Man arrested for hanging pig’s foot on Arad synagogue

A resident of the town of Arad in southern Israel was arrested for placing a pig’s foot at the entrance to an ultra-Orthodox synagogue on several occasions, police said Wednesday.

The man, in his 60s, was released on bail Wednesday after being detained three days earlier. He will be indicted in the near future, police said.

The incident appeared to be part of long-simmering tensions over the growing ultra-Orthodox community in the northern Negev development town.

In November, worshipers from the Gur Hasidic sect arrived at morning prayers to find a severed pig’s foot hanging near the entrance to the synagogue.

Police say the man admitted to placing the pig’s foot at the newly inaugurated synagogue as well as to a number of other incidents where he placed ham and pig flesh on the building.

He told investigators he was angry that the synagogue had been established at the site of a public shelter near his house.

Pigs are taboo in Jewish culture, both for consuming and touching.

The site has been the subject of a lengthy legal battle. Gur Hasidic followers claim the property belongs to the sect while the municipality says it owns the structure. The court eventually ruled in favor of the Gur sect.

Ultra-Orthodox community leaders told Kikar HaShabbat that placing the pig’s foot above the synagogue’s door was “a new low” in the “inciters’s fight against the Haredi public.”

The working class town, on the edge of the Negev desert, has seen tensions over an influx of ultra-Orthodox residents in recent years.

Adherents of the Gur sect accused the city’s mayor, Nissan Ben-Hamo, of fomenting hatred that led to the vandalism

“The fight and the battle by the mayor against the ultra-Orthodox public is the reason for the grim atmosphere in the city and the pig’s foot is one of the results,” Gur community leaders wrote in a letter to Ben-Hamo.

Ben-Hamo condemned the act in a November city hall meeting and said he had transferred the details to the police.