Supermarket in Ramat Bet Shemesh without safety permit destroyed by fire caused by irresponsible children

One of the worst things about this latest disaster in Bet Shemesh is that the supermarket itself had no technology for preventing fires to begin with:

Jerusalem District Fire Investigators have completed their investigation into the July 19 fire that broke out at a supermarket in Ramat Beit Shemesh, determining that the fire was caused by children playing with open fire in one of the supermarket’s rooms, while the store was open and operating normally.

The fire broke out in a supermarket located on the entrance floor of an eight-story residential building. Firefighters brought the flames under control and prevented them from spreading to the residential apartments. The incident ended without any injuries.

The investigation findings also revealed that the business operated without a permit from the Israeli Fire and Rescue Service, and that no fire detection and extinguishing equipment was installed. The Fire and Rescue Service stated that such systems could have prevented the spread of the fire and reduced the extent of the damage.

The Fire and Rescue Department emphasized that this is a phenomenon of businesses and buildings that do not meet fire safety requirements and clarified that meeting these requirements is a basic condition for protecting human life and property.

The Fire and Rescue Department also called on parents to talk to their children about the dangers inherent in playing with fire and to keep ignition means away from them. According to them, the combination of playing with fire and the lack of safety measures could end in disaster.

The problem is that the Haredi parents whose children caused this debacle likely didn't even teach them why it's important to look both ways when crossing the street. And then the supermarket itself made things worse by not only leaving the children unattended, they didn't even coordinate with safety officials to make sure the complex was safe and had a permit to operate. This is similar in some ways to the recent case of a daycare center in Jerusalem that operated without proper safety for the children in its care, and resulted in 2 deaths. Over the years, we continue to see this kind of alarming lack of recognition for safety of anybody in Haredi enclaves, and it's miraculous nobody died in this latest disaster.

Haredi rioters attack soldiers of the same background

Another nasty encounter with Haredis hostile to presumably anybody not considered a leftist, and the guilty party was demonstrating in favor of those who vandalized a chief justice's house in Alon Shvut:

A demonstration in support of those involved in last month's riot outside the home of Israeli Supreme Court Deputy President Justice Noam Sohlberg was held in Jerusalem and ended in violence, during which three Haredi soldiers serving in the IDF's Netzah Yehuda Battalion were attacked.

The event began with a vehicle convoy from Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem, after which participants continued on foot to Shabbat Square. During the march, demonstrators carried signs opposing the enlistment of Haredim into the IDF, including one reading, "We will never serve in the enemy's army."

Participants also shouted slogans against police officers, and in several instances objects were thrown at them.

The three soldiers, who happened to pass through the area by chance, were assaulted by some of those attending the protest.

The march took place following the release of 63 haredi suspects who had been arrested in connection with last month's riot outside Justice Sohlberg's home in Alon Shvut.

According to the investigation, the rioters damaged Sohlberg's home and the family's vehicle. Windows were smashed, flower pots and planters were broken, and the entrance to the house was vandalized. Israeli flags bearing swastikas were also placed in the street.

Following the incident, Justice Sohlberg's wife, Meira Sohlberg, described what they found upon returning home.

"We are children of Holocaust survivors," she said. "Jews are hurting one another like this. Look at this destruction-a pogrom. What is this, Kristallnacht?"

That the thugs would even bring a desecrated flag to their repulsive riot was a most antisemitic act, and makes clear there's a crisis of 5th column self-haters in Israel's Haredi enclaves, some of which even allow PLO flags to be flown. That also speaks volumes.

One of the commentors to the article said:

Two comments are necessary regarding this article:

1. If it isn't clear to anyone up to now, it should be crystal clear now: the Chareidi community does not consider itself citizens of the State of Israel. (There are many that do, but the vocal, rioting ones certainly do not.)

2. I've said this before: According to Rashi: Just lifting a hand to hit a fellow Jew makes you a "Rasha," an evil person. That is the true Torah value expressed by one the giants of Torah. Of course, if you consider all the other Jews in Israel as the enemy, calling them Amalek, then this warping of Torah values lreads to rationalizing - falsely - that you can hit them. It's time for them to "change their tune" and join us in the real Torah world.

Another said:

I am charedi. I have one married son who served (reserves) for ten months in a combat unit in Gaza during the war and another two in Lebanon. I have another married son in Kollel. Both have families. My Kollel son learns (Torah) nightly with my reserves son. IMHO, the behavior of these so-called "charedim" (in costume) is against the Torah, is a chilul Hashem and is reprehensible.

But that's exactly why the Haredi lifestyle just isn't working anymore. If more would leave it, we'd be much better off.

Haredi anti-army extremists were celebrating death of recruitment advocate

An ultra-Orthodox activist who tried to integrate Haredis into military service sadly passed away, and what a shock, there's Haredi extremists who're celebrating the death of an innocent man:

Following the death of Yaakov Aharon Farber, who was behind the Maalot Tzur initiative to integrate haredim in the IDF, extremist factors celebrated with several events and announcements.

Kugel, fruit, and drinks were handed out at yeshivas and study halls "in honor of his death." The refreshments were accompanied by a sign with a quote from Proverbs: "When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy," noting that they were donated "in honor of the death of one of the leaders of the forced apostasy in our generation, Yaakov Farber, may the names of the wicked rot."

The "Kav Hahagana" (Defense Line), which is affiliated with the Jerusalem Faction, published an announcement, stating: "When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy. The conscriptor who founded Maalot Tzur croaked an hour ago; from now on, he won't be able to draft haredim."

Farber, of blessed memory, passed away at 32, after years of fighting an illness. He led the Maalot Tzur initiative, which was designed to integrate haredim into military service while adapting the framework to their way of life. The program included, among othe

r features, service without military uniforms and participation by married men who were not studying in yeshiva and who maintained ongoing guidance from rabbis. It's utterly terrible when clans like those in focus do something most inappropriate, especially after October 7, 2023. The ultra-Orthodox clans' members should be ashamed of themselves. What the guy was doing was a positive example, and it's a shame he's gone now, much too young.

The problematic side of the cafe that's open on Shabbat

A discovery came up about Cafe Basimta, which has been open on Shabbat and harrassed by Haredi extremists, that now has some embarrassed, and for all we know, the Haredis may still go after it:

Jerusalem’s premier soccer team made an unusual announcement last week: It would give a new cafe free advertising on players’ uniforms for the coming season.

