came only three
days later. The yeshiva petitioned a court in
Haifa against the municipality, and the court
responded very harshly to the city’s actions.
The judges announced that the city had broken
the law, insinuating that they had even
lied to the court. The court also ordered the
city to remove the barricades that blocked the
entrance to the building, and a fine was imposed
on the city.
A Long-Running Feud
The truth is that the chareidi residents
of Haifa, along with everyone else who has
been watching the municipality’s actions,
were not exactly surprised by what happened
this week. The relations between the chareidi
populace and the secular mayor of Haifa
have been stormy for several years. It began
with Yahav’s opposition to Michoel Alper,
the chareidi representative on the city council,
and it continued with the creation of an
internal rift between the chareidi parties in
the city and with various other conflicts. The
events of this week merely brought the conflict
to a new low.
The current saga began not long ago.
There is a Torah institute in Haifa known as
Yad HaRambam, which was founded by Rav
Yehuda Assaf. Rav Assaf has been one of the
most prominent figures in the Torah world in
Haifa for many years, and today lives in Boro
Park. His wife is a well-known educator. The
spacious building next to the institute was recently
rented to a famous yeshiva ketanah in
Haifa, which moved from the Neve Shaanan
neighborhood of the city and had garnered a
reputation as one of the leading yeshivos in
the north. Over the years, the yeshiva has
attracted talmidim not only from Haifa and
the surrounding cities, but from other parts
of the country as well. By the standards of
the port city of Haifa, the yeshiva essentially
became a beacon of Torah in northern Israel.
The majority of its talmidim hail from
the religious communities in Haifa. Most are
children of alumni of Yeshivas Nachalas Haleviim,
which is the foremost yeshiva in Haifa
and the root of the spiritual revolution taking
place in the city. I imagine that similar cases
can be identified in the Torahdige communities
in America outside New York in which a
single yeshiva became the basis for an entire
community’s formation.
In any event, the yeshiva’s transfer to its
new location was not merely a geographic
change. Yad HaRambam is in an institute devoted
to delving into the Rambam’s magnum
opus, Yad Hachazakah, and at the institute’s
request, the yeshiva’s schedule was redesigned
to include many hours dedicated to
learning through the Rambam. This is something
that is not included in the programs of
other yeshivos.
The roshei yeshiva deliberated at length
before agreeing to the change, although it was
a very tempting offer. Aside from the material
benefits offered by the institute, there was the
promise of producing many bochurim who
would be well-versed in the Rambam’s Torah,
which encompasses the entirety of Torah
Shebiksav as well as Torah Shebaal Peh. Although
the move was preceded by extensive
deliberation, the gedolei hador ultimately decided
in favor of the move and the unique approach
to learning that would accompany it.
Celebrating the
Yeshiva’s New Home
Thus began the marathon efforts to prepare
the facility for the arrival of the yeshiva.
The infrastructure was set in place to absorb
the talmidim, and the building was renovated
to accommodate the needs of the yeshiva.
All of this cost hundreds of thousands
of shekels. “We built new rooms,” one of the
askanim related. “We brought in beds and invested
hundreds of thousands of shekels preparing
the facility to absorb the talmidim.”
Just a few weeks ago, the work was finally
completed. It was around the time of
the Rambam’s yahrtzeit that the dozens of
talmidim entered the building and began their
intensive regimen of learning.
But with all due respect to the hundreds of
thousands of shekels that had been invested
in the project, Mayor Yonah Yahav was not
ready to join the celebration. In recent years,
there have been repeated claims that the mayor
has been working to combat the so-called
“chareidi takeover of Haifa,” as it is dubbed
in the halls of the municipality. The mayor
himself has proudly announced his intentions.
And a new building for a yeshiva had
no place in his plans for the city.
The askanim of the city and the yeshiva
administration made an effort to avert any
complications before they could arise, making
sure to obtain all of the necessary permits.
