More graffiti was found in a nearby park – obscene expressions about at
the school’s students and discriminatory messages like “not for hareidi
use” spray-painted on playground equipment. Other graffiti read, “draft
hareidim now,” and “everyone must serve [in Israel’s military].”
Was Hasidic School Torched As An Anti-Haredi Hate Crime?
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Was it an anti-haredi hate crime?
Arutz Sheva reports that a girls school in the Israeli city of Bat Yam affiliated with the Bobov hasidic sect was set on fire Friday night.
Bat Yam is heavily Sefardi, but its Bobov Ashkenazi haredi community, established in 1959, has been growing rapidly due to high birth rates and the city’s geographic closeness to the large haredi city of Bnei Brak.
Police believe the fire was probably set by juvenile delinquents.
Bobover leaders believe that even if police are correct, the delinquints did not act alone. The “inciting” media is, they say, also to blame.
School officials say that two secular teens were seen lurking near the school on Friday. They were allegedly observed trying to climb a fence surrounding the school in order to break into the building, local Bobov leaders say, and they set off firecrackers in the school's courtyard.
The two teens live in the neighborhood and were recognized by school officials who approached the teens and told them that if they did not leave school property immediately, they would be reported to police.
The teens reportedly left, and the school’s students and staff still on the grounds left shortly afterward.
Then, just before Shabbat, neighbors saw flames coming out of the building, and called firefighters who extinguished the fire, which was contained to an inner ground floor hallway of the building.
The hallway was reportedly heavily damaged by the fire.
Investigators found evidence that the arsonists also broke into school classrooms and offices, probably just before setting the building on fire.
Witnesses saw the two teens ordered off school grounds earlier on Friday return Friday night after the fire spray paint graffiti on the building.
More graffiti was found in a nearby park – obscene expressions about at the school’s students and discriminatory messages like “not for hareidi use” spray-painted on playground equipment. Other graffiti read, “draft hareidim now,” and “everyone must serve [in Israel’s military].”
Haredim leaders refuse to allow haredim to be drafted into israel’s military. They also limit followers secular education to early grade school levels and make it difficult for their followers to find all but very menial jobs. This keeps many haredim in yeshivas study religious texts for all or most of their adult lives, subsisting on government stipends and welfare payments, along with charity.
Bobov leaders suspect the two teens set the fire and want police to question them.
But, as one Bobov leader made clear, hasidim believe the blame for arson goes far beyond the teens who set the fires.
“The media has turned the question of army service into a movement for hating hareidim. They are just as responsible as the youths for this act,” he said.