Cafe Basimta was facing harassment from haredi Orthodox protesters who wanted it to close on Shabbat, and Hapoel Jerusalem said it wanted to send the message that Jerusalem is “an open and diverse city, where there is room for everyone.”

But on Tuesday, Hapoel Jerusalem reversed course and retracted the offer, after learning via an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Cafe Basimta is an official project of Jews for Jesus.

“Our original intention was simply to support a small business that was being denied its freedom of operation, and we still believe in that principle,” club spokesperson Matan Avrina told JTA. “However, we also realized that this specific story is more complex than we initially knew.”

For the secular Israelis who have flocked to Cafe Basimta in response to the protests, too, the revelation of the cafe’s ties to a Christian missionary organization is complicating what had seemed like a simple skirmish in the city’s culture war over businesses open on the Jewish day of rest.

Perhaps it's not that surprising a business like this could operate on Shabbat. That said, it's still no excuse for what the Haredi hoodlums were doing, and only makes for bad publicity. So the authorities should continue to make sure the Haredis just simply stay away and remain in their shoddy enclaves, because their behavior doesn't help, and is illegal.

Insular Haredi society is becoming a national security crisis

So here's a writer who's talking about how the Haredis, in their own way, are taking attention away from more pressing issues like Islamofascism by imposing their belief systems on other Israelis, as they pave the road to hell with "good intentions":

The Oct. 7 war turned a simmering political dispute into a national crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis answered the call to reserve duty. More than 900 lost their lives. Families endured repeated deployments while businesses struggled without employees, and parents went months without seeing their children.

At precisely the moment when the country needed every able-bodied citizen, thousands of Haredi men continued to avoid military service.

The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly warned of severe manpower shortages, and Israel’s courts have ordered the government to enforce the draft of Haredim. Successive governments, however, have refused to apply the law. Given the reaction to the 16 arrests this year, it’s hard to imagine any government arresting thousands of Haredi draft dodgers; those arrests triggered violent demonstrations that blocked highways, shut down rail traffic, attacked detention facilities and assaulted police officers, including one whose son was killed in Gaza, and even targeted the home of a Supreme Court justice.

Instead of enforcing existing law, the Netanyahu government has sought legislation that would equate Torah study with military service and limit the arrest of draft evaders. In 2024, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the Labor Ministry to cut daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox yeshivah students who disobey military draft orders.

Netanyahu, however, wants to restore such subsidies. In other words, the government has moved from enforcement to reversal.

Whenever the issue of Haredi draft dodging comes up, I’m reminded of the U.S. military’s practice of shaving recruits’ heads as part of standardization. Imagine if the IDF did that to the Haredim. Instead, the army bends over backward to accommodate the demands of even the more moderate Orthodox soldiers who may refuse to serve in units with women or to be trained by them. The army recently backed down after leaders of Hesder yeshivas (institutions that combine Torah study with military service) threatened to stop sending their students to the Armored Corps over the proposed inclusion of women in tanks alongside men.

The ultra-Orthodox fear that their children will lose their religion in a secular army, though thousands of observant Jews proudly serve in the IDF. Nevertheless, many Israelis would gladly accept some alternative form of national service for those unwilling to join. Even that compromise has largely been rejected by Haredi leadership, which insists that Torah study alone fulfills their national obligation.

While there are valid issues to find here, the only problem is whether the writer's being altruistic. If he's just attacking Netanyahu - but wouldn't attack a left-wing politician who did the same - what good is this critique?

That aside, it's pretty clear at this point the Haredis aren't going to accept even simple national service, based on their increasing belief in segregation from wider society. That's wrong, as was the attack on a supreme court justice while distributing leaflets that looked like Israeli flags with a swastika in the middle. That incident amounted a most anti-semitic act, and as a result, how are the clans who do such a repulsive thing any different from antisemitic movements in non-Jewish societies?

What began as David Ben-Gurion’s original exemption—intended for a few hundred exceptional scholars—has evolved into a blanket exclusion for an entire community. This is no longer simply a question of fairness. It is a question of national survival.

Today, roughly one-quarter of Israelis reaching military age are Haredi. By 2050, that figure could approach 40%. If current exemption rates continue, then the burden on the shrinking pool of secular and national-religious soldiers will become unsustainable. As that burden grows, reservists will serve longer and more frequently, imposing growing costs on families, employers and the economy.

Equally concerning is the economic model that successive governments have enabled. Many Haredi schools provide no instruction in mathematics, English or science, leaving graduates ill-equipped for modern employment. Hence, the employment rate among Haredi men remains dramatically below that of other Jewish Israelis, while many employed Haredi women work in lower-paying or part-time positions. [...]

Ironically, Israel’s Arab citizens increasingly demonstrate the opposite trajectory. While significant socioeconomic gaps remain, Arab participation in higher education, professional occupations and the workforce has steadily increased as more seek to improve their standard of living. The Institute for National Security Studies has noted that whereas much of the Arab sector is moving toward greater economic integration, Haredi leadership largely seeks to preserve the existing system of dependency and exemption.

The Haredi leadership is no longer content merely to preserve its own way of life; it increasingly seeks to extend its religious norms into Israel’s public sphere.

For years, the ultra-Orthodox have imposed their standards at the Western Wall, where restrictions on women’s prayer and the rejection of non-Orthodox religious practices have alienated many Israelis and much of the Diaspora. Their ambitions now extend well beyond holy sites. In Bnei Brak, municipal rabbis recently ordered gender segregation on the sidewalks of two major streets. At the national level, Netanyahu’s coalition has advanced legislation allowing universities and colleges to offer gender-segregated master’s and doctoral programs—a proposal so troubling that Israel’s university presidents and medical school deans publicly warned it would undermine academic freedom and equality.

These are not isolated disputes. They reflect a broader effort to redefine Israel’s public institutions according to ultra-Orthodox religious doctrine.

On the part about Bnei Brak, the municipality did appear to reverse their plans after backlash, but for all we know, they could still enforce them without signposts too. As for the legislation, yes, that's sadly a dumb move, because it's just implying Netanyahu's trying to survive at all costs, rather than make an effort to convince the Haredi public it'd be better to vote for Likud instead. He certainly shouldn't be letting them blackmail anybody on the right.