But Yahav had a very clear plan for
the chareidim in his city. According to one
askan, the city’s battle against the yeshiva began
long ago. “They have been harassing us
for years,” he related. “Until a short time ago,
the yeshiva was located in a building adjacent
to a nursing home. Several months ago, certain
individuals in the city government, who
carry out the mayor’s policies, demanded
that the nursing home administration remove
us from the premises. We thought that when
we moved into this building, which has been
part of a Torah institute that has been operating
in the city for years without interference,
the city’s efforts to harm us would stop. As
it turned out, though, there is no end to the
oppression of chareidim in this city. It seems
that there will be no end to the mayor’s single-
minded obsession with harming everything
associated with Yiddishkeit.”
It should be mentioned that the yeshiva
did not actually acquire all of the necessary
permits. At the same time, the location
was appropriate and had been prepared for
use as a yeshiva, and there did not seem to be
any reason for the permits to be denied. The
municipality created many obstacles for the
yeshiva, and a demolition crew was ultimately
sent. Regardless of all the other details, the
judge who heard the case ruled that the city’s
actions were illegal. She proceeded to penalize
the city and to order them to reopen the
yeshiva.
“They Came with
Hatred in Their Eyes”
A few weeks went by after the yeshiva
moved to its new premises, and it began to
seem as if everyone could begin breathing
easily. It seemed as if the yeshiva’s presence
had become an established fact. But then
came that fateful Motzoei Shabbos, when the
country learned that Yonah Yahav would stop
at nothing in order to thwart the growth of a
chareidi presence in his city.
The talmidim of the yeshiva found it
painful to relive those difficult moments. By
the time I spoke with them, they had been
spending an entire week shuttling from one
temporary building to another, yet they had
continued learning with full intensity. Still, I
managed to hear all the details of the devastating
event.
Like sophisticated thieves, the municipal
officials had waited for a perfect opportunity
to wreck the building. That opportunity came
on Motzoei Shabbos of Parshas Vayechi,
when the talmidim attended a special siyum
that was held for him in a hall in the city.
While they were at the event, dozens of municipal
workers broke into the Yad HaRambam
building and began wreaking havoc.
“In the middle of the siyum,” one of the
bochurim related, “we began hearing rumors
of vandalism taking place in the yeshiva. At
first we thought that the perpetrators were
criminals. There had been incidents in the
past of hateful graffiti being scrawled on various
yeshiva buildings. Within a few minutes,
though, the full picture became clear. The
municipality of Haifa itself was responsible
for the destruction of the yeshiva.”
The bochurim and the faculty hurried
back to the yeshiva, where they were greeted
by a sight that they will never forget. “There
were dozens of workers there,” the bochur
related in a choked voice. “They attacked
the bais medrash with venomous hate. They
smashed the walls, mercilessly destroying
everything in sight. They didn’t even care
about the seforim that were strewn across the
floor. We asked a rov if we needed to fast after
witnessing those sights,” he added.
“We tried to go inside and assess the damage,
but our efforts were in vain. Municipal
security guards refused to allow us to enter
the yeshiva. Even when I asked to retrieve my
tefillin from the bais medrash, they looked at
me with complete apathy and refused to allow
it.”
Rabbi Yaakov Lecher, a resident of Rechasim
and a Hatzalah volunteer, was in the
area when the municipal workers destroyed
everything they could reach. His office is located
nearby. He told me, “As soon as it happened,
we received word on our radios and
hurried to the site. We couldn’t do anything,
because the municipal workers came with
police reinforcements. They claimed that the
building was illegal and they had to demolish
it. They also implied that they had a court
order, although we found out later that they
did not.
“Nevertheless,” he went on, “the worst
part of it was the hatred in their eyes. They
didn’t act like workers demolishing an illegal
building; they acted as if they were destroying
the home of terrorists. They were driven
by hate.” This is a reference not only to the
municipal workers, but also to the city council
representatives who accompanied them
and gave them instructions. In fact, I believe
that the director-general of the municipality
himself was present at the scene.
