Victim of violence (Illustration)
Photo: CD Bank
Teens assault haredi boy, call him 'Jewish dog'
Four teens severely beat 12-year-old boy in southern community, steal his money and urinate on him. Police suspect anti-Semitic motives involved
A 12-year-old ultra-Orthodox boy from a small southern community was severely assaulted this week by four teens from the town, who also stole his Hanukkah gelt and urinated on him.
Police are investigating anti-Semitic motives in the crime, and say that the four teens had been involved in similar incidents in the past.
The incident began Sunday evening, when the boy was making his way to a Torah class in his yeshiva. Suddenly, four teens, ages 13-17, approached him, pushed him to the ground and started beating him.
"You are a Jewish dog, give us the money," they yelled, while kicking the young boy, punching him and slapping him. They then searched his pockets, and took the NIS 60 he received from his grandfather as a gift for Hanukkah.
"I tried to resist, I tried fighting them, but they were stronger than me," the boy later told his father.
Before they left him lying on the pavement, bruised and aching, one of his abusers unzipped his pants and peed on the horrified boy, much to the other teens' amusement.
Once the abuse was over and his assailants gone, the boy ran home. When his father found out what had happened, he took his son with him and they returned to the scene of the attack, where the father questioned some eyewitnesses about the incident, and then managed to lead the police to their area of residence.
The four were arrested on the same day.
The investigating officer at the Dimona police, First Sergeant Major Eran Cohen, said that two of the teens confessed to the assault, while the other two are denying any involvement in the crime.
A police investigation reveled that the assailants are all immigrants from the former Soviet Union who had already been involved in similar attacks against haredi individuals, apparently for anti-Semitic reasons. The four will likely be indicted for abuse.