Since we're on the topic, there's also a troubling item about plans to give the old Bikur Holim hospital building to a Haredi girls' seminar:

The fate of the capital’s oldest Jewish hospital, Bikur Cholim – opened on Straus Street in 1925 after moving from the Old City and closed in 2020 – will determine whether downtown Jerusalem is accessible to all its residents.

So said Havilio, the longtime community activist and politician who, for decades, has represented the voice of the secular, pluralistic, and traditional community in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox)-dominated municipality and is a deputy mayor heading the Ha’ihud Ha’Yerushalmi faction.

The municipality had approved plans to allocate the historic and much more beautiful eastern building for a seminary for 1,000 haredi teenage girls run by the Slonim Hassidic community, triggering an uproar among liberal Jerusalemites. Havilio said the mayor’s plan was illegal, and various opponents threatened a lawsuit.

“This is a historic mistake,” Havilio told In Jerusalem. “At present, the border between haredi residents and institutions and non-haredi ones is on Hanevi’im Street. A haredi seminary would move the border by a few meters south to Jaffa Road. The city center will then not be allowed to have places of entertainment, cafés, or stores that could remain open on Shabbat or any liberal projects.

I think it is wrong to turn what could make an important museum into something isolated, Now, here's yet another, more troubling piece that certainly confirms what the first one's allegedly concerned about:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemns “horrific” comments made by Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Degel Hatorah political faction, who said yesterday that religious soldiers were committing murder by serving in the army.

Lando denounced those in the religious Zionist community who serve in the army, at a meeting with heads of the Mir Yeshiva, at his home in Bnei Brak: “I am speaking about those with knitted kippas that are required to go.”

“If the state sends people, soldiers, for the honor of the state, and they kill people, is that also permissible? It’s very much murder. So they incite murder. They wage wars not only for the sake of salvation, but for the honor of the state,” he said.

In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu condemns the comments.

“IDF soldiers, secular and Haredi, leave their homes, their work and their families, and risk their lives in order to protect the State of Israel, its citizens and all of the nation of Israel,” Netanyahu says.

“They deserve deep appreciation, gratitude, and full support from all segments of the public, and certainly from the world of Torah,” the statement reads.

One could reasonably wonder if Lando sympathizes with Islamic jihadists. His words certainly tell exactly what the Hamas would want to hear, and Lando's effectively desecrated the memory of millions of victims of barbarism in all forms. Based on this, how can such Haredi clans claim they're not antisemitic/self-haters? In this report, it notes that:

Rabbi Lando accused Religious Zionist figures who support IDF enlistment of encouraging “actual murder," claiming that soldiers are sent to fight “not only for the sake of saving lives, but also for the honor of the state."

Here, it sounds like he's saying it's inherently wrong to save innocent lives, and acting as though honor for the state is also wrong. And then we wonder how else October 7, 2023 occurred, in addition to irresponsible military officials. Lando's lack of moral compass is another reason why the tragedy occurred. He shouldn't be recognized as a rabbi at all. He's nothing but a shoddy fraud in a black suit and hat who's more addicted to the socialist ideology than serious liberty and freedom. People like him are exactly what's taking us back to the dark ages.

So as far as national security crises go, Lando's definitely providing examples of why we need to be on the lookout for 5th column inciters who're as bad as their more leftist counterparts.

Haredis continue protesting against community members enlisting in army

The sad case of hoodlums and trespassers rioting continues in Ramat Gan and Jerusalem:

Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators protested Wednesday outside army recruitment centers in Ramat Gan and Jerusalem, where new Haredi IDF recruits were set for enlistment.

In footage of the protest near Ramat Gan’s Tel Hashomer, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, at least a hundred young men in ultra-Orthodox garb were seen gathered outside the center, some sitting cross-legged on the road as cars honked at them.

Over a dozen demonstrators attempted to break into the recruitment center in Tel Hashomer, the Israel Hayom outlet reported.

According to the daily, some 140 ultra-Orthodox young men were expected to be conscripted into combat support roles, sparking anger among extremist anti-draft groups. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.

In Jerusalem, where protesters chanted against IDF enlistment, police officers at the scene declared the gathering unlawful and worked to disperse the demonstrators, police said in a statement.

Considering how negatively insular the ultra-Orthodox customs they follow are, that's why "secularization" is almost a blessing. But of course, if the recruits want to, they can always arrange for Torah studies in the army proper. All the vandals who took part in incidents like this should be heavily fined to compensate for the serious damage they've caused.

A woman who wisely chose not to return to Jewish "Taliban cult"

Here's an interview with a woman who wisely left what's called a "taliban cult", one of the worst products of Haredi clans like the Satmar and Lev Tahor in Israel:

When Rose Feldman wants to explain where she came from, she looks through her phone for a photo from the not-so-distant past. For a moment, it is hard to connect the young woman with flowing hair sitting in the room with the girl staring back from the screen: covered from head to toe, her head wrapped in a burqa-like covering.

She rarely allowed herself to be photographed in those years, but that rare image says a great deal about the world she came from. To outsiders, they were known as the “Taliban cult” or the “shawl women.” For Rose, it was simply life itself: the world in which she grew up after her family joined the cult.

Today, as she volunteers for national service at a boarding home for children removed from their families — a home very similar to, and located near, the one where she herself spent her later teenage years — Rose can define more clearly than ever just how abnormal the place she grew up in really was. “Everything was very detached. We moved all the time from place to place,” she says.

The cult, built on a sophisticated system of control by multiple authority figures who frequently change, is constantly evading the authorities. School was out of the question. From the moment her family joined the cult, when she was 8, she stopped studying.

‘The shock of my life’

Rose’s life was defined by wandering: from Jerusalem to Tiberias and from there to Bnei Brak, often at night, in order to evade the authorities. Sometimes they slept in cemeteries and at the graves of righteous figures. Every so often, someone would be added to or removed from the family.

“At one point, I was raising a baby who was not even connected to our family,” she says. What sounds absurd now felt almost self-evident to her at the time. “I was mature from a young age,” she says, because she always knew she had one purpose in life: “They teach you to prepare to be a mother. That is the role. That is what a woman is supposed to do in the world.”

