Lod mayor bursts into mosque, demands halt to prayers broadcast over PA
Police say Yair Revivo’s confrontation with Muslim worshipers a ploy to gain points with mixed city’s Jewish residents
Lod Mayor Yair Revivo entered a mosque in his city in the early hours of Friday morning to demand that the imam leading prayers stop using a PA system, resulting in a shouting match between the Jewish mayor and Muslim worshipers of the mosque in the mixed central Israeli town.
According to a report in Haaretz, Revivo complained to the police regarding excessive noise coming from the mosque, and was asked to avoid entering the mosque before officers arrived on the scene.
Revivo did not heed the warning and entered the Dahmash Mosque to demand prayers be stopped. An argument ensued between the mayor and the worshipers. Officers who arrived on the scene separated the two sides.
A short video of the incident shows the mayor shouting at worshipers to “stop the prayer” at the entrance to the mosque as a police officer also enters to assess the situation.
Upon noticing that he is being filmed, Revivo attempts to grab the cellphone of the person recording the event.
Joint (Arab) List leader MK Ayman Odeh tweeted the clip with a short message in which he pinned Revivo’s behavior on the government.
“Mayor of Lod, Yair Revivo, arrived with the police to the mosque during the holiday prayer and tried to stop the prayer. This government has ruined even the minimum of honoring the holidays,” Odeh tweeted.
ראש עיריית לוד, יאיר רביבו, הגיע עם המשטרה למסגד במהלך תפילת החג וניסה לעצור את התפילה. אפילו את המינימום של לכבד את החגים הממשלה הזאת הרסה. pic.twitter.com/JC6cJ0te7k
— איימן עודה أيمن عودة Ayman Odeh (@AyOdeh) September 1, 2017
Police were quoted by Haaretz as saying that Revivo “was asked to await the arrival of police and not to enter [the mosque], but he chose to enter with his people… and an altercation started between him and the worshipers.”
Revivo had been contacting police over the past days complaining that prayer leaders in the city’s mosques are intending to make sermons late at night and before dawn, according to the Haaretz report. The police have asked imams across the country to not exceed the sound levels stated in Israel’s noise pollution laws.
The police said it had reached an agreement with imams that prayers can be broadcast over the PA systems but long sermons could not.
On Friday at 5:30 a.m., Revivo called the police, saying he was standing outside the Dahmash Mosque and that the imam inside was violating the agreement and was using the mosque’s PA system to give a sermon. Revivo indicated that he intended to enter the mosque with his deputy and security chief to demand that prayer be stopped.
Police asked Revivo to remain outside since the imam was intoning a prayer, not a sermon. Revivo, according to Haaretz, was told that the deputy commander of Lod Police was on his way to the mosque, but Revivo proceeded anyway.
Haaretz reported that police said Revivo was attempting to be provocative and to create tension ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, allegedly in an effort to gain points with Lod’s Jewish electorate.
No complaint was filed against Revivo, and the imam was summoned to the police station to be questioned on allegations of illegal noise pollution.
