Let’s open with the crucial statement that the show of deep antisemitic hatred to everything Jewish that erupted in Tel Aviv Sunday night, Yom Kippur, 5784, and lasted through the following Monday night, was carried out by a very small group of fringe anarchists, numbering perhaps 200 Israelis. Everyone else in Israel was either engaged in prayer in shul, took the kids out to the park, rode bicycles in the traffic-free streets, or stayed home. Whether Israelis fasted or not this past Yom Kippur, none of the sane ones among them, none of the six million-plus Israeli Jews would have even dreamed of doing what this group of antisemitic thugs has done on the holiest day of the Jewish year.
יום כיפור 2023 pic.twitter.com/ip8wxJefYF
— ????333 JOEL 333 (@joel88783887) September 25, 2023
Rosh Yehudi, the group behind the annual and popular Yom Kippur public prayers at Dizengoff Circle in Tel Aviv, on Monday night, issued a statement saying, “Even before the Kol Nidrei prayer, about 100 organized protesters arrived ahead of time to disrupt the legally planned Yom Kippur prayer at Dizengoff Circle. The rioters staged a show of screaming and bullying and succeeded in repelling hundreds of Tel Aviv residents who wanted to pray on Yom Kippur as they had done in years past. We left the circle to prevent the desecration of the sacred day and moved to a synagogue out of a sense of responsibility and to maintain the honor of Yom Kippur.”
הפעיל האנטי-דתי שיוצר כבר שנים פרובוקציות – ופעילי המחאה שהצטרפו. מאחורי הקלעים: כך פוצצה תפילת יום כיפור בדיזנגוף:
המחאה החלה לקרום עור וגידים בתחילת ספטמבר, אז החליטו תושבים חילוניים ברחוב להתאגד נגד ראש יהודי.
לאירוע גוייס בין היתר עו”ד יאיר נהוראי, פעיל אנטי-דתי בולט.… pic.twitter.com/YglIUXAnnW
— חנן גרינווד (@hanan_green) September 25, 2023
The group claimed it acted legally, based on the court’s ruling last week regarding the mechitza between men and women. The court said it constituted an act of segregation against women, never mind that the women themselves preferred prayer in their own group, a right granted to Muslims and numerous yoga groups in town. The organizers replaced the mechitza with a line of Israeli flags that marked the men’s and women’s section. The police spokesperson even confirmed that the organizers complied with the court’s ruling and no Mechitzot were installed. Needless to say, the attackers pulled out those flags in the name of liberalism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week suggested Israelis who besmirched their country in the US during the PM’s visit were collaborating with Iran and the PLO, on Monday night stated: “Astonishingly, in the Jewish State of all places, on the holiest day for the Jewish people, left-wing protesters rioted against Jews during their prayer.”
The PM added that “it seems that there are no boundaries, no norms, and no limits for hatred on the part of the extremists on the left.”
There were numerous similar clashes between Tel Aviv residents who chose to pray outdoors on Yom Kippur and quads of antisemitic anarchists who received WhatsApp messages throughout Sunday night and Monday where those residents were located and rushed over to turn their Yom Kippur elation into misery.
Another Yom Kippur prayer group that was harassed on Yom Kippur was organized by liberal-Orthodox Tzohar organization. Tzohar initially held their Neila service at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, attended by both religious and secular Jews. They decided to move to the private parking lot of one of the organizers to escape the anarchists.
העובדה שהם לא עושים את הטירוף האלים הזה על מוסלמים, היא כי הם יודעים שישחטו אותם pic.twitter.com/iGF1lSjJJe
— ינון מגל (@YinonMagal) September 25, 2023
Publisher Rotem Sella reported: “Two hundred Tel Avivians, myself among them, came to pray or hear the shofar in the early evening at such a community prayer, the Ne’ila prayer at the western end of Kikar Ha’Madinah (a huge circle serving as a junction for Weizman and Jabotinsky Streets, alongside smaller arteries, in north Tel Aviv). Besides them, a handful of about ten people chose to come who compensated for their small number with burning hatred, and shouted ‘shame-shame-shame,‘ and ‘Go to synagogue,‘ or walked about trying to start arguments with those present to make them sad.”
“One protester positioned herself behind a very elderly woman in a wheelchair who came with her Filipino nurse. The protester shouted over the ear of the older woman over and over, ‘Go to the synagogue,’ ‘Go to the synagogue,’ ‘Go to the synagogue,’ and when the older woman asked her to stop, the protester shouted at her, ‘Stupid! You shouldn’t have come here.’”
“It turns out that delusional fringes are usually made of delusional people who do not represent the public or a better and more stable version of themselves,” Sella noted. “This fact should not prevent us from fighting the delusional to maintain institutions and public order, but we should at least take them in proportion and feel compassion for them.”
יום כיפור בדיזינגוף יש כבר עצור אחד pic.twitter.com/gxXsNA5m33
— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) September 24, 2023
National Camp Chairman, MK Benny Gantz, blamed it all on Bibi. “Whoever decided to divide us – succeeded in desecrating this holy day with coercion and gratuitous hatred,” he proclaimed Monday night but did not direct his criticism at the few hundred antisemites who crashed prayer services around Tel Aviv and in other cities. He said instead, “And who if not the Prime Minister, the biggest generator of hatred, is the one who now chooses to fan the flames, together with politicians who have decided to turn our public space into a disaster area. I call on all leaders to show responsibility.”
Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid said similar nonsense, blaming the riots in Tel Aviv on the “Meshichistim,” and called the rioters law-abiding citizens out to verify that the courts’ rulings were observed.
Lapid and Gantz will hopefully find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion in Israel, where the vast majority of citizens, whether they are observant or not, are still repulsed by the images of organized thugs attacking communities of Jews who are deep in prayer. The fact that Lapid and Gantz are so terrified and intimidated by a very small but well-organized group of hate-filled individuals, led by unscrupulous monsters such as Ehud Barak, Shikma Bressler, and a few hi-tech moguls, will come back to haunt them, as the polls already show.
The police spokesperson said, there was no Mechitza at the prayers and the court ruling was followed by the organizers.
Incidentally, this Thursday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is organizing a mass public Ma’ariv prayer at Dizengoff Circle. Go for the prayer, stay for the fisticuffs.