One of her friends was already engaged at 11. Rose was told she was engaged — to a man she did not know and had never even met — when she was 14, two weeks before the planned wedding. “Relatively late,” she says. “He was in Jerusalem and I was in Tiberias,” she recalls. Although she had been prepared for that moment throughout her short life, when it finally arrived she was mainly “in the shock of my life. Just stunned.” Rose was brought to Jerusalem, to the place where the wedding was supposed to take place. But the ceremony never happened. Moments before it began, police raided the site and arrested everyone present. Rose was taken to a police station and from there to an emergency center. Afterward, by court order, she was formally removed from her home and transferred to a boarding school. [...]

For her, service at the boarding home is an opportunity to give back to the place that gave her safe ground and allowed her to choose a life different from the one laid out for her. It is also a deeply personal closing of the circle. “The children are my heart,” she says. “When a child chooses to share something with me, it is worth everything. It is the most meaningful thing I could have done.”

The psychological control and prohibitions: ‘You’ll go to hell’

The police raid on Rose’s child wedding was dramatic and traumatic, but it was far from the happy ending of the story. As the cliché goes, you can take the girl out of the cult, but you cannot take the cult out of the girl.

Another four years would pass before Rose decided, in a single phone call, that she was not going back. Reaching that moment required enormous patience and acceptance from the staff at the last boarding school where she was educated — an Or Shalom family home operated for and supervised by the Welfare Ministry. Eventually, because of the seeds planted during that period, and very much because of Rose herself, she decided to begin a new life.

Read the full article. It's very fortunate she came to her senses, considering all the intimidation tactics they brainwashed her with. Such cults have to be dismantled and dispersed, and her parents, whether they were Haredi or not, should be utterly ashamed of themselves for doing something that could've endangered her health and life, along with her humanity and dignity. Now, she's lucky to have found and regained it again.

Jerusalem cafe should remain open on Shabbat, if that's how these Haredi thugs are going to behave on the very day

A cafe in Jerusalem works on Shabbat, and unshockingly, some Haredi hooligans decided to harrass customers:

The owner of Cafe Basimta in Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood, Yoel Ben David, clarified on Saturday in a conversation with Walla that he will continue to open his business on weekends despite the ultra-Orthodox protest that took place at his cafe.

The Jerusalem Post magazine had highlighted Cafe Basimta last week as a new specialty caffeine spot which could serve as a "home away from home" for those seeking a quiet area in Jerusalem.

Ben David described his fear that the protest could turn violent and noted that the broad support he received from Jerusalem residents encouraged him to continue as usual.

Speaking to Walla, Ben David described the tense moments and addressed the protesters’ use of children during the demonstration.

"Suddenly they arrived, and it was disturbing and quite sad to see small children being sent to bang on windows and overturn tables," Ben David said. [...]

Despite the protesters’ harsh response, the business owner is drawing encouragement from the mobilization of the city’s secular public. Several hours after the confrontation began, dozens of residents from across Jerusalem arrived at the site to express support and bolster the staff.

"I feel very encouraged; there is a large community here that supports us," Ben David concluded, adding that he was moved by the wave of messages and phone calls he had received from many residents since the morning.

It's far from the worst thing that could happen that a restaurant would be open on Shabbat, and offensive that the Haredis would come about in such a repugnant way. That's practically what led to October 7, 2023, and after that horror, these kind of offensive "protests" can't be done anymore.

Of course, we have to hope the police will make sure there's no attempts at arson, realizing the ultra-Orthodox extremists have been capable of committing offensive crimes like those that could endanger lives. Everything must be done to ensure that no matter what one thinks of Shabbat, no terrible incidents occur to this restaurant.

Haredi anti-military protestors shouted antisemitic slurs at police in Arabic

If the following news is even half-correct, it makes clear the worst of Haredi clans have gone off the deep end:

Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) protests over the contentious draft bill and ongoing arrests of draft dodgers erupted across the center of the country and Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, blocking traffic and disrupting public order.

The protests follow instructions from Rabbi Zvi Friedman, who, earlier on Thursday, called for protests after a wave of draft dodger arrests.

In Jerusalem, the protest was officially declared a riot by Israel Police, and officers from both Israel Police and Border Police worked to remove protesters from the Bar Ilan intersection.

A police officer and a passerby were both lightly injured after protesters threw stones at officers operating at the scene, according to Israel Police.

Footage circulating on social media also shows a protester shouting “Itbah al-Yahud,” an Arabic phrase that translates to “kill the Jews,” at officers.

Now that was really crossing the line, and proves that, if the clans these monsters come from could hang PLO flags in their neighborhoods, they're more than fully capable of being self-haters and antisemites too. Such monsters don't belong in the country, period, and above all that, spiritual gurus like the one mentioned have to be arrested and charged with encouraging crimes. These riots also took place around Bnei Brak, and there too it was utterly repulsive.

There is good news though, that these past 2 months saw a record rise in the number of Haredi army recruits, all despite the efforts of the extremists to stop it:

A total of 433 recruits enlisted through designated tracks for the ultra-Orthodox community during the IDF's April-May recruitment cycle, including a record 272 combat soldiers, the military said on Wednesday.

The figure marks an increase of approximately 24 percent compared to the corresponding cycle in the previous enlistment year. The cycle also set a new record in the Hashmonaim Brigade, where 96 combat soldiers are now training, and combat training programs are opening at their largest scale in three years.

The news is also reported here. The only objection I have is to whether they expect sex-segregated accomodations at the expense of lady army officials. That's wrong, and that's something the IDF must prove they can avoid. Other than that, it's good to see there's ultra-Orthodox who're willing to be responsible when it comes to defending the country.

The Haredi community makes use of pirate taxi services

According to this investigation, the Haredi world's made use of a cheaper but seriously illegal alternative to commercial taxis, one that's even cost the life of an infant:

The shocking accident that occurred last Friday on Israel's Highway 1, in which a 1-month-old infant was killed, was not an act of fate. It was a warning, written in blood.

The driver was not a licensed taxi driver, the infant was not strapped in, and the entire ride took place in a blind spot of Israeli law enforcement. This disaster happened on Highway 1, but with thousands of drivers operating without a shred of oversight, it is a danger that can meet anyone at every junction and in every city in Israel.

