Chareidi Patrol: Vigilance or Vigilantism?

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Written by Samuel Sokol

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 19:00

Chareidi residents of the Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet neighborhood have formed a neighborhood patrol in response to a string of break-ins by Arab laborers working on the many building projects throughout the city.

There are no hard numbers as yet, but in the two weeks since the founding of the "vaad ha'shemirah," the number of burglaries by Arabs is rumored to have dropped dramatically.

Residents of the Sheinfeld neighborhood, a Modern Orthodox area that borders Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet, are uncomfortable with the idea of the patrol. A local resident, who spoke with the Five Towns Jewish Times on condition of anonymity, admitted that a neighborhood watch is a good idea in principle, but expressed reservations about the people leading the group.

Posters have been plastered on walls throughout the chassidic neighborhood, which contains a sizable expatriate population from such chareidi centers as Bet Yisrael and Meah Shearim in Jerusalem, calling on residents to volunteer for the patrol.

Two of the men listed on the broadsheet are known members of a small group of zealots, known as "kannoim," who have terrorized the community of Bet Shemesh in recent years, engaging in stone-throwing, physical assaults, and threats against those found to be in violation of the group's value system. Some residents have expressed their reservations regarding the new patrol, fearful that it will soon be used to enforce the moral standards of the Bet Shemesh kannoim.

Dov Lipman, a local rabbi, was quick to point out that the situation in Bet Shemesh has been relatively calm in the past year. However, in the past, local residents have been threatened with violence by some chassidim who moved into the neighborhood and were disturbed by the sight of televisions in their neighbors' homes.

The throwing of rocks at cars on Shabbat and attacks on women whose skirts were deemed unacceptably short were a regular occurrence in the area for some time. The situation had become so bad at one point that an Egged driver whose bus was attacked pulled his gun and shot in the air in order to ward off his attackers.

According to neighborhood residents, many, if not most, of the local chassidim object to the methods of the kannoim, who only number a few families, but other residents have been terrorized into acceptance of their ways.

Rafi Goldmeier, a popular Israeli blogger who lives in the adjacent Ramat Bet Shemesh Alef development, described one of the men listed on the signs as a patrol organizer, as a leader of the zealots who has "sat in jail a number of times for his violence around the neighborhood." In a statement to the Five Towns Jewish Times, that individual denied any connection with Shabbat demonstrations.

A. Eizenbach, one of the leaders of the community patrol, explained that his group deals only with the issue of break-ins and does not have a connection with any other type of activity. He denied both reports that his organization works in conjunction with the local police and that the police have been harassing patrol members. We could not reach Bet Shemesh police chief Kobi Cohen for comment.

Due to pressure and threats of violence from the zealots, projects such as a new school for national-religious girls in a primarily Modern Orthodox neighborhood have been slowed. The zealots claim that the neighborhood is theirs and that a Zionist school impinges on the sanctity of the area.

The presence of older rabbis in the neighborhood, who have begun reining in the young men, and the formation of a national-religious community patrol, have been credited by some with calming Bet Shemesh.