Rabbi Yoram Abergel – who was arrested Sunday as he was about to board a flight to China where he was planning on visiting a Chabad House – allegedly conspired with a well-known Israel mobster to extort another well-known Sefardi rabbi known as the “X-Ray,” Rabbi Yaakov Ifegan.
Rabbi Yoram Abergel
Sefardi Haredi Rabbi Who Allegedly Ordered Murder Of Rival Released To House Arrest
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Leading Sefardi haredi Rabbi Yoram Abergel was ordered released to house arrest yesterday, Yeshiva World reported.
Abergel – who was arrested Sunday as he was about to board a flight to China where he was planning on visiting a Chabad House – allegedly conspired with a well-known Israel mobster to extort another well-known Sefardi rabbi known as the “X-Ray,” Rabbi Yaakov Ifegan.
The mobster – Shalom Domrani, who wears a kippa according to media reports – and the rabbi reportedly wanted to force Ifergan to support their candidate for mayor.
Ifergan refused, and that refusal allegedly provoked Rabbi Abergel to ask the mobster to order the murder of Ifergan (or, according to other media reports, Ifergan’s assistant).
Over the objections of police who fear he will obstruct the investigation and destroy evidence, Abergel was remanded yesterday to eight days of house house arrest, which can be extended by the court.
“The investigation only proves the rav never should have been arrested. He will have to remain in a certain home in Givat Shmuel until next week under house arrest. He never should have been arrested in the first place,” Abergel’s attorney Menachem Rubenstein reportedly told Kol Berama Radio yesterday afternoon.
Many of Abergel’s students were reportedly in the courtroom yesterday and began singing when they heard Abergel was being released to house arrest.
Police may fight Abergel’s release to house arrest by filing an appeal with the district court – something observers believe is likely.
Abergel founded a hybrid form of ultra-Orthodoxy that combines traditional Sefardi Mizrachi Judaism with the hasidic teachings of the Chabad and Breslov hasidic movements.