A false declaration to a bot, and you're on the road

To understand just how wide open the system is, Israel Hayom has sent an investigator to see how easy it is to become a "driver." The process was alarmingly quick: He contacted a bot-based registration system, entered false details, and the registration was completed without a hitch. No one asked to see a driver's license, no one checked the vehicle documents, and no questions were raised about insurance or the driver's identity.

While taxi drivers in Israel are required to undergo training, strict medical examinations and security screening, in the world of the "drivers" the front door is open to anyone. There is no requirement to present a valid driver's license, and no one checks the driver's traffic record.

After paying a nominal membership fee, the investigator began receiving ride offers and even carried out a ride in Jerusalem. During the ride, an English-speaking tourist who had come to Israel for a short vacation got into the car.

Asked how she had heard about the "drivers" network, she revealed just how deep the phenomenon runs. "My sister, who studied in Israel, recommended that I avoid taxis and use this service," she said. "They arrive quickly, with luxury cars, and take you with no problems." What she did not know was that in the event of an accident, she was riding in a vehicle without insurance coverage for paid passenger transport.

To secular Israelis, the term "driver" may sound like the community's version of Uber. That is a dangerous lie. While international ride-hailing apps have oversight, driver ratings and regulated insurance, in the world of the drivers, everything is wide open.

When there is no requirement to present documents, there is no one to verify that the vehicle has the proper insurance, the only insurance that covers passengers in the event of injury. Without that coverage, in the event of an accident, passengers find themselves with no financial or medical safety net.

Read it all. This is what the Haredi community's now led to, and it's simultaneously stupefying how the legal system stratospherically failed to take measures to curb this case. Will measures be taken to disqualify any and all pirate taxi drivers after this tragedy?

The man who attacked a French Catholic nun in Jerusalem has only added fuel to a sick fire

Recently, another hoodlum, presumably cut from the same cloth as Haredi extremists, attacked a French Catholic nun in Jerusalem, and its sadly revealed a serious and growing problem that not enough may have taken notice of:

Footage of an attack on a Catholic nun in Jerusalem shocked the world when it went viral last week, but for worshipers attending Sunday mass at Saint Stephen’s Basilica, it was just the latest example of mounting religious hostility.

The attack on Tuesday was captured by CCTV and shared widely, showing a Jewish extremist shoving the nun to the ground and leaving, before returning to resume his attack on her, at which point by-passers intervened.

As the congregation poured out of the Sunday service, the story was still on everyone’s lips, as many offered words and tokens of support for the French nun, who was not in attendance.

“She still has pains,” but she is “surrounded by support,” said the priest who led the service, Olivier Catel.

When Catel arrived in Jerusalem over a decade ago, such incidents were rare. Roughly once a year, he said, “when I went out in my habit, people — usually ultra-Orthodox Jews — would spit behind our back.”

“We never paid attention because they were isolated incidents,” he said. But for the past three or four years, it has become something of a daily occurrence.

“When we go out, people spit next to us.”

The Rossing Center, a Jerusalem-based association for interreligious dialogue, has documented “growing harassment” of Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem, according to a study released in March.

Throughout 2025, it recorded 61 physical attacks, including spitting, the use of pepper spray, and blows. It also recorded 28 cases of verbal harassment and 52 cases of defacement of church property.

A British priest who preferred to remain anonymous confirmed that such incidents occurred daily.

He never went out without his black robes and was invariably met with spitting or shouts of “Go home!” in his direction.

‘He should be killed’

“Everyone said this would happen someday,” said Pierre, a 30-year-old parishioner, who was “not surprised” by the incident and in fact expected things to escalate to a possible death if there were no intervention.

The day of the attack on the nun, a priest he knew was in the supermarket when a man stopped before him.

“He told his son, in Hebrew, ‘He should be killed,'” said Pierre. “If nothing is done… someone will take that step.”

That's definitely repulsive, and regardless of what anybody thinks of how Christianity's managed past and present, this cannot go unopposed. Most telling is how the same Haredi extremists who led to this never seem to say the same things about Islam, and one could validly wonder if it's because they actually do consider the Religion of Peace legitimate.

What makes incidents like this additionally repulsive is that it gives the MSM an excuse to do writeups that take attention away from more pressing issues like Islamofascism, and the worst part is that the hoodlums - Haredi or otherwise - who're harrassing Christians, are quite possibly doing it deliberately in order to harm Israel's image all the more. For all we know, that was probably why the IDF soldier who wrecked a Jesus statue in Lebanon pulled his atrocious act. Let's also note a lot of these same ultra-Orthodox also despise the Israeli flag, and that's telling too.

Columnist Nadav Shragai had the following to tell:

Sadly, this assault is not an isolated incident. It joins dozens of incidents over the past two years in which Christians in Jerusalem have been targeted on religious and racist grounds. They are allegedly carried out in the name of Judaism, but they have absolutely nothing to do with Judaism.

When incidents like this happen in Israel or abroad and Jews, usually visibly ultra-Orthodox, are the ones attacked, we rightly raise an outcry and define them as "antisemitic" and as "racially motivated terrorism." That is the case in Stamford Hill in London, in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York, and in Antwerp, Belgium.

In Israel, by contrast, similar incidents, even if they are on a far smaller scale and carried out only by a small handful of people, take place in the capital and elsewhere in the country and are met with horrifying media silence.

Almost no response

Among our rabbis, too, the overwhelming majority of them, and among our politicians, also the overwhelming majority, the attack on the nun in Jerusalem, which received wide coverage in many foreign media outlets and blackened our image in public, passed almost without response.

This was not only a vile act and an assault on a cleric and on a person created in the image of God. It was also a public desecration of God's name and of Judaism. Such an incident also plays into the hands of our enemies, direct and indirect, who challenge our sovereignty and our right to govern Jerusalem. It weakens our claim to freedom of religion in Jerusalem. It even weakens the just demand of Jews who seek to visit and pray on the Temple Mount without harassment and acts of violence.

For some reason, those attackers believe they are sanctifying God's name, or "settling accounts over Christianity's many sins against us throughout the generations." Is there no chief rabbi, city rabbi or neighborhood rabbi whose voice will be heard publicly, who will set them straight, denounce them, call for them to be cast out from our midst, and explain that historical reckonings of this kind are not the business of individuals, but belong in theological dialogue between religious leaders?

