Rabbi Yaakov Yosef damns police who took part in Federman Farm demolition and ensuing clashes.
By TOVAH LAZAROFF, ABE SELIGfederman farm 224.88(photo credit: AP)
Those who destroy Jewish homes will be barred from the world to come, Rabbi Ya'acov Yosef, the eldest son of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, said on Tuesday during a surprise visit to the unauthorized Federman Farm outpost on the outskirts of Kiryat Arba.
"All who participated in this uprooting have no part in the 'world to come,'" Ya'acov Yosef said, as he looked at the ruins of activist Noam Federman's home, which was demolished last week by the IDF and the Border Police.
If the security personnel involved were Orthodox and they prayed, then "their prayers are of no value," he said.
The officers should have refused to follow orders, Yosef said.
"After all that I have seen here, I will mourn for a week and weep for the rest of the day," he said after greeting the Federmans. "God willing, a three-story home will be built here."
After Yosef's visit to the outpost, Noam's wife, Elisheva, left to pick up their one-year-old daughter Noga from a nearby day care. She was stopped by a police car and detained for interrogation.
Startled at being pulled off the street in the middle of the day, Elisheva was able to quickly call to ask her sister to get Noga instead.
For Elisheva, the trip to the police station was just one more stressful experience since her family was pulled out of their home by security personnel at 1 a.m. on October 26.
She says that during the evacuation, she and Noam were thrown on the ground and lightly beaten.
Police in turn said they wanted to question Elisheva about assaults on police officers that took place both during that evacuation and over the last 10 days by the teens and young adults who have been camped out at the outpost.
Last weekend, eight policemen were lightly injured by stones thrown at them by activists at the farm.
It was ironic that the police "are charging me with their own crimes," Elisheva said.
Ch.-Supt. Danny Poleg, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria Police District, said, "We issued a summons a few days ago for her [Elisheva Federman] to come to the station for questioning on her own accord, which she failed to do."
Elisheva said the only summons she received came in the immediate aftermath of the evacuation and she that hadn't responded because she was busy with nine children who had just lost the roof over their heads.
"I said the children really need me. Could you do it at a normal time," she said.
What shocked her about the interrogation, she said, was that at the end they wanted to take strands of her hair for a DNA sample.
"I was in shock," said Elisheva, who initially refused.
She was given a choice: Either allow a female officer to remove strands of her hair, or four male officers would hold her down and the sample would be taken by force.
"I didn't want to be held down by four men," said Elisheva. So she let a policewoman remove her head covering and take 10 strands of hair.
"I didn't know that I was that kind of Rambo," she said after her release.
Poleg said that DNA sampling was not an uncommon procedure. Since a law was passed a year and a half ago allowing the practice, DNA samples are taken from suspects faced with more serious crimes. Those samples go into a police database.
"Everyone who's brought in has their fingerprints taken," Poleg said. "In this case, because [Elisheva Federman's] questioning had to do with an assault, we took a DNA sample. It was not because the assault was committed against a police officer, but because it was an assault in general, and that is one of the types of offenses that a DNA sample is required for."
During the process, he said, "We upheld the utmost respect for her and made sure she wasn't hurt - both physically and religiously."
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
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