According to multiple media reports, MK Yakov Cohen (UTJ) was assaulted at the Knesset Tuesday – reportedly by a Justice Ministry official. He was taken to the Knesset’s medical clinic for treatment. Cohen told Ynet that he was assaulted by Justice Ministry official Amnon De Hartuch following “a heated argument over the Torah’s values.”
“Even my father never hit me this way,” Cohen said. “He gave me a slap like I’ve never received before. My world went dark. I call on the justice minister to dismiss him.”
According to Ynet, eye witnesses stated that Cohen told De Hartuch, “You’re destroying the Torah world”. De Hartuch responded by saying, “You are a beast, shut your mouth”.
Cohen then said, “You’re worse than the Germans; they wanted to destroy the body and you want to destroy the soul”. De Hartuch said to him, “If you don’t shut up I’ll slap you”. Cohen replied, “I’m waiting”.
At this point De Hartuch slapped Cohen, the witness said. A Knesset guard who witnessed the exchange immediately apprehended De Hartuch and took him to a nearby room.
De Hartuch was detained for questioning by the police.
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44 Responses
And they call Israel a democracy. What a joke.
It should be noted that De Hartuch is possibly the biggest enemy of teh Torah world in E”Y today. He is the official behind all the cuts to Kollelim, yeshivos, chinuch atzmai, etc. He wears a ‘kipa’, but is a groisseh sonei yisrael. (See lengthy Yated article just last week)Hopefully, he’s gone overboard, and will get a comeuppance now!
Although assaultinga fellow Jew or anyone for that matter is a disgrace, instead of giving an answer like ‘i’m waiting’, he would have gained a lot more respect by implying that its primitive to talk like this amongST EACHOTHER. He might have been assaulted anyways, but then at least he took the diginified way instead of being sarcastic!
This is Israel’s corrupt “Justice” Ministry at its best.
How far have we fallen….. This a “justice” official in the Knesset blatantly hitting another person. The De Hartuch is an old charedi hater. He is currently trying to get all the kollelim to be defunded etc etc. Every few months new sly plots etc aimed at the charedi Torah population schools etc.
The whole thing is wrong as he is interviewed here saying that De Hertuch called him a german first. So he answered if I’m german you’re definitely one. He adds he was sure that he’s joking about slapping him.
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/606/932.html
this just goes to show how corrupt the israeli government is. i know reb yaakov cohen he is a tzaddik.
Amnon, what an appropriate name for this character! So Yiddishkeit is Tamar… where is Avshalom?
reb chaim was right the tziyonim are choshud aretzicha!
This is the zionist way. To beat the Jews. It has been the case throughout the history of the zionist state.
Cohen’s statement You’re worse than the Germans; they wanted to destroy the body and you want to destroy the soul. is right on the mark.
well torahis1 Look waht was on this VERY site just last week (“coincidentally”)
Justice Ministry Official, the Reform Movement and Ha’aretz Join Forces Against Chareidi Jewry
July 6, 2007
A high-ranking Justice Ministry official, the Reform Movement and Ha’aretz have joined forces to wage an unprecedented battle against chareidi Jewry, trying to bring its institutions to the point of collapse by cutting off or reducing budget funding based on “professional considerations.”
For years complaints have been heard repeatedly about Atty. Amnon De Hartoch, who oversees support for institutions within the government and is known for seeking out every opportunity to scheme against Torah-based schools and institutions. Often resorting to totally groundless interpretations of various laws and regulations, he works tirelessly to cut off funding sources for Torah institutions, avreichim, schools, teachers, transportation to Chinuch Atzmai schools, etc. The primary victims of his directives are yaldei Yisroel, who are forced to suffer ongoing, unprecedented and systematic abuse for choosing to attend chareidi schools.
In the course of the cultural war he is trying to wage, De Hartoch has also issued sophisticated, brazen unrestrained remarks reflecting his personal sentiments against the chareidi public, mainly in a personal court case he filed.
