Bias: Haredi Rioter Portrayed As Hero By Jerusalem Post

As police are injured by stones thrown by haredim, and as haredim compare police to the Gestapo, the Post sees a haredi rioter as a hero.

No end in sight for police-haredim confrontations in Jerusalem
By MATTHEW WAGNER • Jerusalem Post

Ya'acov Klein, 22, lay unconscious in intensive care at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center Monday afternoon with a punctured liver after he was run over by two police trucks during what is  being called by veteran haredi activists the most violent street clash in Jerusalem's history.

Though his prone body was pale and frail, the result of many years spent indoors in the pursuit of Torah knowledge, Klein is being touted by the haredi community as a fearless holy warrior.

Klein on Sunday night tried unsuccessfully, but with surprising heroism and selfless ardor, to prevent police from removing the body of a 50-year-old homicide victim to take it for an autopsy.

The young yeshiva student's intention was pure, said his friends.

Without thinking of the potential risk, Klein stubbornly positioned his slim frame in front of a reinforced police vehicle weighing several tons.

His goal was to block the vehicle's exit from the scene of the stabbing murder in the heart of the haredi Mea She'arim neighborhood to the L. Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir.

For haredim, autopsies are an anathema.

"We believe that the unnecessary desecration of the dead causes irreparable damage to the soul," said Yoel Barminka, the sexton of the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, which was transformed into a kind of field hospital for wounded haredim after Sunday night's clash between haredim and police.

"We are not naturally violent or aggressive," added Barminka, who was an eyewitness to the clashes and to Klein's injuries. "But when it comes to desecration of the Shabbat or desecration of the dead we will do everything in our power to stop it, even if it places us in danger. It is something that we feel deep inside, deep in our hearts."

Klein is the latest and the most serious casualty of an ongoing street war between the Eda 

Haredit and the police. Although the Eda Haredit controls only a fraction of the rapidly growing haredi population that numbers about 700,000 nationwide, they are respected by many as the most authentic, die-hard ideologues of haredi Judaism who diligently maintain their strict dress codes, insular lifestyles and uncompromising fight to protect the delicate religious status quo in Jerusalem.

What began two months ago with the opening of the Carta parking lot on Shabbat - seen by Eda Haredit faithful and the wider haredi population as a blatant disruption of the status quo - was further complicated by the arrest of a haredi mother from the Toldot Aharon hassidic sect, accused by Jerusalem social workers and doctors of purposely starving her three-year-old son.

This past Shabbat violence escalated to new levels with rabbis representing Satmar, Toldot Aharon, and the Breslav hassidic movements personally taking part in the anti-parking lot demonstrations.

Rumors of purposeful police violence against the Shabbat demonstrators combined with the reports Sunday night that a Jew stabbed by a Palestinian in the heart of Mea She'arim was going to be autopsied sparked a spontaneous thronging of several hundreds haredim at the scene of the stabbing.

Police, resolved to remove the body, used tear gas, stun grenades and, according to haredi sources, shot live ammunition in the air in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

"We don't know where things are going to lead from here," said Yitzhak Weiss, a spokesman for the Satmar hassidim in Israel."We are concerned that there has been a dramatic change in the police's attitude towards us.

"Until now the was an unspoken understanding that while there were many ideological and religious differences between us, in the end both the police and the demonstrators were Jewish. But now we get the feeling that the police see us as a threat not different from the Arabs."

Even mainstream haredi leaders, such as Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush, have refrained from blaming the Eda Haredit for the violence and instead have placed the blame on Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

During in interview Monday on the Jerusalem radio station Kol B'Ramah, Porush said, "Today the haredi public understands the difference between a haredi mayor and a secular one. This whole situation was created as a result of the stupid decision to open the Carta parking lot."

Weiss said that Satmar, which historically holds the leadership of the Eda Haredit, is considering staging demonstrations against what they call "police brutality" and the "breaking international law" in front of Israeli embassies in cities across the world, from Melbourne to London to Antwerp to New York.

If Matthew Wagner had called Klein a hero in an op ed or in a signed editorial column, it would not be an issue. But that is not what Wagner and his Jerusalem Post editors did.

Wagner called Klein – who was part of a violent mob attacking police – a hero.

