About two and a half years ago, on Yom Haatzmaut of 2017, a 13 year old boy (man?) threw things at cars that had Israeli flags flying. He was involved in the usual rally/protest by the extremists, in Bet Shemesh, and was arrested when the police came in. he was charge dwith throwing things at a bus and at another car with a flag on it.

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but turn they do. Behadrei is reporting that the juvenile court finally handed down its sentence. 

The State wanted to have him punished with a harsh sentence, claiming that the infraction is so serious due to the danger involved that it could get up to 2 years in prison.The State wanted him punished with 200 hours of community service, along with a commitment to not do such crimes again.

It should be noted that the accused admitted to his actions, but skipped out on a number of hearings, failing to appear in court.

The defense attorney claimed that he comes form a closed community and has no cellphone, which made it difficult at times to locate him and inform him of upcoming hearings.

The interesting part is the following. An askan of the Eida Hachareidis, Rav Shimon Shisha, testified on his behalf saying that since the arrest, the young man has strengthened in his torah learning, studies mussar, all in addition to his regular learning schedule in yeshiva. He pleaded with the judge to take this into consideration, along with the fact that this young man hardly ever leaves the yeshiva now, and pleaded for a lighter sentence.

The judge accepted that the young man had accepted upon himself additional learning commitments to atone for his actions, but that he also must pay something back to the community for it was the community he harmed. He sentenced the young man to 100 additional hours of learning Torah, separate form the regular learning schedule. These 100 hours will have to be spent learning with students n the yeshiva who need help.

Interesting court decision. I hope that at least the experience he has gone through the past couple of years will have been enough to impress upon him the severity of his actions, as the punishment alone probably won't.