“A destructive triumvirate has declared war,” said MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni. “This trio has three heads, each one hammering away constantly with its sledgehammer, and all three are coordinating their stances.” Rabbi Gafni’s remarks are a reference to De Hartoch’s new link with his friend Gilad Kariv of the Reform Movement, who has often filed High Court petitions against the chareidi education system and recently even filed a complaint to the Knesset Ethics Committee for insulting a public worker. Meanwhile Ha’aretz has been publishing articles filled with defamatory remarks — without providing support or reactions — solely intended to deprecate the chareidi public.
Representatives from the State Comptroller’s department in charge of government ministries began investigating a detailed complaint submitted by Rabbi Gafni regarding De Hartoch’s conduct. After several meetings with De Hartoch, another meeting is expected to be held between De Hartoch and the State Comptroller and his staff.
De Hartoch has been known to take advantage of his vested authority to trample over the chareidi education system at every possible opportunity. In one incident he instructed the City of Hadera to close a local Chinuch Atzmai school, Shuvu, for “lack of structural suitability.” A high-voltage electrical line ran close to the school, supposedly posing a risk of electromagnetic radiation to the students. In this and other cases, claims Rabbi Gafni, De Hartoch exceeded his authority since support funding is unrelated to environmental issues.
De Hartoch once tried to deprive chareidi teachers of their salary during the summer break and was harshly reprimanded by the State Comptroller. In another case he made a unilateral decision to require 45 hours of weekly study at kollelim, but later, to invent a new interpretation to undermine the Torah world in another area, he decided to claim avreichim are required to study 35 hours per week.
Recently the Knesset had to legislate a special law to require local authorities to provide chareidi schools equal funding in order to remedy the damage caused by De Hartoch, who had ordered local authorities to deny the schools basic funding. On other occasions he has worked to take away funding from Torah-based cultural activities and rabbonim in outlying settlements. Recently he issued a new directive effectively depriving the Torah Core Group run by the chareidi community in Yeruchom of funding, re-channeling it to a national-religious Torah Core Group in the city.
For years Ha’aretz has been abetting these efforts by running innumerable articles against the chareidi public and chareidi MKs. Public figures have expressed surprise that in most cases the reports failed to include reactions from chareidi spokesmen — a clear departure from journalistic ethics — and said these articles are tendentious and extreme in terms of style. Presumably Ha’aretz, often considered a very professional, highbrow daily, would never write such articles about the Arab sector, for example.
(Article written by: By Betzalel Kahn for Dei’ah ve’Dibur)
You mean, people don’t say or do stupid things in a democracy? Hmmm…doesn’t leave too many true democracies in the world…
MFox: In democracies legislators and government officials do not assault their opposition. Israel is a (legally and morally) corrupt state.
torahis1: His assaulting a Yid is not reason enough that this rasha m’rusha should be vilified? You need to get your anti-hareidi priorities straight.
Torahis1: You can find a detailed list in last week’s Yated. Erev Shabbos Pinchas July 6.
De Hartuch, Reform Movement and Ha’aretz
in 3-Pronged Attack Against Chareidi Jewry
After years of enduring Amnon de Hartuch, the lawyer in charge of allocations in the Justice Ministry, plotting against the chareidi community and its institutions, UTJ MK Rav Moshe Gafni has begun to fight back. After he submitted a recent complaint to the State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss of De Hartuch’s machinations against chareidi schools, the State Comptroller responded by interrogating De Hartuch once, and plans to interrogate him again in the near future. Not one to take a forceful response sitting down, De Hartuch is fighting back by seeking to impose new gezeiros on the chareidi community.
De Hartuch who is a member of the liberal dati community, is in a position to have a particularly poisonous impact, due to the power concentrated in his hands as controller of the purse strings for allocations in the Justice Ministry.
He proclaims that his decisions are based on “professional reasons” but uses his lawyer’s shrewdness to search for legal loopholes and hairsplitting legal interpretations of existing laws to hold back state benefits from the chareidim which every other citizen enjoys. There has been no genre of chareidi institutions which has not been threatened by his actions across the board — from kindergartens all the way to kollels. The victims of his actions are mostly children and students who are made to suffer when transportation, janitorial and other vital schools services are withheld.
