US Students Assaulted And Beaten Bloody By Jewish Gang In Israel

Kibbutzniks, Arab family rush to protect injured Americans.

US students attacked at Kinneret beach
Yaakov Lappin , THE JERUSALEM POST

A visit to Israel by five young American Jews turned into a nightmare on Friday evening when they were set upon by a large gang of intoxicated thugs armed with metal poles, rocks and chairs on a Lake Kinneret beach, in a brutal and unprovoked attack.

Isaac, 21, from Los Angeles, who asked that his last name be withheld, spoke to The Jerusalem Post about the harrowing experience, hours before boarding a flight back to the US, where he will undergo another check to ensure that he has not sustained any brain damage.

"I need another post-emergency room CAT scan," he said by phone.

"This is Israel and I'm Jewish. I came here for many reasons. I always thought this is the place where I would be safe. The men who attacked us were also Jews," he said.

After completing a semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Isaac had volunteered to teach English to asylum-seekers and migrant workers. Together with another American student and three American Jewish volunteers from programs around the country, the group settled down on the Ein Gev beach, on the eastern shore of the Kinneret, for a weekend break.

"Next to us were 10 young men speaking and singing in Hebrew and playing techno music. They were drinking. My friend and I were swimming in the water, when we looked up and saw that a bunch of guys had approached us. One of them started yelling in Hebrew, saying my friend looked at his girlfriend," Isaac said. "He head-butted my friend in the face, and my friend started to bleed."

The assault was only the first in a series of escalating and severe attacks.

Three men proceeded to set upon Isaac's friend, while another three began attacking Isaac.

"We managed to get to shore. They picked up rocks and wooden chairs. One of them repeatedly smashed the chair on my head, until there was nothing left but a splinter," Isaac said.

At this stage, Isaac managed to flee his attackers. He ran down the beach, where he met an Arab family, made up of old women, children, and two men.

"They told us we were safe, that no one would attack us. We thanked them and walked away. Then the attackers arrived and began assaulting the family," Isaac recounted.

The Arab family was pelted with rocks, while Isaac once again found himself outnumbered and under attack.

"A metal pole was smashed into my back and a rock was dropped on my head. I was covered in blood, and didn't see much after that. My forehead was split open," he said.

A group of kibbutz members on the beach then intervened. "One of them was a doctor and began treating us. Someone called the police."

By this time, both the Arab family and the kibbutz members had congregated around the American youths, and made a heroic effort to capture their attackers by forming a human fence around the parking lot's exit to prevent the gang from escaping.

"The young men who assaulted us jumped in their cars, but all the men and women on the beach got in front of the cars and wouldn't let them leave. The cars reversed away from the people and then shot forward at 40 to 50 kilometers an hour toward the group. Anyone standing there would have been killed," said Isaac. His helpers were forced to jump out of the way.

Having cleared the path for their getaway, the gang then duped the police, who had just arrived on the scene in a number of patrol cars.

The attackers were stopped by officers just outside the beach's parking lot, but told police they had been the ones who were assaulted, adding that they felt their lives to be in danger. The men asked police if they could move away from the scene.

In the ensuing pandemonium, with civilians on the beach still trying to stop the attackers from fleeing, officers recorded the license plate number of their two vehicles before allowing the attackers to drive away, instructing them to pull over further down the road. Needless to say, the attackers sped away.

Police subsequently used the license plate numbers to trace one member of the gang. A 25-year-old suspect from Kiryat Ata was arrested after being identified during a line-up. Police will seek to extend his custody on Tuesday.

Tiberias police chief Dep.-Cmdr. Efi Partuk told the Post that an internal inquiry would be launched to examine the police's initial response, but added that it was easy to see how officers were at first confused by the chaotic scene.

"When officered arrived and saw what looked like people attempting to harm the attackers, the first consideration was safety. They sought to regain control of the scene first, and noted the license plate numbers of the cars," Partuk said. "I believe we cannot judge them [negatively] for their actions."

He added that a team of investigators was working around the clock to arrest additional suspects, and that police were focusing on tracing the attackers' elusive second vehicle.

"This is a severe case, and a senior officer has been assigned to it. We have also sent material to state prosecutors, and a prosecutor has been assigned to this case," Partuk added. "We will succeed in tracing the other suspects."

While recovering in hospital and in intense pain, Isaac had reconsidered plans to lead a birthright-Israel tour around the country after graduating from college, though he now says he will proceed with his plans. "After hearing so many Israelis react with fury to what happened, and with everyone being so incredibly helpful, that's really comforting," he said.

Isaac is suffering from breathing problems due to the rock that was smashed against his collarbone, but he was able to walk a bit on Monday.

He expressed hope that the thugs responsible for his ordeal would be arrested.

"If nothing happens, I don't know how I'll feel safe," he said.

Comments

[shneerhere]

Our world is falling apart. I don't know if they were drunken Russians or vintage Sabras.... this is so wrong. What is happening to us? Madoff, Rubashkin, Milken,Greenberg? Now this? Can't say its only in the non-Torah world either. What is happening?!

