Something horrible happened in Ohr Yehuda last night. Some people took the books of Rav Ovadia Yosef and of his son Rav Yitzchak Yosef, and burned them in the streets of the city.

Burning books is always horrible. It is an expression of the repression of freedom and intellect.

Attacking people is still worse than burning books.

Shas has accused Amnon Yitzchak and his people of being behind the burning of the books.
(source: Kikar)

First of all, it is horrible that elections has caused such a deterioration of relations between people who previously respected each other, and that it has even brought them to violence.

Second, the statement issued by Shas about the incident got my goat. They said that this is an escalation that is unprecedented in the haredi community.... )and then went on to accuse activists from Koach l'Hashpia as being behind it).

Escalation? Meaning the burning of books, as horrible as it is, is worse than physically attacking a room full of men, women and children, as openly active Shas activists did to an Amnon Yiztchak rally last week in Bet Shemesh?

I am not defending Amnon Yitzchak (who happens to deny that the book burner was an activist connected to his party). I am not supporting him, I don't like him and I think his running a party for political office was probably a tremendous mistake that will turn around and be found to be damaging to his life's work of bringing people back to Judaism.

However, I don't know that he was responsible for this incident (that is for the police to collect evidence and make a decision, arrest, convict, etc), and even if he was, I think the attack on people was worse than the burning of some books, as holy as they might have been (though the attack on Yitzchak's rally does not justify such a response).

There is something backwards and corrupt about a society that thinks that burning books is an escalation of violence greater and above that of attacking a roomful of men, women and children.