Arabs are harassing and threatening Jewish Torah scholars who convene at a Haifa synagogue, and police refuse to take action. Rabbi Baruch Kind of Haifa told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew newsmagazine that local Arab hooligans are regularly harassing members of a 'kollel' (a group of men who study Torah together daily) which he formed at the abandoned synagogue in the Halisa neighborhood.
"This is a synagogue that was shut down because the congregation became too small,” Kind related. “I took the place under my responsibility and set up a kollel where Torah students on a stipend study for half of the day. A few days ago the Muslims had a holiday and Arab youths threw firecrackers into an external hall of the synagogue and ran off.”
Rabbi Kind, who was studying with the kollel members in an inner room, called the police, but when a policeman showed up he told Rabbi Kind that “if you do not know the identity of the thrower [of the firecrackers] we can't do anything.” He suggested that the students close the door to avoid further attacks.
Several days later, one of the students at the kollel was threatened by an Arab who waved a handgun at him. The student quickly ran into the synagogue.
Rabbi Kind said that the proper action in view of the situation would be to create a Torah group that would reside at the neighborhood and make it more Jewish again. He noted that there were many G-d fearing residents at Halisa in the past, but many got older and some passed away, and now “the second generation is selling large and spacious houses to Arabs at very cheap prices.” A group that organizes properly could check the spread of Arabs at the neighborhood, he said.
"This place used to be completely Jewish,” he emphasized, and voiced hope that a Torah group of young religious Zionists could save the place, in a similar fashion to the action of Torah groups in Akko, Ramleh and elsewhere. “If we do not wake up soon, in five years' time only our cousins will be living here,” he warned – using a term that denotes Arabs (based on their being descended from Yishmael, brother of Yitzchak and uncle of Jacob, from whom the tribes of Israel were born).
Those interested in joining or helping the Halisa Torah group can contact Rabbi Kind at 050-6848223.