[Shmarya]

80 to 100 years of really bad rabbinic leadership combined with the same for the past 25 or 30 in the secular Jewish world.

[MisterApikoros]

Milken did far more good than evil. And which Greenberg are you talking about here? "Ace," who did an outstanding job running Bear Stearns, only to see his efforts undone by Jimmy Cayne? Or Hank Greenberg of A.I.G., again, not the culprit; that was his successor who couldn't manage the company and allowed it to turn into a hedge fund with disastrous results?

Blame Eliot (Client No. 9) Spitzer for A.I.G.'s demise. By forcing tough-as-vanadium-steel Greenberg out, he allowed the monkeys to take over the zoo.

[pierre]

that they were speaking hebrew and listening to techno on an israeli beach in no way does it follow that they're Jewish. that fact should also add to the impact of the victims point about believing Israel to be a safe place for Jews. violence in israeli schools abounds, not infrequently they are ANTISEMITIC incidents, due to secular russians who are not halachically Jewish getting all the benefits of Israeli Jewish citizenship. Russian-language church attendence in Israel has skyrocketed since Israel has begun accepting remotely "Jewish" russians into the country - remotely Jewish includes those who have somewhere amidst the scraps of official documents ONE that could be rendered as indicating a Jewish grandparent, etc. forget not the incident of russian Neo-Nazi ("National Bolsheviks" likely) cells in the Israeli army.

[pierre]

russian gerim are a different issue; many, many don't bother and have no such Jewish religious or "culturally Jewish" identity enough to bother. and they are the above mentioned element.

[Michael Makovi]

I'm completely supportive of mass giyur for those Russians who want to be "Jewish", even if not observant. I follow Rabbi Angel and Professor Zvi Zohar on this one.

But those Russians who are antisemitic and don't consider themselves Jewish at all, why do they remain in the country? Send them back to Russia, and if we cannot do so, dump them in the ocean.

[MisterApikoros]

Where is the proof that these thugs are "Russian," and therefore (in the eyes of the "yidden") suspect as Jews?

Doesn't Israel have its own, home-grown thugs? Were Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Schultz, Longy Zwillman, and Abe Reles not American Jewish thugs, halaichally Jewish?

Are secular Israelis necessarily angels?

[pierre]

russian immigrants, like many Israelis, use israel as a place to save/make money, learn academic/trade/military skills, acquire english proficiency then move to america. I don't think R. angel and prof. zohar blanket support any "mass" gerut.

[itchiemayer]

MM - I am not doing this to be argumentative, but to play devil's advocate - so in other words, you are in favor of mass conversion of non-observant Russians so that they will be judged by G-d unfavorably for violating shabbos, kashrus etc..whereas if they don't convert they won't be judged harshly for these offenses.
You could be in favor of doing them a huge disservice. Speaking of Lansky and Siegel, I would love to find old episodes of the short-lived tv show, The Ganster Chronicles.
I recall they had an episode where the Lansky or Siegel character was getting married, yarmulke and all. Lansky actually served a purpose in taking on American Nazis during the 30's and 40's, using his gang of hoodlums in the shipyards of NY. He is a fascinating character.

[MisterApikoros]

Itch, the guy who was best known for aiding the war effort was Lucky Luciano. I'm sure that Lansky and Siegel did their bit as well, being that the Murder Inc. guys were very patriotic. In fact, Murder Inc. beat up on many Bundists in the late 1930's and early 1940's, just as you say.

One gangster who missed out on much of the fun was Abe Reles. That's because in either 1940 or 1941 he "fell" from a sixth-floor window in a hotel room in Coney Island where he was being held in "protective" custody by New York's finest.

[omg]

What about Rabbi Fred Neulander, who had his wife killed by a hit man,(read, "The Rabbi and the Hit Man), so he would be free to carry on with his girlfriend. Rabbi, father of 2, mashugena, criminal, twisted head, in jail, had the mother of his children killed, a rabbi! Can you imagine!

[WoolSilkCotton]

Rabbi Neulander, while out on bail, was persona non grata at the temple where he was the rabbi. So he attended Shabbos services at the Chabad of Cherry Hill.

[omg]

Thanks, WSC, now does that not make sense. Chabad probably thought it was a good thing, that maybe they would get some extra attention if a murderer-of-his-wife rabbi attended THEIR shul.
Well, they probably sympathized with him, poor guy got caught!!
A bunch of gangsters!

[ML]

Any time there's something like this people want to assume it's the "Russians." Russians, especially one's with little assumed Jewish blood, are blamed like the boogie man. It was probably native Israelis believe it or not. Face the truth and stop blaming the boogie men.

[Ben]

Pierre, do you have any support (other then you prejudace) for the idea that the criminals were Russians with little to no Jewish blood?

Why don't you think it was a bunch of Israeli Arabs? Why not a bunch of Israeli Jews? Why not bunch of pure blooded Russian Jews?

You sound like a secular leftist Jewish racist.