In past years, the elites’ long-standing method of getting rid of upstart politicians was to engineer an investigative report on the politician by Yediot’s Motty Gilat which would inevitably include shocking revelations (often with a weak factual basis), followed by a police investigation with a recommendation for prosecution, and years long entanglement in the courts.
Now De Hartuch is using the same tactics to attack the chareidi community.
MK Moshe Gafni explains how it works: “A lethal triangle has declared war against us. This triangle has three points, each one applying its own sledgehammer, and together they coordinate positions.” De Hartuch manufactures some complaint against chareidi institutions, Ha’aretz publishes a lurid article about the latest chareidi ‘crimes’ and ‘state embezzlement’, and Attorney Kariv of the Center for Religious Pluralism (Reform), a friend of De Hartuch, hurries to file a suit against the chareidi institutions.
Kariv has filed numerous lawsuits against chareidi institutions and individuals. In his latest suit, he accused MK Moshe Gafni of “insulting a public official” by complaining about De Hartuch’s conduct to the State Comptroller.
MK Moshe Gafni has complained to the Knesset Ethical Committee, “There is no area in the chareidi education of all ages and kinds that [Kariv] and his friends have not appealed to the High Court about, beginning with funding kindergartens, elementary schools, high schools, post-high schools, yeshivos ketanos, yeshivos gedolos, and kollels…”
Ha’aretz’s articles against the chareidi community and chareidi politicians, do not maintain the minimum journalistic ethical requirement of asking a chareidi representative to explain the community’s position.
Articles by Michal Arlozorov and Yuval Yoaz present De Hartuch as an honest government official persecuted by chareidi sharks Gafni and Ravitz. Among their claims: the chareidi school teachers are mediocre, the level of teaching has dropped with the outrageous financing of the Education Ministry, the ministry supports discrimination in the schools, which educate against democracy and is educating the upcoming generation of beggars, the chareidim don’t pay taxes, and they suck the marrow of the State like vampires. One line typical of many others: “And so the State of Israel, like whales which commit suicide on the beach, is destroying its economic and democratic future with open eyes.”
Despite many university studies which show the high level of chareidi schools, not to mention the excellent behavior and strong moral fiber and civic values of its students — in comparison to the violent, uncontrollable, inferior educational level of the government schools — Ha’aretz in its campaign to counteract the growing number of families who prefer to send their children to chareidi schools has no compunction about disseminating these canards.
Rav Gafni said he spoke with David Landau, the editor of Ha’aretz about the series of libel articles against chareidim that appeared in Ha’aretz, and Landau shamefacedly admitted that it was a crime and a genuine embarrassment.
Among the measures which De Hartuch attempted to cut back funding for chareidi institutions:
1) It temporarily closed down the Shuvu school in Chadera because of concerns of electromagnetic radiation from a close high tension wire located nearby — despite this being in the jurisdiction of the Environmental Ministry and not the Justice Ministry where De Hartuch presides.
2) He tried to eliminate the income paid to Chinuch Atzmai teachers on sabbatical — a measure for which he was rebuked by the State Comptroller
3) He determined on his own that avreichim must study 45 hours in kolel a week — based on a Defense Ministry document issued concerning the deferment of kolel students which was irrelevant to funding issues — or else lose their state allocations. But when it came to a system proposed to provide life insurance for avreichim to be deducted from their income, he claimed that they only have to study 35 hours and therefore are not eligible.
4) He ruled that funding for chareidi schools (which are ensconced in State law) is optional for a municipality, and instructed municipalities to not pay the funding they had previously paid. This sent the chareidi MKs scrambling to pass a law returning municipal support of chareidi schools like all others, which was proposed by Shas MK Nahari and recently passed
5) He has refused to release budgets to pay for transportation of students of chareidi schools who live in small towns and have to travel to reach their school in another town. After claiming that Chinuch Atzmai students received “preferred” transportation conditions above public school children (5% of the total hundreds of millions of shekels in transportation costs despite being 20% of all school children), he stopped the transportation payments and also forbid municipalities to bear the costs. Afterwards he said he would “comprehensively” inspect the situation concerning transportation, but in the meantime, wouldn’t give out a penny. Months are dragging by with the schools suffering one crisis after another over the transportation, with children unable to get to school.
