By Menachem Baron, COLlive reporter
The cultural conflict between the ultra religious and the general public in Israel is affecting Lubavitch, even as shluchim, chassidim and bochurim work to reach out and bridge the gap.
A group of bochurim from the Tomchei Tmimim Chabad Yeshiva in Elad were refused entrance to a city bus this past Friday after they were wrongly associated with the haredi extremists from Beit Shemesh.
The bus driver of line number 79 did not allow them to enter, saying he “does not want problematic passengers on the bus.”
According to one of the bochurim, the driver allowed people behind them to board, while telling them he feared them because they were “a group.”
They were only a few bochurim, COLlive was told.
The 14 and 15 year olds, students in shiur Aleph in Yeshiva Ketana (mesivta), were traveling to the city of Petach Tikvah to do Mivtzoim and offer Tefillin and Shabbos candles to fellow Jews, and were left without a way back.
“The next bus came an hour later, but it didn’t stop at the station,” one of them said. With Shabbos nearing, they took a taxi cab back, arriving 30 minutes before candle lighting time.
A manager for the bus company Egged Taavura (not to be confused with the larger Egged) told one of the bochurim that the driver made a bad judgment call.
Relations between the general public and the haredi community in Israel have been troubled recently with extremists wanting to impose halacha on others and the media hyping up every small incident.
You should know better! The Israeli media has a history of spreading Jew-hatred for the history of the state. These boys, instead of trying to say they’re not like other charedim should instead file a lawsuit against the bus company. Are you so blind you can’t see how Jew-hatred is tolerated in Israel and now endemic it is? Buses don’t have to allow Jews to travel but Israelis can?
Last friday as i started walking towards the egged bus that pulled up someone asked me a question, I stopped for a few seconds to hear what they were asking and despite our shouts the driver just pulled away!!!
Sad that we r scared of our own people!!!!
I’m not for the Haredi behavior in the least. But this is OK? If this had been done by a frum person the frum driver would have been fired, with criminal charges against him. Why, they’ve been pressing charges against frum people who got in to word fights with other people (again, something I strongly disagree with).
# 2 maybe you should not post with your low IQ…. https://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=18071&alias=satmars-give-85k-to-chabad
This is why we have to condemn these acts in the strongest terms possible. We must be aggressive in condemning it, community leaders shouldn’t just wait until someone asks them to comment rather we should be extremely vocal in our opposition to those horrible acts, otherwise we will be put in the same group as the fanatics.
Since when does Lubavitch look like Satmar. We don’t wear the frizby hats or shtreimels. So y would this bus driver think Lubavitch looks like all the other Ungarish Chassidim ?
While Chabad in the US has been vocal and outspoken against the fanaticism of the Bet Shemesh zealots, Chabad in Israel needs to speak out more or else they will have more and more of this.