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Haredi extremists attack Beit Shemesh mayor and his family, injuring one of his kids

By Sam Sokol 20 March 2025, 12:55 am 19 Edit

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Ultra-Orthodox extremists attack Beit Shemesh Mayor Shmuel Greenberg and his family, overturning the mayor’s car and injuring one of his children.

In a statement, the municipality says that Greenberg, a member of the Haredi Degel Hatorah party, “was attacked by extremists while leaving a family celebration.”

“His vehicle was smashed and vandalized, but the mayor and his family were rescued from the scene. The mayor’s son required medical treatment. Mayor Greenberg trusts the Israel Police to bring the lawbreakers to justice,” his office says.

Video from the scene shows black-clad Hasidic Jews rocking the vehicle back and forth while someone screams in the background. Another clip shows the mayor, wearing a helmet, being rushed out of a building by armored police as a baying mob screaming “Nazi” chases him. He is then placed in another car and rushed from the scene.

The incident was far from the first mob attack against a mayor of Beit Shemesh.

In August 2023, in the second attack against in less than two months, dozens of extremists rioted outside a local school while then-mayor Aliza Bloch was touring the building, hurling objects, starting a fire and vandalizing her car — effectively holding her hostage for nearly two hours until she was rescued by police.

While violence has decreased significantly in recent years, extremists have long sought to forcibly impose their way of life on residents, posting modesty signs, tearing down Israeli flags and burning down a cellphone store in the moderate Haredi neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef.

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