Trampled to death: Mordechai Gerber
Trampled to death: Mordechai GerberCourtesy of the family

The trampling incident which killed 27 year-old Mordechai Gerber and injured 11 others was unavoidable, Israel Police spokesman for the haredi community Shabtai Garberchik stated Sunday. 

"The congestion was great and powerful," Garberchik stated in an interview with Arutz Sheva. He described throngs of people stampeding to see the coffin as it made its way from the Chachmei Lublin yeshiva [Torah academy] where Rabbi Shmuel Wosner was the Rosh Yeshiva [Dean]. "There was no ability to get to the various rescue organizations to extract people from there. It all happened on the staircase of the yeshiva, which is relatively wide but masses of people clustered close and started running toward the door." 

"Rabbi Wosner died during the start of the holiday," Garberchik added. "After the holiday, preparations for the funeral began at around 8:00 pm. The family and rabbis determined the eulogies, the funeral and even how the funeral would proceed to the cemetery." 

He explained that the family met with the mayor of Bnei Brak to discuss options - and there were many - for a path for the funeral procession. Bnei Brak is known for being densely populated, he said, and since thousands of people were expected to arrive, this is the option that was left available to them. About 100,000 people ultimately arrived at the funeral Saturday night. 

The Israel Police's Dan District decided to deploy 300 police officers to monitor the entrances to the procession, he noted, and were also attempting to coordinate traffic with bus travel. Hundreds of buses were due to pour into the cramped city. 

Garberchik also was adamant that it is not the police's responsibility to monitor the funeral itself, only to ensure that people could come and go safely. 

'It is not our job to stand in the study hall," he said. "Police should not be i[there]. These are matters of the community at large and it should stay in civilian hands. His family and people in the haredi community who knew how to run things."

"Throughout the evening, after Shabbat, we transmitted messages to the haredi broadcast networks safety bulletins - not to get on the roofs and balconies and bus stops, not to push each other," he continued. He added that these were lessons the police learned from the funeral of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, whose 2013 funeral involved a staggering number of injuries due to congestion. "These messages were broadcast but it was hard to deal with the masses, who, with pure religious desire, first began running close to the coffin and trampled each other." 

Garberchik insisted that nothing could have been done. 

"No police force, even two or three thousand more police officers would not have helped," he said. "What we needed was public discipline. When the public understands that the man standing next to him is the same as himself, once the public understands that pushing others, as a group, can be fatal, then it will be different."

'We tried to talk sense into the public throughout the evening, but unfortunately we don't always succeed [to convince them]," he added. 

Garberchik also dismissed claims that this incident is a reflection, specifically, of negligence on the part of the haredi community. 

"I do not want to define the haredi or national religious public or another sector," he said. "Every event [...] should be a warning signal prior to the next event."

"Everyone must to take stock and know that if he pushes his friend, there could end up being a domino effect." 

Garberchik also agreed to the sentiment that, perhaps, it is difficult for the haredi public - which shuns the institution of the State of Israel as a secular power, by and large - to accept police instructions, and instead must hear safety warnings from their own leaders. Garberchik noted that this was already the prevailing attitude in the Israel Police, but that there is a gap between what leaders say and what the public is willing to accept. 

"Given the circumstances - the urban layout of Bnei Brak, the large turnout, and the logical and religious decision to hold the funeral immediately after Shabbat - we did as much as we could do," he concluded, adding that under the same circumstances he would request the haredi public to have the same plans for a funeral procession.