6) The Education Ministry decided that every school must learn the LIBA civil studies program, and would only get state funding if they learned at least 75% of the program. Although many chareidi schools study the full program (and many secular schools do not), De Hartuch arbitrarily decided that chareidi schools only study 75% of the program and therefore, will have 25% deducted from their state allocations.
7) Although the State permits certain soldiers to do their service as teachers in developmental towns, De Hartuch decided that this arrangement is not permissible to chareidi conscripts. He proclaimed, “We don’t have to give a prize to draftdodging yeshiva students.”
8) Teachers who spend time preparing their students for the final Bagrut exams are generously compensated. Chareidi teachers who do the same for their students who are doing the chareidi equivalent to Bagrut — which is just as challenging — do not get compensation. Many teachers suffered considerable economic losses due to De Hartuch’s decision to prevent them from receiving the wages they deserve.
“If de Hartuch is so much in favor of equality as he says,” says MK Gafni, “Why don’t these teachers get the same compensation that the secular teachers get for the same work?”
5) He insists that rabbonim serving small towns will not be paid their salaries unless they live in the town — despite the law requiring this only of rabbonim of large towns. In this measure, De Hartuch has targeted rabbis who for obvious reasons will be reluctant to move their religious families to small backwaters without suitable schools and friends for their children.
6) He has held back funding for chareidi cultural events, not permitting it to grow behind the paltry amount it is funded now. At the present, chareidi cultural funding is far below the chareidi percent of the population (15%). In Yerushalayim, a city with a close to 40% chareidi population, of the two dozen beautiful community centers available to the public, only the ones in Har Nof, Ramat Shlomo, and Romema are under chareidi control. The community centers in Bucharim’s 95% chareidi neighborhood and Ramot’s 80% chareidi neighborhood has been under the control of a secular minority that hasn’t held elections in 2 decades and whose members just bring in their friends to dispense the millions of shekels of municipal funding they receive.
7) He has stipulated funding criteria as only going to religious Zionist activists who move to small towns to give chizuk to the local population. In Yerucham, which has a large Torah activist community for 30 years with immense reachout, the funding went to a new tiny dati leumi group which just arrived instead of to the large chareidi kehilla which had been working to develop Torah in the city for years. When De Hartuch was forced to remove the “dati leumi” criteria from the law, he inserted a clause that any other activist group that already was approved to received funding will retain it even if other, larger activist groups are active in the town.
De Hartuch’s hostility to the chareidi community is clearly at least partially motivated by personal motives. During a struggle 4 years ago between the Bais Yaakov in Ramot Gimmel that was bursting at the seams to receive some of the empty classrooms of the adjoining Government religious school, De Hartuch was among the parents most active in spearheading the legal battle to retain the empty school.
Way to prove Rabbi Cohen right. Amazing how while arguing about the destruction of the soul he showed how his was already destroted. We must daven for the recovery of our brethrens souls.
MFox – You’re hatred of hareidim shows clearly from your comment. You say this rasha m’rosha who assaulted a Yid doesn’t represent the zionists despite what he is doing in the name of zionism, yet you label the misguided youth who do wrong as throngs of charedi hooligans who represent a community unhinged.
torahis1, thanks for your support of the anti-hareidi decisions, like taking food from the mouths of hungary children and support for Torah learning, of these zionist punks. Is there any decision of theirs you do not support? I am glad you feel the seculars frustrations.
One thing I do agree, the best approach is the Brisk/Satmar way of not taking the zionists dirty money and not dealing with their corrupt political system.
I like that idea. The Brisk (and Satmar, Toldos Aharon, etc.) way, is the way to go. Don’t vote in their corrupt system, don’t take their blood money, and don’t support them with any of your money.
Have nothing to do with the zionist anti-Torah machine.