The story of the attack on the nun and other incidents like it must transcend political camps, Right and Left, religious and secular. It is foreign to us as Jews. We must make it not only illegitimate, but utterly repugnant. Such incidents have no connection whatsoever to even the fiercest struggle against terrorism, nor to collective punishment of an environment that supports terrorism. This is religious racism, pure and simple, which we Jews have suffered from and continue to suffer from across generations.

Of course it's repulsive, and if the response to this has been muted in comparison with the incident in Lebanon, which was possibly carried out by a Haredi soldier, that's very bad too. The mayor should reach out to the nun and the church she works at, and invite them to city hall to make some points clear about why this incident is entirely unacceptable to Judaism.

A commentor stated:

I agree with this writer. I'm sure that there are aspects of 'Ultra Orthodoxy' which may be laudable, but similarly, there are other aspects of their ideology which are lementable, - this certainly being one such example. They seem to live such 'a narrow existence', that they are oblivious to the damage that they are doing to the rest of Israeli and in fact Jewish society. To add 'insult to injury', as a section of the population that avoids serving, it is left to others to make amends for their egregious behaviour. To be sure, I am not a 'supporter' of the Catholic, and some other Christian sects, however, this is not the way to register one's opinion of the myriad of outrages perpetrated against the Jews in the past and in fact currently. This 'man', needs to be prosecuted and needs to be 'seen' to be prosecuted.

Clearly, there's others who realize the Haredis set this kind of behavior in motion, and their leaderships too are going to have to address this and above all, meet with the nun and her other church staff to apologize. But what if they don't? If not, that'll just make clear what continues to be wrong with the Haredi community.

Update: in similar news, a cafe in Ramat Gan that was open on Shabbat was torched by an arsonist, quite possibly, again, an ultra-Orthodox criminal:

An unknown individual set fire to a new cafe in Ramat Gan over the fact that the cafe is open on Saturdays, according to an N12 News report on Tuesday.

According to N12, the owner of the cafe received multiple threats regarding the cafe’s business hours since it opened.

The arson, which took place over the weekend, caused heavy damage to the building.

Tel Aviv District Police have initiated an investigation into the incident, launching a manhunt to find the suspected arsonist, who was captured on video setting the fire.

Ramat Gan mayor condemns fire, calls for community to support cafe

Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen condemned the arson, stating that it was not only an attack on the cafe, but a direct attack on “the character of Ramat Gan as a city of liberty for everyone.”

"We will not allow any criminal to light a fire of hatred in the heart of Ramat Gan,” Shama-Hacohen asserted. "Anyone who thinks of setting up 'religious guards' in the city and burning down places that are open on Shabbat will quickly discover that they have achieved the opposite.”

He also encouraged the local community to support the cafe as a show of his city’s strength.

According to N12, Shama-Hacohen also called for the cafe to be supplied with double the number of tables and chairs it had before the fire to accommodate new customers who visit to support the business.

So here we have another monster on the loose who, it could be said, violated the 10 Commandments section that says, "Thou shalt not use God's name in vain", and definitely committed a serious offense that could've resulted in lives lost if there were people in the building at the time. One of the worst things about cases like these is that the Haredi extremists who did this undoubtably are hoping to tarnish Judaism and Israel's good name, and bolster leftists who want to stick it to the right. After all, the Haredi MO draws from socialist tactics like living on welfare, so it's not like there's that much difference between leftists and Haredi zealots when it comes to topics like those.

2 recent acts of vandalism by Haredi extremists

In Beit Shemesh, sadly long a hotbed of Haredi extremism, the image of a murdered woman on the side of a United Hatzolah vehicle was vandalized/defaced:

A haredi extremist defaced an image of Ronit Elimelech, a United Hatzalah volunteer who was killed during Operation Rising Lion, in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, Ynet reported on Tuesday.

Elimelech was killed along with her mother and seven others when an Iranian missile struck a synagogue in the neighborhood.

“It’s a portrait on a rescue vehicle, not a private picture for someone to deface,” her brother, Tomer, told Ynet.

He added that the incident was especially painful given that their mother had sponsored a Torah scroll in memory of her parents, which is used in the same neighborhood where the vandalism occurred.

"I’ll tell you the truth, you succeeded, I hate you, without reason – without anything, you did this," he added.

"I wonder what you would do if it were reversed, you filth, and you managed to create baseless hatred. It turns out you’re to blame, I won’t forgive you, you don’t deserve the Torah,” he told Ynet.

The behavior of an extremist

A resident of Ramat Beit Shemesh described the incident as the work of an extremist.

“The driver was in shock and drove away,” the resident said. “What shocked him most is that he comes here every day to respond to medical emergencies.”

“In the neighborhood, United Hatzalah responders arrive to save lives,” the resident added. “It’s frustrating to see a vehicle that serves the community vandalized. It’s unfortunate that this is how the driver and the organization are treated.”

Eli Beer, head of United Hatzalah, also condemned the defacement, calling it a “vile act.”

“This is an extreme act that does not represent the residents of Beit Shemesh,” Beer said. “It crosses a red line and has no place in our society.”

He added that Elimelech “dedicated her entire life to helping and saving lives, regardless of religion, race, or gender.”

“The best response to this vandalism is the campaign we launched to raise funds for an emergency ATV in her memory,” Beer said. “I call on everyone to participate so we can continue saving lives and helping those in need.”

When somebody defaces the image of a woman who was murdered, that's as repulsive as it's telling.

There was also a case of another extremist who burned an Israeli flag on Independence Day:

Police arrested a 27-year-old man from Beit Shemesh on suspicion of burning an Israeli flag during Independence Day celebrations in Jerusalem. The suspect will be brought later today for a hearing to extend his detention at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court.

Has anyone ever considered the culprits when caught should be persuaded to stop practicing ultra-Orthodox customs, if that's what it takes to stop them from committing such horrific desecrations? Almost 3 years after October 7, 2023, and we still have repulsive incidents like where innocent women along with the country flag are desecrated, as ultra-Orthodox creeps spare no expense in doing exactly what antisemites want. Serious psychological reeducation is sorely needed to improve the situation, and even then, it'll doubtless take ages to repair the damage.

Man from Jerusalem was sexually harrassed by Egyptian border guards in Sinai

A tourist from Jerusalem had a disturbing account to relay of what happened at the Sinai border crossing:

A young Israeli man from the Jerusalem area who recently returned from a vacation in Sinai has come forward with a disturbing account of what he says happened at the Taba border crossing on his way home. According to him, while passing alone through the Egyptian side of the crossing – just steps from the Israeli border – he was sexually harassed by three Egyptian police officers.

