Like the murder of Mohammed Abu Khader came, seemingly as retribution, after the abduction and murder of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali, they are worried that their people might get involved in acts of retribution for the murder of Walles a Toldos Ahron chossid (and thereby associated with the Eida).
The Eida has published a strongly-worded letter warning its people and followers to not provoke the Arabs with acts of retribution. They write that recently there have been reports of complaints about young people throwing stones and insults at Arabs in different parts of the city. Besides for the chilul hashem itself which is a great sin, they write, provoking the non-Jews itself is prohibited and can cause many tragedies to befall the community.
The various rabbonim of the Eida are signed on the letter
sources: Bechadrei and NRG
I am surprised and impressed. On the one hand it seems they think that among the people that are their followers there might be people who would commit acts of retribution. That is a bit surprising to me. On the other hand, they take responsibility and make an effort to quash any such behavior before it even happens.
The one thing about it that bothers me is I cannot remember when the Eida took such a strong stance, preemptive or otherwise on acts of violence or provocation of their people and followers against Jews - either religious or non-religious.
For example, last week we saw, in Bet Shemesh, the attack on a a religious soldier when he went to a shtiebel to daven. I did not hear a word from the Eida about it in response to that attack, nor to quell any future attacks, and nothing before that either in advance of such possible attacks.
And just yesterday Ahrele Samet was attacked. Samet is a Toldos Avraham Yitzchak chossid (and thereby part of the community of the Eida), a singer, and a Bet Shemesh resident, was attacked for joining Avremi Kopp in a trip down south to the Gaza border to bring equipment and encouragement to soldiers. A picture of Samet had been publicized, and that led to the attack.
Avremi Kopp had also been attacked with grafitti sprayed on the walls of his institution, Ezrat Achim, and the lock of his door jammed and broken, along with causing damage to an ambulance and other equipment.
sources: Haredim10 and Bechadrei
So, where is the warnings against attacking Jews? where is the condemnation against such attacks that already happened?
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