Arab man attacked by Jewish mob in Jerusalem

An Arab man was mobbed and his car stoned by a crowd of ultra-Orthodox men on Saturday night in Jerusalem as he drove through a raucous demonstration against the arrest of a popular rabbi.

Police said the man arrived at the Bar-Ilan intersection at around 3.30 a.m. Sunday as hundreds still milled about to protest the arrest of Rabbi Yoram Abergel, who is suspected of arranging for an underworld crime figure to threaten supporters of a mayoral candidate in Netivot.

When the mob saw that the driver of the car, reported by the Ma’an news agency to be Majdi Al-Jarbawi, 40, they surrounded the vehicle and began to throw stones at it. Jarbawi, injured in the face, managed to escape and make his way to a hospital for medical treatment. He then filed a complaint with the police.

Police said a total of 28 people were arrested during the demonstration in the capital, which came several days after thousands of people rioted in the southern town of Netivot over Abergel’s arrest, setting cars on fire and clashing with police.

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The intersection, where Bar-Ilan Street meets Golda Meir Boulevard, sits at the crossroads of several large ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and is often the locus of demonstrations by the local communities. Streets that pass through the intersection provide access to some of Jerusalem’s predominantly Arab northern and northeastern neighborhoods.