"I came back from Sinai on Saturday. I was alone and was sexually harassed by three terrible police officers at the border crossing, right before re-entering Israel," he said. "It was horrifying, shocking, unpleasant, and violating. I'm sharing this to say that it exists – that it can happen.

"I had such an amazing time in Sinai. I enjoyed every moment, and of course, this isn't going to ruin my experience there or what I took away from it. I will go back to Sinai and do it again soon. But I'm writing this to warn you and to recommend not going to the border alone – not on the way there and not on the way back."

I think this can explain why LGBTQ cultists in places like the USA don't have much of a problem with Islamofascists, since there are double-standards on how they approach male homosexuality, if anything. Sinai may be a great place, but if this is how Egypt will be run, that's why, for as long as the Religion of Peace reigns there, no sane person should pay money to travel there.

Convicted Haredi sex offender was allowed access to Western Wall

At this point during the war against Iran, there've been restrictions on how many people can attend the Western Wall plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem. But of all people who did have access, it appears a convicted sex offender of Haredi background was actually allowed to pray there:

While hundreds of worshippers were turned away due to strict restrictions, it has emerged that among those granted entry to the Western Wall was Eliezer Berland, leader of the “Shuvu Banim" community.

Berland’s entry sparked outrage, particularly in light of his past convictions: In 2016, he was convicted of sexual offenses, and in 2021 he was also convicted of financial crimes, including fraud, exploitation, and money laundering, for which he served a prison sentence.

The incident raised questions among many worshippers who had sought to reach the site but were denied entry due to strict quotas imposed since the start of Operation Roaring Lion on February 28.

Neither the Western Wall foundation nor the police were willing to admit it's morally offensive somebody who's not really faithful to Judaism was allowed to pray there. And that's deeply repellent. They both owe a serious apology for what they did, and Berland should not be allowed anywhere near a site he doesn't really love ever again.

Tucker Carlson is against rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple

The insufferable pseudo-conservative Carlson continues his anti-Israel tirades with assaults on the right to reclaim sovereignty over the Jerusalem Temple:

Anti-Israel media personality Tucker Carlson sparked controversy after claiming that Israel’s war is allegedly driven by a goal of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the Third Temple in its place.

In an episode of the "Tucker Carlson Show," he asked, "How did all these guys wind up wearing patches suggesting the point of this war was the destruction of one of the holiest places in Islam and the rebuilding of a temple that is totally anathema to Christianity?" [...]

He accused, "Chabad has been pushing in a pretty subtle way, unless you look carefully, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple."

And this is exactly why the Temple Mount, as it's called today, needs to be reclaimed for Judaist worship. Carlson also disgustingly puts words in the mouths of Christians who're realists, and says exactly what the Islamic world wants to hear. And the worst part is that it was undoubtably his full intention to kowtow to the Religion of Peace. He's really being a humiliation lately. What next, will he say women who wear skimpy clothes are criminals? It's sickening to ponder what other awful positions Carlson harbors at the expense of sane societies.

The war against Iran is on again

Today, both Israeli and USA military forces launched a new raid against Iran's deadly missile sources, and may have eliminated ayatollah Ali Khameini:

Israel said on Saturday that it has taken part in a U.S.-led military operation in Iran, with Jerusalem reportedly targeting the top leadership of the Islamist regime in Tehran.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian were among those targeted by Israeli forces on Saturday in strikes conducted in conjunction with an attempt by the United States to destroy Tehran’s missile programme, the Times of Israel reported.

The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, as well as Iran’s defence and intelligence chiefs, were also said to be targeted in the strikes. It is currently unknown which, if any, strikes were successful at the time of this reporting.

The Israeli Defence Forces said that it had struck “hundreds of targets” in Western Iran as part of its so-called “Operation Roaring Lion”. Targets included missile launchers, the IDF said.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Christiaan Triebert published a satellite image purporting to show the destruction of Khamenei’s compound in Iran. It is unclear if the Ayatollah was in the compound at the time of the apparent attack.

The IDF did express cautious optimism Khameini was blasted, and we should definitely hope he was. There may have been a report a few months ago though, that he was planning to follow Syria's ousted dictator Assad in fleeing to Russia. Which only makes clear why they're still a serious danger too. Mainly because, based on how many Muslims are in Russia today, what if they use that as a means of taking over from where the communists leave off?

Here's more about Reza Pahlavi's response:

The son of the last Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, called on the country’s military, police, and security forces to abandon the “crumbling” Islamist regime of the Ayatollah amid U.S. and Israeli strikes on Saturday.

“Decisive moments lie before us,” the exiled crown prince of Iran said amid a major military operation launched in the early hours of Saturday by U.S. President Donald Trump in conjunction with Israeli forces targeting the rogue nation’s missile programme and leadership apparatus.

In a statement on social media, Reza Pahlavi said that the military operation initiated by President Trump should be seen as a “humanitarian intervention” targeting the Islamist regime — “and its machinery of killing” — rather than a strike on the country and people of Iran.

“However, despite the arrival of this assistance, the final victory will still be achieved by us. It is we, the people of Iran, who will finish this task in this final battle. The time to return to the streets is approaching,” he said.

We can only hope this operation will finally deliver justice and bring down a regime that Ronald Reagan did nothing to prevent from reaching the levels of dangerous power and tyranny they were at until now.

Another unlicensed Haredi "daycare" leads to tragedy

Previously, there was a scandal in Jerusalem's Romema neighborhood, at an unlicensed Haredi daycare center. Now, another, similar scandal turned up in Bnei Brak, and another infant sadly paid the price:

An infant was fatally injured on Tuesday at a daycare in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, in an incident whose details are still unclear.

In a statement, the Israel Police said that the infant, aged around six months old, was found in critical condition and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Officers detained the daycare worker present at the scene for questioning on suspicion of causing death by negligence and of toddler neglect. At the end of the interrogation, she was taken into custody. In a statement, police said they will seek to extend her detention at a hearing set for Wednesday morning at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court.

The daycare was unlicensed and 19 babies were present there, police said. According to the Ynet news site, it primarily served foreign workers and their children.

