Haredim subject to multiple attacks in Haifa neighborhood

Public park in northern city's Hadar area turns into battleground for local immigrants, Orthodox residents
Doron Solomon

The ultra Orthodox community has recently expressed concerns that the crime rate in the Hadar area of the northern Israeli city of Haifa is on the rise.

Those concerns have been compounded by several violent attacks on residents of the area's religious neighborhoods.

Avi Weizmann, head of the Shas faction in the Haifa Municipality warned Thursday that unless the police crack down on crime in the area, local community members will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.

"We will take to the streets and establish our own Orthodox patrols," he said. "We've come to a point where dozens of people have been brutally attacked in the Hadar Neighborhood. We cannot accept this violence and if the police won't take care of it, we will."

Most of the violent incidents have reportedly taken place in the area's Shtrug Park, which is frequented by the local Orthodox community, as well as the secular one, which is made up of many Russian immigrants.

"The park is the center of a violent turf war, between the haredim, who are an innately closed society, and the immigrants, some of whom are not Jewish, who view them as the enemy," said a local resident.

Haifa Police Chief Major-General Dudu Ben-Atia said that the police are aware of the problem, and that police forces have been called to the park on several occasions in order to disperse mass gatherings turned violent.

"We've removed several violent individuals from the area," he said, "but since no official complaints were filed, no arrests have been made. We are monitoring the situation."