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A protest was held in Bnei Brak on Tuesday afternoon 20 Kislev as part of the planned nationwide protests this week, solidarity with the Gerrer tzibur in Arad.
Minister Yaakov Litzman, a Gerrer Chossid, is leading the battle against Arad City Hall, which he insists is working hard to make life miserable for Gur in the city. He maintains the Gerrer tzibur is not receiving funding or other services and the straw that broke the camel’s back was an incident on a Shabbos in which secularists came in and began screaming and throwing seforim around to disrupt Shabbos tefilos.
This led to enlisting the support of both the litvish and chassidish communities and they have decided to hold protests this week. Degel Hatorah, representing the litvish community, has explained that while it backs the battle, it will not take part in protests until such times Gedolei Yisrael Shlita instruct them to do so, and this is yet to occur. Admorim Shlita of the Agudas Yisrael’s Moetzas Gedolei Yisrael have given the go-ahead for the protests this week.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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8 Responses
This is complete and utter nonsense. The Gerrers took over an established shul by force, are keeping the shul’s members out of the shul by force and now they are protesting?! Is there no limit to their (and MK Litzman’s) hypocrisy?
The bullying tactics of Gur are well documented. To see for oneself, wait in line at a Jerusalem bus stop, and notice how a group of Gerer chasidim standing in the back of the line, not to mingle, chas vechulent, with women, are suddenly in the bus first, using elbows and knees to their best advantage.
They usurped a community shul, and when they met their equals, they whine discrimination to anyone who would listen. This is simply low.
HMMMMMMM
Would anyone venture to assume that MK LITZMAN might be biased on this Gur issue?????
Tell your yeshiva bochur in Israel to learn mussar, do a chesed, give blood or visit the sick instead of joining in a huge machlokes!
As noted by Nos. 1 and 2, the Gerer Chassidim are not know as “pacifists” much less for their derech eretz so this whole charade about “demonstrating against secular intrusion on “THEIR” shul is a joke. What isn’t so funny is that there are some otherwise respected rabbunim including the Gur and Belz who have endorsed this chilul hashem either out of ignorance of the facts or a misguided effort to discredit the yidden who apparently had been peacefully davening at this shul for years before the Gerer takeover. I don’t know enough to say whether there were practical options for “sharing” the facility but that apparently was not what the Gerer wanted and they would accept nothing less than full control over access to and use of the building.
Many years ago, during a Knesia Gedolah, while Rav Shach zatzal was addressing the quorum, suddenly the standing room only crowd parted widely, as the Gerer rebber R Simcha Bunem entered the hall. Noticing how that swath was cleared using indiscriminate shoving and elbowing by the Gerer chasidim, Rav Shach, who was at the microphone, was heard to exclaim the word “chayos”, in their direction. R Simcha Bunem heard that too, and retorted – “chayos hakoidesh!!!”.
R Yaakov Kamenetzky, who was sitting at the dais, commented loudly enough to be heard – “efshar chayos, efshar chayos hakodesh, mentchen ober zehnen zey nisht”.
Not difficult to understand.
To the previous comments: let us assume that you are right about the facts, does this constitute enough of a reason to condone an intrusion by secularists on shabbos screaming and throwing seforim around? Is such a pogrom not enough to organise a protest?
Just as Lulav Hagozul is posul, so is davening in a shul hagozul posul.
The intrusion by the secularists was to stop the ongoing theft of the shul. Not really an intrusion by the secularists; rather the intrusion was by the chassidim.
Shalom…. seems like a fire versus fire fight!!! Work it out between the mayor