Chani and Yaakov Katz, the parents of Ari Katz, one of the infants who died this week at a daycare in Jerusalem, discussed the sequence of events on Kan Reshet Bet radio and rejected criticism against the haredi public and the daycare management.
"We've known her for seven years. I have three children, and she has raised them all," Chani said about the daycare director. "To me, it's not a daycare. She's an aunt, a second mother to my children. I know her well, and we are like family. I would only send my children to her."
Her husband, Yaakov, criticized what he referred to as accusations on social media and in the press against the entire haredi public. "What crushed me were the hateful comments on social media and in the press, where they decided to be judges and executioners," he said. "Would anyone dare blame the entire secular sector? It's sick."
According to the father, "This wasn't negligence or anything worse," and that he agreed to a blood test on his son's body. "The director of the Forensics Institute, Chen Kugel, said that the tests would provide the answers from every direction."
He said that the initial Magistrate's Court ruling permitting the autopsy on the body, which the Supreme Court ultimately overturned, negates Jewish values: "An unnecessary autopsy is a severe thing and very disrespectful."
He added a direct condemnation of the judge: "The will and the act of the magistrate judge, who took it upon herself to deal with a halachic matter, is a disgrace and a shame. It disgraces the entire judicial system in Israel and shatters all trust in it."