Haredim associated with the Edah Haredit subsidiary Asra Kadish
allegedly harassed and threatened the head of Edah’s biet din (religious
court) Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch, prompting the first response from any
Edah Haredit leaders to the week of riots by Asra Kadisha in the
Jerusalem bedroom suburb of Beit Shemesh.
Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch
Updated 9:20 am CDT 8-19-2013
Haredim Thugs Threaten, Harass Haredi Leader Over Alleged Graves Desecration
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Haredim associated with the Edah Haredit subsidiary Asra Kadish allegedly harassed and threatened the head of Edah’s biet din (religious court) Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch, prompting the first response from any Edah Haredit leaders to the week of riots by Asra Kadisha in the Jerusalem bedroom suburb of Beit Shemesh.
The harassment took place after that week of rioting failed to stop construction.
Asra Kadisha, which fancies itself as an organization that protects ancient Jewish graves, claims ancient Jewish graves are being desecrated at the site.
Shternbuch previously ruled the construction was not desecrating ancient Jewish graves and could continue – a position that is also held by many non-Edah haredi rabbis.
But many other Edah Haredi rabbis, including its Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, either disagree or have remained silent.
Rabbi Amram Ofman and Rabbi Simcha Hanun, who are both prominent in Edah Haredit (although not in its most senior leadership), came out strongly against the Asra Kadisha rioters this week, Arutz Sheva reported – but only after Shternbuch was threatened and harassed.
Ofman reportedly publicly condemned the riots in a letter that accused the Asra Kadish rioters of “taking the law into their hands and making a mockery of the Torah.” He also reportedly wrote that anyone who says there are Jewish graves at the Beit Shemesh site are lying because “there are no graves at the [Beit Shemesh construction] site.…
"There is a disagreement between the wise men of the generation, and kings are holding discussions with each other,” he wrote. “What do we care? This matter is up for them, and only them, to decide. It is, therefore, my duty to write a protest over the fact that our rabbi, the Minister of Torah, the Head of the Beit Din[,] shlita[,] is being defamed. This is an unforgivable crime, and he who defames a great scholar will rot in hell,” Ofman wrote.
Asra Kadisha allegedly extorts both developers and archaeologists, protesting alleged graves desecration but stopping their protests after being paid off by developers and, sometimes, by archaeologists. The organization also physically threatens its targets and occasionally uses violence against them, as it allegedly did less than two weeks ago when a gang of thugs allegedly associated with Asra Kadisha savagely beat the elderly developer of the Beit Shemesh project. leaving him hospitalized.
Police made approximately 40 arrests of Asra Kadisha rioters at the Beit Shemesh construction site last week alone.
Even so, Israel’s police and courts have done little over the years to reign in Asra Kadisha or to punish its violent members.