Moshe Fox, I cannot fathom how in your world-view De Hartuch, a known anti-semite based on his history, had a right to be upset at Cohen when De Hartuch called Cohen You are a beast, shut your mouth before Cohen gave him his retort.
torahhis, how can you say De Hartuch had some good reasons for some of his decisions ? Do you share his hostility to the Torah world? Do you too have an axe to grind against Chareidim (as you put it)?
And how can either of you support someone who resorts to physical violence and publically assaults a fellow Jew? (Aside from his history of going out of his way to make trouble for Torah Jews.) This man belongs in prison.
After reading these comments above I am so ashamed – I realize that this website is possibly like the chazir-fis: It appears to be kosher but when you peel inside it is full of Lashon Hara. Where is the heter for talking this way about yidden??
Since Briskers, Satmars and others who take no $$ etc., use the bus system, electrical and water supplies plus avail themselves of hospital services some hakaras hatov is necessary (yidden owed pharoh a thank you, lehavdil).
Fox and torah1 deserve an opinion also.
torahis, your hostility towards Torah Yidden is apparent. You support those who actively harass and suppress the Torah (like De Hartuch), yet attack Bnei Torah (painting with a broad brush those in “Beit Shemesh” and “Meah Shearim”).
Horrible fighting in the Knesset.
Temper tantrums by the uncontrollables.
How lucky can the Jewish people be to have such leadership….vais mer
wsx,
Although again I condemn De Haruch, you cannot accuse whoever is critical of Cohen’s comment to be anti charedi. Just because one doesn t always agree with a comment made by the Frum does not mean he is anti Frum. Criticism of our own is very appropriate when required!
LOLOLOL@post nos. 20,,,,,
go to http://www.kol israel.com & you will see what happend in the knesset today. hey you never know what’s next I wonder what whould happen if someone in the knesset whould smack p”m olmert in the face ? look who’s running the contry !!!! if your in israel & you happen to watch arutz 99( hakneset) you will see how bad it is . its like a lot of clowns running the state of israel……..
Fox, how can you say that the RASHA who lifted his hand against a Jew does not represent this corrupt Justice department when it’s a well-known fact that the Israeli Justice department would do anything against religious Jews?
“Cohen’s stupid remark”? His remark was right on the money. Cohen said with his mouth to this anti-Chareidi RASHA what every Jew thinks about him FOR YEARS.
The police in Beth Shemesh are furious at signs all over stating to dress modestly. Where are the police when the Leftists self-hating Jews hang Syrian flags at the entrance to Jerusalem?
#22. “innocent passersby in meah shearim” Walking around Meah Shearim like they’re on a beach are NOT “innocent passerby”.
sayit, the Briskers and others who don’t avail themselves to the zionists treif money for their mosdos, etc. not only do not owe them anything, but the zionists own the Briskers, etc. for paying taxes and yet refusing zionist government services. As far as bus, water, electric, etc. they pay for those services directly. Certainly all their tax dollars they pay while refusing government funds they are otherwise entitled too, offsets any ‘general’ service that is used.
own should read owe
torahhis, you keep skirting the point made by others (wsx, etc. about your broad brushed attacks on Chareidim and your understanding why people have an “axe to grind against Chareidim” in your words) and give answers you think is humorous. Obviously all you know is how to attack the Torah abiding Jews in E. Yisroel.
torahhis, why do you skirt the questions (broad-brushed attacks on chareidim… your axe to grind against Chareidim (as you put it)…) presented to you regarding your statements? Your attempt at “humor” is not only not funny, it doesn’t answer the serious charges.
Moshe,
‘ both men should publicly apologize to each other (De Hartuch has apologized; I WONT HOLD MY BREATH FOR COHEN…..)’
You are absolutly right about the primitive equation being made between Nazis and Zionists, but prey tell, how does a comment like ‘i wont hold my breath about Cohen ‘ not exemplify ANTI CHAREDI sentiments???
Mr. Fox, you have no basis to complain of the mosdos use of State funds even if they oppose the State, as they are taxpayers. You’re bias is striking.
