Gotta' love the Amar family. First, Rabbi Amar's son Meir, long estranged from the father but still close to his mother, kidnaps his sister Ayala's suitor – a haredi youth from Bnei Brak – and beats and tortures him in Rabbi Amar's house. Why? To break up the relationship. Rabbi Amar's wife Mazal is home during the incident but does not call the police or do anything to protect the boy. She later admits to this in court, along with admitting to falsifying a police report. She gets off, apparently due to her political connections. Meir gets a light sentence – two years and eight months. Rabbi Amar was on one of his numerous overseas trips during the kidnapping, so he was not charged.
Flash forward a few months. Ayala is getting married to a man her family approves of. (Gotta' wonder if she is doing this of her own free will, or if she was coerced.) A who's who of Israeli religious and political figures attend the wedding including President Moshe Katsav. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is the mesader kedushin (performer of the ceremony). And what happens? Some of Rabbi Amar's guests behave very badly. Y-net reports:
A brawl broke out at a Jerusalem synagogue between some of the guests and a number of waiters towards the end of the wedding of Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar's daughter Ayala.
Police arrested two of the guests, and their custody will be extended by the court on Thursday.
The police's investigation found that at around 23:30, one of the guests attacked an Arab waiter and broke a bottle over his head. Shortly afterwards, another waiter accidentally touched the shoulder of another guest, who responded by allegedly striking the waiter.
A brawl broke out and one of the managers called the police, who arrested two of the guests after separating between them and the waiters.
Rabbis as leaders of the Jewish people. My my.