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Heshy Tischler has a ‘snitch list’ for journalists and critics he wants to be quiet

Heshy Tischler, an aspiring politician and the de facto leader of the protest movement which has spread through Orthodox Brooklyn the past two nights in response to New York’s new COVID-19 restrictions, told reporters that he has a “moser” list.

“Moser” is a Hebrew term for one who informs on the Jewish community to outside authorities, which according to the Bible warrants the death penalty. Such a court has not existed for nearly 2,000 years, but the term has been used more recently in discussions over the reporting of sexual abuse to secular authorities in Orthodox communities.

Tischler mentioned two men at the top of his list: Orthodox journalist Jacob Kornbluh, as well as Mordy Getz, who filmed a protest Tischler led on Tuesday night. At that event, Berish Getz, Mordy’s brother, was beaten and had to go to the hospital.

“Mr. Getz was up there filming people, supposedly posting to outside of the community, trying to embarrass us,” Tischler said in a video he tweeted out last night. “Again, he embarrassed the Jewish community like he always does. Him, and Mr. Kornbluh, I know you don’t want to hear it, these are the two guys at the top of my moser list.”

Wednesday night, Kornbluh, an ultra-Orthodox journalist, was attacked and called names like “Nazi” and “Hitler” as he tried to cover the protests in his home neighborhood of Borough Park.

The term moser has been associated with violent attacks and even murder before, Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin used the term to justify the murder.

“Everything I did, I did for my religious obligation to protect the nation of Israel from the ‘moser’ Yitzhak Rabin, as he was called by many rabbis who fear for the fate of the land of Israel and the people of Israel,” Amir told police after his arrest in 1995.

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