'Irreligious' Beit Shemesh haredi family told to move
"These people are not normal. It's like we are living in the Wild West."
By ETGAR LEFKOVITSharedi 88(photo credit: )
A family living in Ramat Beit Shemesh has been targeted by a group of haredi extremists in the community who deemed that members of the family were not "religious enough" for its taste, police and the family said Monday.
The family, which is haredi and has lived in the predominantly haredi community for the last six years, has been subject to four nights of protests outside their home.
The target of the demonstrators has been the family's two eldest sons, 22 and 20, who no longer wear haredi garb and are modern Orthodox, the mother of the family said.
Her two sons were beaten up on the way home Friday night by extremists, who have held a demonstration outside their home every night since then, calling on the family to move out, she said.
"These people are not normal," she said. "It's like we are living in the Wild West."
After police arrested two haredi protesters who took part in the Sunday night demonstration, hundreds of haredim rioted Monday afternoon on a main road leading into the neighborhood in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, setting trash bins on fire and pelting police with stones, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
Five demonstrators were arrested.
The mother said she had "no idea" why her family was suddenly being targeted, adding that the whole story was "very strange and troublesome," but that it had happened once before to a different family in the area.
She added that local rabbis on Monday intervened in an attempt to stop the harassment.