The Mayor’s Thuggery
Within hours, pictures of the scene of destruction
had been spread by the media and
sparked a major outcry. The desecration had
to receive a response even on the national
level. This story quickly reached the desks
of the chareidi members of the Knesset, who
began intensive efforts to prevent Yahav from
continuing his campaign against the yeshiva.
“This is an act of thuggery on the part of a
mayor, who has shown that he is capable of
flagrantly striking out against talmidim learning
Torah,” declared Moshe Gafni, the chairman
of Degel HaTorah, who has long been
familiar with Yonah Yahav’s machinations.
Just this past year, Gafni and his fellow
members of Degel HaTorah traveled to Haifa
in order to show their solidarity with Michoel
Alper, the local representative of their party,
who had come under fire in the city. Yahav
tried to make light of their show of support,
but his efforts were of no avail.
Nevertheless, Gafni felt that the recent
events warrant a renewed reckoning. “Everyone
is shocked by the terrible images that
emerged from the yeshiva,” he said. “I am
speaking not only from a Jewish perspective,
but from any angle from which one could
look at this. Yonah Yahav is a failed mayor
who does not care about the needs of his
city’s residents or its institutions. That is not
even speaking about what he is doing to the
chareidi public, which has long been feeling
the effects of his conniving and selfish agenda.
We will do everything possible to see to
it that he is punished and this disgrace comes
to an end.”
Gafni also obliquely criticized the mayor’s
advisors who call themselves chareidi.
“I am surprised at those who agreed to take
Rav Yechiel Bamberger with
Rav Chaim Kanievsky.
At a meeting of rabbonim and
askanim in Haifa. Seated at
the head of the table are Rav
Yechiel Bamberger and Rav Berel
Rechnitzer of Belz in Haifa.
January 12, 2018 | 25 Teves 5778 YatedNe’eman 47
part in this terrible desecration for the sake
of monetary gain,” he said. “They are not
ashamed to continue justifying the mayor’s
thuggery, even when the pictures of the devastation
speak for themselves. They are definitely
part of this; they are part of the pogrom
against those who learn Torah.”
In the chareidi community in Haifa,
many hope that this incident will wake up
other sectors of the population, who have
always blindly followed the mayor and accepted
his evasive explanations. “This is it,”
a local askan declared. “There will be no
more excuses and no more evasion. There
is a limit to the amount of sand that can be
thrown into the chareidi public’s eyes. The
holy seforim that were scattered on the floor
and the destroyed walls of the bais medrash
are the proof that this is not merely a political
dispute, but an effort to drive out the chareidi
community. It is a failed effort to cause harm
to the Torah and the institutions where it is
learned. History has taught us well that these
efforts will fail. We are certain that no weapons
will succeed against our yeshivos.”
The Court Against the City
An equally dramatic scene unfolded on
Sunday morning at the home of Rav Chaim
Kanievsky in Bnei Brak. The roshei yeshiva
and its administrators arrived at Rav Chaim’s
home to inform him of the events of the previous
night, and Rav Chaim became enveloped
in distress. He was pained by the bittul
Torah of dozens of talmidim, as well as by
the attack directed against all that is sacred.
The roshei yeshiva were alarmed by the
gadol hador’s revulsion at the news and by
his harsh reaction. “May Hashem help that
that rosha will have a great downfall,” Rav
Chaim declared. He also gave his brachos
for the talmidim of the yeshiva to continue to
learn and for its administration to overcome
the challenges that had suddenly beset them.
In case anyone thought that the city’s actions
were part of a legal procedure, or that it
was a standard response to illegal construction,
those illusions were dispelled by a judge
from the Shalom Court in Haifa. In a lengthy
ruling, she attacked the municipality and its
officials for acting contrary to the law and
to all reason. The judge’s ruling came in response
to a petition filed by the yeshiva the
very next day, on Monday, asking the court
to issue a temporary injunction against the
Haifa municipality. The roshei yeshiva were
not surprised to see that the court accused the
city of acting illegally and without authority.
The public, though, was shocked. It was the
strongest condemnation of the mayor of Haifa
that had been heard in a long time.