And who knows how many of those foreign workers have legal permits to be in the country? This is an abomination, a dereliction of responsibility, and all "daycare workers" who continue to run these centers without legal permission must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Steve Witkoff continues his inappropriate approach

The USA envoy Witkoff has outraged Israeli officials with a position that Israel open the Rafah border on the other side of Gaza even before the body of the last remaining hostage/kidnapee from October 7, 2023 is returned:

Officials in Jerusalem have expressed anger toward US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is pressuring Israel to open the Rafah crossing before the return of the final hostage, Ran Gvili.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, sharply criticized Witkoff in a conversation with Ynet: “Witkoff pushed to bring our major rival, Turkey, to the border. The clock is ticking backward toward a confrontation with Turkey, which would pose a real danger to our security."

Kan 11 News reported that Israeli officials were caught off guard by the announcement regarding the opening of the Rafah crossing and intend to demand explanations from envoys Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The Security Cabinet is scheduled to convene on Sunday, where it is expected to approve the crossing’s opening and discuss recent developments in Iran.

Any demand Witkoff makes that the crossing be opened in a way that would enable more weapons to be smuggled to Hamas is offensive in the extreme, and if Kushner's going along with this, that too is reprehensible. That they would even want Turkey to be allowed anywhere near is also offensive. This is why plenty don't consider Witkoff a good envoy, and it ranks right down there as one of the bad things the Trump administration is doing, along with recognizing Ahmed al-Sharaa as a "valid" leader of Syria. How do we convince them to dismiss Witkoff from his post?

Update: speaking of Iran, Witkoff's also taking a dangerously lenient position on their autocracy as well:

A senior Israeli official confirmed that Witkoff is serving as the intermediary with Iran. "Witkoff brought Trump a WhatsApp message from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, along with a written assurance from President Masoud Pezeshkian, in order to persuade him to postpone the strike," the official said.

This may not have been the sole reason for the delay, as preparations for a major operation were not fully complete two weeks ago, but it did influence the president's mood. "Even now, as intelligence and testimonies from Iranians reach Israel and intelligence agencies in other countries in the region, as well as the US itself, Witkoff continues to push for a diplomatic route to resolve the Iran problem," the senior Israeli official said, expressing clear frustration.

This too is atrocious in the extreme, and one more reason Witkoff must be removed from his post.

Lady chef assaulted by another woman for fixing hair in ponytail near Haredi man

Here's a disgusting example of a woman who's a sellout to ultra-Orthodox in the worst ways possible:

Jerusalem-based pastry chef Karen Kadosh, one of the owners of the city's "Café Kadosh" in the city, on Friday morning shared that she was assaulted while exiting an elevator, allegedly because she had tied her hair into a ponytail.

In a social media post, Kadosh said she was assaulted by a woman who intentionally kicked her from behind.

"When I exited the elevator, the woman came out after me, and immediately as she exited, her legs hit mine from behind, with force and aggression," Kadosh described.

Kadosh also stressed that this was not accidental contact but a deliberate attack. When she asked the woman what had happened, the woman replied: "I kicked you because you made a ponytail in the elevator in front of a Haredi man - it's not modest."

Kadosh said she was left stunned by the response and asked the woman what was immodest about tying her hair in a ponytail, but received no relevant answer. Later, she recognized the woman as a government employee in the same building.

"On one hand, who has the time and energy to deal with this?" she wrote. "But on the other hand, if we don't address these cases, they will only escalate."

Kadosh said she is debating whether to file a police report.

She absolutely MUST file a police complaint. We seem to have another ultra-Orthodox basket case here who thinks it's such a big deal that she must act obnoxious over a petty issue. And another somebody who thinks sexuality is such a horrible thing, even though a woman fastening her hair in a ponytail is far from harmful in any way. Most of these blabberings about "modesty" don't even make any sense. The assaulter must also be fired from her government job, period. Such people do not belong, and they only risk giving leftists ammunition to use against conservatives.

And after October 7, 2023, that's one more serious reason why such nasty behavior is so abominable.

Haredi parents of infant who died in illegal daycare defend the culprit

Considering what kind of socialist-collective mindset ultra-Orthodox communities like this can go by, it's devastating but not surprising the parents of one of the 2 dead children would defend the operator of the illegal daycare no matter how much she and her colleagues broke the law:

Chani and Yaakov Katz, the parents of Ari Katz, one of the infants who died this week at a daycare in Jerusalem, discussed the sequence of events on Kan Reshet Bet radio and rejected criticism against the haredi public and the daycare management.

"We've known her for seven years. I have three children, and she has raised them all," Chani said about the daycare director. "To me, it's not a daycare. She's an aunt, a second mother to my children. I know her well, and we are like family. I would only send my children to her."

In other words, they're okay with the daycare center being illegal, and quite possibly consider "secular" daycares illegitimate by sharp contrast to the point they won't even send their children there? What an embarrassment.

One of the worst things about this tragedy is that it underlines a problem certain parents have, of abdicating their responsibilities and letting 3rd parties raise their children for them, no matter what the levels of trust and responsibility are. And that irresponsibility's now cost the lives of 2 innocents, yet the parents of one won't even admit it was wrong to send their child there, even if the center lacked operational permission from the city.

Update: the following article is even more disgusting:

Chani Katz, the mother of one of the two infants found dead in an unlicensed ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem daycare earlier this week, spoke out against legal proceedings against the caregivers held responsible and said the death of her 6-month-old son Ari was preordained.

“Miriam and Mali also buried a child. It’ll never leave them. They’re innocent,” said Katz, referring to caregivers Miriam Friedman and Mali Shmuel Eliyahu, whom the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court released to house arrest on Thursday.

The caregivers will be kept under house arrest for nine days, barred from working for 45 days, and prevented from contacting the families of the deceased for 30 days. Speaking to the press ahead of the court hearing, Katz said, “What’s being done to them is an injustice.”

She added that her son Ari had died by “divine decree.”

“My Ari had to die on the very day, at the very hour that he passed,” she said, refusing to speculate on his cause of death. “If he had to pass away, it had to be with Miriam Friedman, and I chose Miriam.”

This doesn't sound like someone with much love for her own children. Her defense is sick, and it's exactly why more tragedies like this will continue. What she says is also a violation of the Commandment that one shouldn't use God's name in vain. Utterly shameful.