UTJ chair: Mob attack on IDF officers in Bnei Brak ‘doesn’t represent the Haredi public’

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"

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf condemns Monday evening’s attack on two senior IDF officers in the Haredi-majority city of Bnei Brak and insists that the perpetrators “do not represent the ultra-Orthodox public and the city’s residents.”

The officers, who were in in the majority-Haredi city for a meeting over the establishment of a Haredi brigade in the army, were set upon by dozens of ultra-Orthodox rioters who shouted “murderer” and other epithets while surrounding their car and throwing bottles and other objects.

“There is no place for acts of violence that are completely contrary to our holy Torah,” Goldknopf tweets, quoting the proverb: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”

Several weeks ago, Goldknopf was himself attacked in Jerusalem by Haredi protesters angry about the potential conscription of yeshiva students into the military.

Police protect the car of Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf during a demonstration against the conscription of Haredi yeshiva students to the military, in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood on June 30, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Despite footage showing demonstrators throwing stones at his car, striking the vehicle and hurling insults as he passed by, Goldknopf told The Times of Israel that he didn’t intend to file a police complaint, adding that the attackers “don’t represent the Haredi public or the Jerusalem Faction” — an extremist group.

Asked at the time by a Radio Kol Chai reporter if he was worried by the violence, Goldknopf had a different answer from his statement today. “Not at all,” he said. “Everyone can go their own way. If they think that is the correct path, let them continue.”

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