Judge Idit Weinberger noted in her decision
that the municipal workers had destroyed
the yeshiva, and that the municipality
had confirmed that “it did not have any order
or court decision” that called for their actions.
She also stressed that “the respondent
[i.e., the municipality] made a serious legal
error, as the clauses of the law to which it referred
do not give it the authority to act as it
did.” She also ruled that “there is no basis for
the claim that the claimant is not an organization
with the right to lease the building.”
The judge’s criticism of the municipality
did not end there. She went on to write
that “the respondent [the municipality] would
have done well to examine the facts and the
legal situation in greater depth before acting
as it did.” Although the city claimed that the
yeshiva had violated the bylaws governing
the permitted uses of the building, “that does
not give the respondent the right to take the
law into its own hands and to evict the organization
or any other person who is in the
building with its permission.
The judge also found that the terrible destruction
was both illegal and unreasonable.
“One can see that the dozens of workers who
came to the building to carry out the eviction
broke the walls and destroyed the facility,”
she wrote. “The respondent’s counsel has
not given any explanation for this draconian
act on the part of the respondent, which was
committed without any injunction from the
court… The respondent has not demonstrated
the source of the authority that gives it the
right to revoke the claimant’s possession of
the building without legal process.”
The municipality, in its response, claimed
that they had not violated the rights of the
organization operating in the building, and
they hadn’t evicted its occupants, but the
judge refused to accept their claim. “This
claim is not being made in sincerity, since it
has been proven that the municipality evicted
everyone present and sealed off the building
to prevent anyone from entering it…. The respondent
violated the situation as it existed
before the petition was filed, and it took away
the right of use of the property that was held
for 35 years. Therefore, the claimant has the
right for an injunction to be issued to the respondent
to restore the situation as it was.”
The judge’s ruling ordered the city to return
the building to its occupants and to cover
their legal fees of 10,000 shekels.
The Power of the
Torah Triumphs
Mickey Alper is not at all surprised by the
story. Alper personally went to the yeshiva
on Motzoei Shabbos to observe the situation.
“I am a public official, and I have seen
many things in my life,” he related, “but I
have never seen this kind of brutality. When
I came to the yeshiva on Motzoei Shabbos
and I saw the criminality, the takeover of a
private building, and the way the city took
the law into its own hands, I felt that I was
witnessing something terrible. There is no
way that we can make peace with this kind
of anarchy.
“I am not speaking only as a chareidi,”
Alper continued. “These are my feelings as
a resident of the city. Today it is happening
to us. Tomorrow it might happen to a different
community. Yahav is failing in his position
as mayor, and we are going through very
difficult times with him running the city. We
are believing Jews who know that everything
comes from Hashem and that he is merely
a shliach, but we daven that his shlichus in
Haifa should end soon.
“For anyone who insists that this is merely
a political issue,” Alper went on, referring
obliquely to several officials in the municipal
government, “the pictures of the destruction
show us Yahav’s plans regarding the future
of Torah in Haifa. His downfall has already
begun, and it will probably continue.”
The municipality also responded to the
accusations against it. City officials claim
that no vandalism was committed and no seforim
were damaged. They maintain that the
building belongs to the city and was leased
to Yad HaRambam, and the organization did
not have the right to sublet it to another institution
without the city’s approval. “It is a
violation of the lease, and that is why we ordered
the eviction,” they claim.
This is a very sad story. In Israel of 2018,
it is difficult to believe that such a thing
could happen. If there is one ray of light in
all of this darkness, though, it is the talmidim
of the yeshiva themselves. Despite all the
trauma and destruction that they have been
through, they are continuing to amaze the
people of Haifa with their hasmadah. As one
of the rabbeim in the yeshiva told us, “The
bochurim will elevate this tragedy and turn
it into a source of chizuk and growth. They
are learning in temporary botei medrash, but
their learning hasn’t stopped for a moment.
The power of the Torah, together with the
brachos of tzaddikim, will always emerge
victorious.

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A Victory For The Chareidi Tzibur In Haifa Against City Hall After Evicting Yeshiva

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