The Rabbi and the Attorney, Round 7 – The Lies of Yated Ne'eman

Yated Ne'eman, the official mouthpiece of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and the Lithuanian haredim that make up 1/2 of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) political party, 'reports' the rabbi MK - attorney incident this way:

…The incident took place during a heated exchange in the hallway outside the committee meeting rooms over the amount of funding the State should provide educational institutions whose students do not study all of the subjects required by the Core Curriculum Program.

Irate over de Hartoch's remarks, Rabbi Cohen said, "Why do you lie to us? Why do you scheme against us? You're destroying the Torah world."

"You're an animal," de Hartoch replied. "You're like the Germans."

Rabbi Cohen responded to de Hartoch's harsh words by saying, "What you're doing is like the Germans who wanted to destroy the body and soul."

"Stop talking like that," said de Hartoch. "You don't know me. I'll give you a smack."

"Let's see you," said Rabbi Cohen.

At that point de Hartoch failed to control his rage and slapped the MK very hard across the face. A security guard standing nearby held de Hartoch against the wall and summoned security personnel, who held the attorney for questioning.

MK Rabbi Cohen was stunned by what happened. "Even my father never hit me that hard," he said as he was receiving treatment. "I saw stars and everything went black. Everyone was shocked. He is a threat to the public. I call on the Justice Minister to dismiss him."…

This is a near-complete fabrication that flies in the face of not only eyewitness reports but of the testimony given by the rabbi MK to the police and to the media.

1. The attorney never said: "You're like the Germans."
2. By all other accounts including the rabbi's, the rabbi MK himself said to the attorney, "You are worse than Germans" (and, by some accounts, also telling the attorney, "You're a Nazi!). That prompted the slap.

So why do haredim lie? They lie because they can get away with it, because there are no penalties for deceit while there are many benefits, like keeping their followers under control.

Yated publishes nothing without permission of haredi leadership, leadership under the direct control of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv

If anyone doubted the evil that is Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, read those lies, and realize that demonizing the Other, lying, stealing, fraud and deceit all come with Rabbi Elyashiv's twisted imprimatur.

Here's the Yated Ne'eman article in PDF, just in case:

Download yated_neeman_slap.pdf

Previous posts: 1,  2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.