Haredi writer orders hit on TV journalist

A week after media personality and journalist Yaron London penned an article in Yedioth Ahronoth calling for shrinking the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel, the ultra-Orthodox website Tsofar published an article calling for his assassination.

The article, authored by Shmuel Cooper, compared London to Hitler and portrayed London as a leading member of Israel’s elite secular media which controls the establishment public opinion and incites against the ultra-Orthodox population.

“Assassinate Yaron London” appeared on the site on Friday and immediately caused an uproar among readers, some of whom called on London to file a complaint of incitement to murder.

The title was subsequently changed to read: “Shrink the existence of Yaron London,” an attempt to mirror London’s call in his Yedioth column.

In an interview with Arutz Sheva on Sunday, London responded to the article: “This is proof that learning Talmud is not preparation for understanding a simple text in Hebrew. Perhaps I needed to translate my article… to Yiddish.”

London added: “I don’t have the energy to deal with complaints to the police, I prefer to assume that there are perhaps a few crazies but many more who are less than brave.”

In the Tsofar piece, Cooper wrote: “Just as Hitler in his time used the slogan ‘Jews are our misfortune’ while depicting them as parasites responsible for all of society’s ills in order to prepare public opinion for physical annihilation, for years the [Israeli] establishment has lied that ‘ultra-Orthodox parasites are a disaster for the state’ to prepare public opinion against them. And what to do to them? Now Yaron London has let the cat out of the bag. To destroy them physically. Like Hitler did. We need to shrink the existence of Yaron London before he and his friends destroy us. And it’s better — nay, crucial — to do it sooner rather than later.”

London’s original column, published on May 7, argued that “the correct question is not how to draft the haredim and draw them into the job market, but rather, what should be done in order to minimize their population rate within Israeli society.”