The Post is already the slowest major Israeli daily, often days behind the others in reporting news. And the Post is the most right wing of them all, having been taken over some years ago by neo cons who looted it, stealing the paper's assets while driving away all but the most ideologically committed staff.

I'm told – but haven't seen this first hand – that the Post even allowed Ruthie Blum to interview her brother John Podhoretz some years ago, without either mentioning the relationship – or that they are both children of Midge Dechter and Norman Podhoretz, the foundational neo con couple.

Blum's recent interview with Ronn Torossian is another example of bias. As a columnist, she has the right to bbe opinionated and to let those opinions color her reporting. But she does not have the right to skew facts and refuse to see evidence.

Other papers like Ha'aretz have reporters who also write opinion pieces and news analysis. And sometimes it is unclear on the Web what a particular piece is.

This is largely a function of translation and then digitalization. These pieces are in their third incarnation when we see them in English on the Internet.

But the Post is written in English to begin with. Nothing should be lost in a translation, because there is none.

I try to stay away from media criticism, in part because I know how easy it is to nitpick. At least a half dozen times in recent months, I've started to write piece just like this about Wagner's use of language and the Post's clear lack of editorial control.

Each time, I've ended up deleting my post before publication.

But Ya'acov Klein is no hero. He is a criminal, and so are the other haredim who have rioted nearly nonstop for months, often in bloody attempts to prevent  a woman who allegedly abused her child from being brought to justice.

These are not flower children or followers of Mahatma Gandhi. They are street thugs with blood on their hands.

Matthew Wagner needs to be reprimanded and the Post needs to apologize to all the residents of jerusalem and Bet Shemesh who have suffered at the hands of these criminals in kaftans and shtreimels.

Above left: A poster printed by Satmar hassidim headlined 'Murderers!' "The second attempted murder by the Zionist gestapo."

A recap of the weekend's violence.

More bias from the Jerusalem Post.

Comments

[Ben Amalek]

Israel's government is increasingly viewed by Jews across the world as weak and pathetic, and nobody respects the weak and pathetic. The long-range strategists of Hamas and Hezbollah undoubtedly are taking note of who they can count on to act as collaborators in the post-Zionist world to come.

[Aharon Varady]

I'm curious what sources inform this belief: "We believe that the unnecessary desecration of the dead causes irreparable damage to the soul." Could anyone with knowledge please inform me?

[R]

he basically tried to commit suicide by standing in front of an armoured truck. What a spoon.
There is nothing pure or holy in these people's actions or thoughts.

[effie]

Though his prone body was pale and frail, the result of many years spent indoors in the pursuit of Torah knowledge...

Who was it here that referred to this as being veal? I admit it - I laughed really hard.

[The Heilige Rebbe of Otisville]

Without thinking of the potential risk, Klein stubbornly positioned his slim frame in front of a reinforced police vehicle weighing several tons.
========================================

It is called Satmar style pancake

[JewishCynic]

While I'm certainly no fan of the Eda Haredit or Satmar I do want to point out the possibility that the police/municipal authorities have likely also mishandled the situation.

The police have a long reputation of heavy-handedness against the haredi.
These tensions are known, and also the haredi animosity toward autopsies is known.

I suspect smart municipal management and policing could have resulted in a much milder situation.
The mayor etc need to get together w/ haredi leaders and work out the issues - heredi violence must be unacceptable, but there must be a way for heredi to feel they're getting a fair hearing.
If haredi leaders are unwilling to cooperate then there should be a well managed crackdown starting with withholding of funds.

As far as the JP, sorry to hear it may be in decline but Shmarya your comments leave me with the impression that a paper that starts to lean right has lost it's journalistic foundation but news outlets that lean left (Haaretz, the NYT, etc) are ok.
Inaccurate and biased reporting should be shunned even if it supports a view one agrees with. (I don't like things the NYT or ABC does, or things that FoxNews does).

Worst case I bias I ever saw was the ABCnews TV report 2 days after 9/11 that blamed Israel's treatment of palestinians for the terrorist attack.
Don't know if Jennings/ABC ever reported that Jews use the bodies of young christians to make matzoh but maybe I just missed that broadcast.