On Tuesday evening, Arabs ambushed a group of cars on the way to the Mount of Olives cemetery. The Arabs hurled cinder blocks and stones at the Jewish vehicles, injuring one person and causing heavy damage to at least two cars.
Th attack was so severe that unarmed soldiers, sitting in the second vehicle thought the people in the lead car, Yochanan Danziger and Jeff Seidel, were killed (which they were not, just to make that clear).
Both cars were on the way to a burial at the Mount of Olives cemetery, Danziger told The Jewish Press from the police station where he and Seidel were filing a complaint.
Danziger is a “Netzach Yehuda” rabbinic adviser for Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Nahal Haredi Brigade, and Seidel is widely known for decades of his work at the Western Wall, bringing wandering Jewish backpackers closer to Judaism, or at least to a Friday night Shabbat meal.
The ambush, like dozens the past several years, occurred on a narrow street when two or three cars blocked traffic from moving so that Arab youths could pummel the cars with rocks and cinder blocks.
Danziger was treated at a Jerusalem hospital for glass in his eye.
Seidel was driving his 2006 Mazda, whose windows were smashed, while the sides of the car were smashed in.
“It was miracle we got out alive,” said Danziger. At one point, Seidel tried to turn into the locked parking lot of an Arab hospital, which would have given them a safe haven, but they were refused entry.
Seidel managed to continued driving slowly as Danziger and another passenger crouched on the floor. He managed to make a U-turn as older Arabs, who Danziger said were in their 40s, yelled at the youth to move away.
Seidel managed to drive his car to the police station, where he said the police were very understanding and said that the attackers “would pay a heavy price.” However, words are one thing and action is another.
During the attack, the victims were in contact with the police for several minutes until the connection was broken.
The police did not call back.