Police admit they mishandled noise complaints at TA synagogue

“After examining the incident as it happened last Friday, it emerged that the handling was incorrect and we will draw the necessary lessons so that it will not recur."

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Updated: AUGUST 17, 2018 03:18
Police Tel Aviv election day 2013 370 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Police Tel Aviv election day 2013 370
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Police have acknowledged they mishandled complaints of noise emanating from the public address system of a synagogue in south Tel Aviv last Friday.
An officer entered the Yeshuat Yisrael synagogue last Shabbat eve and demanded IDs from worshipers praying there. The incident was documented by Doron Cohen, the editor-in-chief of Maariv.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Cohen tweeted last weekend. “Friday night, the synagogue of Shapira (I was there, my father’s memorial), a policeman arrives in the middle of prayers, pulls out a pen and notepad, and demands ID from the worshipers. Why? Because of the same two-minute song that heralds the entrance of the Sabbath and drives the ‘progressives’ crazy. Antisemitism? Processes that occurred in Germany? You decide.”
A statement sent Thursday by the Tel Aviv District police spokeswoman to The Jerusalem Post said: “Lately, a number of complaints were made to the police by residents of the neighborhood who complained of unreasonable noise emanating from the public service announcement system at the Yeshuat Yisrael synagogue on Hochmei Yisrael Street in the Shapira neighborhood in Tel Aviv. We explained to the petitioners that if the noise does not exceed the maximum noise level, as stated in the law, there will be no police action on the matter.”
“After examining the incident as it happened last Friday, it emerged that the handling was incorrect and we will draw the necessary lessons so that it will not recur,” the statement concluded.
The police statement follows a letter sent earlier this week by Deputy Mayor Natan Elnatan, the Shas representative in the municipality, to David Bitan, the police commander of the Tel Aviv District.
Elnatan lamented that police had disturbed prayers and “disrespected the holiness of the place.”
“I do not understand what the need was to go the synagogue after Shabbat had begun and to disturb and hurt the feeling of the worshipers,” he wrote. The issue was not new, and complaints of this kind have been going on for several months, he said.
Elnatan noted that he was responsible for the installation of the loudspeakers at the synagogue, had told the commander this in June and would be happy to answer any questions on the matter.
He highlighted that in installing the sound system he had acted in accordance with noise bylaws.
Sound pollution from houses of worship has caused controversy for years, but the focus has been on the muezzin’s call to prayer, with efforts to pass legislation to restrict the use of outdoor loudspeakers by religious institutions.