Edelstein’s synagogue denies calling police on women who distributed hostage flyers, calls arrests ‘insane’

The warden of the Herzliya synagogue where three women on Thursday distributed flyers on behalf of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and were arrested a day later for alleged breaking and entering, says there was no break-in at the synagogue and that the arrests were “insane.”

Speaking to Channel 12 news, Itai Mauda, the warden (gabbai) of the Ohel Moshe synagogue, denies that the synagogue filed a complaint or called the police over the incident.

Earlier today, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee who prays at the synagogue, backed the police arrests and said he “completely understood” why “the people of my synagogue filed a complaint with police after they discovered the break-in that took place apparently in the evening hours or at night.” Edelstein is a former Prisoner of Zion in the Soviet Union.

Asked whether the synagogue had called the police, Mauda says, “We absolutely did not.” Mauda appears to indicate, without elaboration, that the Shin Bet’s VIP bodyguard unit may have filed the complaint.

Mauda says that the synagogue, which he calls “the most open in the world,” holds “prayers every Shabbat and every day for the release of the hostages and the recovery of the injured.”

Asked whether the synagogue had any objection to the distribution of the leaflets — which the three women placed one at a time on congregants’ seats — Mauda says, “Absolutely no problem.”

Flyers urging the release of hostages held by Hamas that were distributed at a synagogue in Herzliya, September 13, 2024 (Screenshot via X; used in accordance of clause 27a of the copyright law).

He says he considers the fact that the women were arrested for their actions to be “insane, absolutely out of proportion.”

Channel 12 also quotes Mauda stressing there was no break-in and no desecration, and saying that the flyers have since been placed prominently in the synagogue because congregants are deeply concerned for the hostages.

Protesters surround MK Yuli Edelstein as he walks to synagogue in Herzliya the day after three women were arrested for placing hostage flyers in the house of worship, September 14, 2024 (Yair Palti/Pro-Democracy Protest groups)

The three women were arrested on Friday. One of them, Idit Alexandrovich, said she was cuffed at her home and taken away in front of her young children. The three were released some eight hours later under restrictive conditions. They have not been charged.

Idit Alexandrovich, one of three women detained after placing flyers calling for a hostage deal on seats in a Herzliya synagogue attended by Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, speaks to Channel 12, September 14, 2024. (Channel 12 screenshot: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The Justice Ministry’s Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) announced Saturday that it had launched a probe into the incident.