Rabbi Helping Palestinian Olive Harvest Attacked by Extremist
Israeli police said they were searching for a Jew accused of assaulting a leader of the Rabbis for Human Rights organization near Nablus.
The man, who The Jerusalem Post reported was described as a right-wing Jewish Israeli activist, on Friday allegedly lunged while holding a knife at Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who was not injured.
Ascherman was helping Palestinians harvest olives near the settlement of Itamar, not far from the West Bank city of Nablus, according to a spokesman for the group.
“The activist ran toward him [Ascherman] in a threatening way with a drawn knife,” a spokesman for Rabbis for Human Rights said.
A spokesman for the Judea and Samaria district of the Israel Police said that Ascherman and other Israeli left-wing activists remained in the grove after Palestinian farmers had finished their work there. An altercation broke out between the left-wing activists and right-wing ones, the police said.
The police spokesman added that officers were searching for the man suspected to attempting to stab Ascherman, who was not named.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
