The hareidi-religious Shas party issued a strong condemnation of the attack Tuesday on a hareidi-religious soldier. The soldier was pelted with rocks as he visited the neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem.
“I am shocked and disgusted by the actions of the handful of extremist youth who attacked a Jewish soldier this evening without shame or pity,” declared Shas head MK Aryeh Deri.
“Their way is not our way. Our sages have said that whoever raises his hand against his comrade is called ‘wicked,’” Deri continued.
“I call for all heads of political parties to immediately restore the discussion to one of mutual understanding and peace, so that we do not see more things like this,” he added.
Earlier in the day rabbis with the hareidi-religious Netzach Yehuda (Nachal Hareidi) brigade denounced the attack as, “Un-Jewish, un-hareidi, and a desecration of G-d’s name.”
“With all of our pain as hareidi Jews over the steps the government is taking, we must not take our anger out on the hareidi soldiers, who are the flesh of our flesh,” they declared. “The fact that we are now in the nine days before Tisha B’Av, days when we remember the destruction of the Temple, places this hatred in a shameful light.”
“The time has come for our community, the hareidi community, to denounce and reject these attackers, which will help prevent such shameful acts in the future,” they concluded.
Earlier in the year Rabbi David Tzvi Karlstein, the head of the Grudna yeshiva in Ashdod, declared that whoever humiliates a hareidi soldier “has no part in the World to Come.”
“I’m sure that a hareidi young man who learned in yeshiva and enlisted in the IDF has received his rabbis’ approval to do so,” Rabbi Karlstein said. “So the approach needs to be one of dialogue. But to harm him? To shame him? Guard your own souls.”