Israeli Haredi "Modesty" Squads Paid By Number Of Bones Broken, Report Says

Supposedly, the money comes…

… from outside Israel. Generous haredi philanthropists in London, Antwerp, Brooklyn and Montreal pay to keep haredi Jerusalem pure.

What exactly do they pay for? This:

…Former members describe a "military-like organization".

"I was pretty much into it", says Chess, who was active in the organization for four years. "We would meet in a regular meeting place and get our assignments. Every Thursday we would be on alert.

"I bought a club, so that I would have an easier time breaking bones. Some used irons. The job only get carried out after hard evidence was gathered. We would collect the evidence, and there was a hotline as well."

Whose bones did you break?

"You would have children misbehaving. An example would be this married woman who was sleeping around and cheating on her husband, so we closed in on her and beat her. This one time I came up to a woman and broke two of her bones. For two bones we would get $1,600 and divide it amongst ourselves. There was this one case where the guy was big and had big bones; we got $3,300 because he was a harder case."

A former member from the Geula neighborhood said, "I joined two years ago and I left. We would film people going to gay clubs in Tel Aviv with either a cell phone or a digital camera. The squad always looked for the ones running off to Tel Aviv because they thought that they were safe there, but they didn't know that we were onto them. Always."

"There was one guy in the neighborhood, we had information that he had porn films in his possession and that he would sell the films to other people. We immediately locked onto him. We followed him to where he was having dinner one Thursday. We broke two of his bones.

"We would go into orthodox chat rooms and forums. Those places are like Sodom and Gomorrah. There was a lot of sex chat. I pretended to play along and I met a married woman who was looking for men. Our goal was to get to the persons in charge of the forum through her. We started beating her, but she denied that she had anything to do with running the site, we believed her and the chat room is still operational."

Where does the money come from?

"A lot of our guys would fly abroad and get donations for our cause and come back a lot of dollars."…

[Hat Tip: Ben Max.]

Comments

[Sam]

Ugh.

[Bartley Kulp]

"A lot of our guys would fly abroad and get donations for our cause and come back a lot of dollars."…

I wonder what aliases they were using for their fund raising purposes?

Would they openly disclose their activities thus limiting the neighborhoods that they could get donations? May be they were posing for some fictitious organization that does uh, err, social work.

[norm]

The hareid aren't authentic Jews. We need to stop supporting them or concede their veto power over life in the Eretz Israel or the Diaspora. No Federation money for Bais Yaakovs or yeshieva's runm by nut rabbis

[Dave]

Norm, you're right on.
Also all movements have to start training sofrim A.S.A.P.
Can you believe that all the Torah scrolls we read from are produced by Haredim?
So we depend on them. No more dependence.

[norm]

Dave:

We have plenty of scrolls and you know what-we can produced them via foto copy. And they are also avialable in book form. So if someone needs to know whther its okay to flush a toilet on Shabbos they will still be able to refer to the Torah or read the Talmud.

And you are wrong there now are women who are producign Torahs-but of course you fundamentalist don't think that those count.

[Isa]

It is too bad that they do not bust the legs of child molesters.

[Dave]

Norm, I am not a fundamentalist. I do not care whether a sefer Torah is written by a man or a woman. The problem is that non-fundamentalist Jews are still either buying religious articles from Haredim or giving them charity. If we continue to fund them, we are complicit in their actions.

[reader]

Just another reason why every Jewish child should be taught self-defense.

[honestabe]

thank god for these beatings and ridiculous behavior or u guys would fly under the radar and the real abuse which u do by indoctrinating ur kids into a life of misery would go unnoticed...ill take a few broken bones any day over a childhood robbed of sports, proms, education and diversity...

[tzaddik ben Torah]

THIS is pure fiction and slanderous lie.I'm 'chareidi,non-chassidic and I know many non-chassidic men who are of very high caliber and learn Torah and some who are great scribes.They listen to radio,go to college,use the internet and do not fool around with anyone.I know many Hassidim and found a lot of evil,but not like your reports. That is exxaggerration.True,many can barely read or write or spell English,know nothing of World,American,or even Jewish history.They believe in fairy tales told about the magical powers and super smartneess of their rebbes,who know much less than the average frum normal Jew. Manners and decency are not taught and they are very sloppy.The women are much more cultured but have no say in running their households.

[tzaddik ben Torah]

Beating up anyone is a serious violation of Torah law. Long beards,peyos,tzitzis out over the shirt,dirty clothes (To fake poverty) do not make a man G_Dly. Talking during serv ices,praying at the wrong times,skipping most of what the general public prays,but shaking and singing do not make one spiritual.
THIS is pure fiction and slanderous lie.I'm 'chareidi,non-chassidic and I know many non-chassidic men who are of very high caliber and learn Torah and some who are great scribes.They listen to radio,go to college,use the internet and do not fool around with anyone.I know many Hassidim and found a lot of evil,but not like your reports. That is exxaggerration.True,many can barely read or write or spell English,know nothing of World,American,or even Jewish history.They believe in fairy tales told about the magical powers and super smartneess of their rebbes,who know much less than the average frum normal Jew. Manners and decency are not taught and they are very sloppy.The women are much more cultured but have no say in running their households.

[honestabe]

tzaddik, stop the propaganda...think for a minute...in every segment of society u will have a certain percentage of the youth that have rage and more testosterone than the norm...however, in secular societies this is somehow mitigated by sports, girls, clubs and other means of "gettin it out"..however in frum, and especially hasidic cultures, these options dont avail themselves, thus u have people who are itchin and beggin for mayhem...it only makes sense...debate and discuss the logic and dont fling generalizations and commentaries about people in the past u know...recognize the validity of the assertion that boys will be boys and without proper means of neutralizing evolutionary urges to battle and have sex u will end up with cars flipped over, burning of posters, broken glass and, yes, beatings to people considered worthy thereof...

[Anon]

Well, I do believe that paying based on performance is a good idea. At least they got that part right.