16 Haredim Arrested In Jerusalem For Intimidating Soldiers, Police
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — Police in Jerusalem arrested 16 young men in the Haredi neighborhood of Me’a She’arim after they reportedly assaulted police officers posted to keep soldiers safe.
The incident Friday followed efforts by police to keep extremists in the neighborhood from assaulting other Haredim who serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
Haredi men were allowed an automatic exemption from serving until a 2014 law decreed they sign up for the army or other national service frameworks by 2017. While thousands of Haredi men comply with the new laws, extremists have taken to intimidate those who do.
Police officers and Border Police soldiers were put on alert in Me’a She’arim Friday afternoon, when many soldiers serving in bases return to their homes for the weekend. Officers intervened when hecklers began shouting and hurling objects at uniform wearers, Channel 2 reported, prompting police to make arrests.
Subsequently, dozens of men began to huddle around the arresting police officers, and some threw stones at them, forcing the Border Police to use crowd dispersal means and make more arrests.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