Torahis1
I am just reading between the lines. Had MF expressed himself by saying ‘It would be nice and appropriate for Cohen to apologize as well’, you’d be 100 per cent right. But being fesecious is certainly not appropriate for someone who is concerned about the spirit of the threee weeks!
Come on, whats your point??
All this foolish haggling aside, lets remeber one thing. The right-wing guy in Hevron who spilled hot tea on M”K Yael Dayan a few years back received THREE YEARS in prison. Which perhaps someone who assaults an elected official deserves. DOES ANYONE here thing that this De Hartuch guy will get a DAY in prison? Even an ndictment? Of course not, he only hit a charoode!
torahis1 – Be consistent about which point? Brisk (and Satmar, etc.) refuse to take a penny in State funds, despite the fact that their kehila pays taxes on their income and sales tax like everyone else.
The point is that they (Brisk, Satmar) go above and beyond the call of duty (Kol Hakovod) by doing so (not wanting to touch tainted money.) If an opponent of the State does accept funds for their mosdos, it is within their legal and moral right as their kehilas pay taxes to the State as well. Their opposition to the State notwithstanding.
If an opponent of the United States government accepted government funding for their schools, no one would complain as they are taxpayers as well. (But then again the analogy may not be the best since the United States, unlike Israel, is a democracy.)
Moshe – Again, the kehilas in Eretz Yisroel do pay taxes (income, sales, etc.) like everyone else. So you have no complaint against their receiving educational funds like everyone else.
If some in the kehila are too poor to pay taxes, they are within the same league as the secular poor. You can’t tax the poor for money they do not earn. In Israel or any society.
But in nearly every kehila there are always rich or middle class that do pay taxes.
So it seems apparent that your opposition to chareidi Yeshivos and Mosdos Torah from receiving State funds is biased by an anti-Torah Jew “philosophy”.
Dvorah,
If only it were THAT simple.
Fox, You referred to the throngs of charedi hooligans who represent a community unhinged
If that does not represent your sheer anti-hareidi views, I don’t know what does. Here you are attacking an entire Torah community, in so many words.
(And later you say I won’t hold my breath for Cohen. Only for your boy De Hartuch you’ll hold your breath for–cause you support his violent ways.)
Fox, no one is required to work, if they choose not too. And no one is required to serve in an army that is opposed to the Torah, as their Rabbeim have taught. Especially galling is your attacks on the “students”, your eponym for Kollel Yungerleit, who choose Torah over a morally corrupt and bankrupt State and army.
I am certain you do not support taxing the secular poor. To you, one dollar is a dollar too much for “students” of the Torah.
I agree with comment 44. It would be helpful if Yeshiva World would clearly formulate rules for what’s acceptable in comments. For what’s left of the 3 weeks I humbly suggest to only post comments that add factual details to Yeshiva World stories. Yeshiva World would do us a great service by printing an article a day about the sensitivity that we’re supposed to show ‘bain odom lechavairo’.
It is quite telling how the anti-chareidi commentators here are essentially attempting to turn what is an issue of a Torah-hating Jew who physically assaulted a Yid in a fit of violence, and turn it into something else.
It is quite clear from these commentators that they cannot address how a Jew can resort to violence against another Jew.
This issue of violence has dominated the entire history of that failed State in the holy-land. Every time the secularist are aroused in jealousy at the great success (which ironically they vehemently deny) of the Torah Yidden, they resort to their storm-trooper like violence. Charging into crowds of Yidden on horseback and beating to a pulp Jews for being too Jewish. Certainly reminiscent of how our enemies treated us.
How about a proposal? The Torah community will not pay any taxes to the corrupt State, and it will not take any funding from it either.
Joseph, I like that idea. The secularist though would oppose it. Otherwise Brisk, Satmar, etc. would take advantage of it already, as they don’t accept State funds as it is.
The secularist don’t want to disengage the Torah community. Otherwise who they have to vilify and blame for all their failures?
boring 😉
How can news that a Jew was assaulted be “boring”?
A Jew involved in an assault may be of interest, if we can help, learn something from it, change in the future etc., but MOE the last 15 comments are boring, sort of you slur, I slur or we all slur (and learn nothing from it!)