The story goes that the police arrested a yeshiva student, while he was out on a "bein hazmanim" tiyul for being AWOL from the army. Ostensibly this young man is a follower of the "Peleg Hayerushalmi" led by Rav Auerbach and they refuse to appear before the IDF Draft Board even for the first appearance and to sign the papers for the yeshiva status deferment. As a reaction to the arrest, the Peleg followers were told to go out (last night) and hold protests in different areas against the arrest, and so they did. There were protests in [at least] Bet Shemesh, Bnei Braq and Jerusalem. Fires were lit, epitaphs were thrown, and eventually everyone went home.
That has been the standard story, repeating itself every few weeks in recent history.
The police have responded with their version of the incident.
This young man was arrested not on the standard yeshiva student vacation. Rather, he was arrested in Eilat, not dressed at all as a yeshiva boy. He was not wearing a kipa, and was hanging out in bars. The police arrested him at about 1am when responding to a call by a taxi driver about a group of young men who were refusing to pay for the ride they had taken. The driver filed a report, and the police ran the names (it does not say how the driver or police knew the names of these boys) and found out that one of them was AWOL from the army. The officer called the young man in to talk and when he appeared they arrested him.
The police insist that this young man was dressed like any other young man there out for a party - jeans, tshirt and no kipa, with no signs of anything religious about him.
The Peleg people say they are looking into this accusation and if true they will no longer stand behind him.
sources: Kikar and Ladaat
A boring story that happens frequently just got interesting! I await to see further developments!
UPDATE: this afternoon, after the revelation mentioned above came to light, more hafganot were held in the streets around the country. The Peleg people said that they will protest on behalf of "shababniks" (dropouts, delinquents) as well. Shababniks also shouldn't fall into the hands of the IDF...
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
"epitaphs were thrown". Don't you mean epithets?
ReplyDelete:-)