Israel – A few hundred haredi Lag Ba’omer revelers burnt Finance Minister Yair Lapid in effigy at a holiday bonfire in Tiberias on Saturday.
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Marking the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, Lag Ba’omer also represents the end of the plague that wiped out 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students.
According to witnesses, the effigy of the Yesh Atid leader was hung on a post at the edge of the bonfire area as early as Friday afternoon, which suggests that its burning was planned ahead of time and was not merely a prank carried out in the heat of the moment.
One witness described the scene at the bonfire:
“This was not a last minute incident. The doll with Lapid’s face pasted on it was ready by the fire. There were throngs of people who were present when the fire was lit who cursed Lapid in Yiddish and danced.”
Yesh Atid MK Dov Lipman condemned the burning of the leader of his party’s likeness on Sunday.
“It is an embarrassment for the entire Jewish people that hooligans and bullies like these wear a kippa and tzitzit. Their rabbis should wake up and speak out against this. And if they don’t then they are not worthy of being called leaders or rabbis. The place for these people is in jail!” Lipman said.
Lapid has been at the forefront of legislative efforts to draft haredim into military service.
Yossi Oknin, a member of the Tiberias city council for the haredi Shas party, condemned the incident but said that it was the result of a prank by one child.
Oknin said that there was anger toward Lapid in the community but he emphasized that the incident crossed all boundaries and must be forcefully condemned.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Yair Lapid has caused much hardship..but burning him in effigy is a disgraceful act that must be condemn by all.
What an amazing contradiction in actions vs mesorah! Where is kavod ha’briyos? Lapid is a gift from Hashem to teach us higher level middos. And what do our foolish no’ar do? Act like mindless talmidei Taliban!
“…it was the result of a prank by one child.”
It’s always that same one child. Boy, he gets around. Burning garbage dumpsters in Bnei Brak, running up to Yerushalim to throw stones at police and yelling “Nazis” at them, zipping down to RBS to fudge an election or two, then off to Rehovot to spit at Charedi soliders. He must be one tired young fellow.
Stupid futility
whats wrong with us??? why do we live on hate? on lag bomer which we are supposed to show ahavs yisroel ahvas chinum how do we teach our children to do such things? this is against torah and not ahvas yisroel…this makes me sick to the core.
i have never seen a secular jew in israel burn in effigy a likeness of a great rabbi.
it seems on some levels the secular zionists are more frum on some issues than these jews featured here.
Dov Lipman should chill out. Why should they be put in jail? They hate Lapid and probably rightfully so. This is an act of protest. It is a free country. If Lipman wants to curtail freedom of expresion he should be thrown in jail.
Last week Montreal Canadians fans burnt a Boston Bruins Jersey in a post game celebration no one threatened anyone with jail time.
Nice! Very nice!
NO different than Arabs burning pics of Jews.
That’s what uneducated people do.
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
how sensitive cold you ged with all yoyr dregettive statemets against bnei toura all the midia with you repiting it a litel statement against you hit the target harden your shamles face observer….
I like how Lapid tries to call himse;f charedi. then says “their” rabbis, “their kids”. they they they. He isn t fooling anyone.
And what about freedom of speech? an effegy is punishible with jail?
great news!
I hate lapid. May all enemies of Hashem perish.
(hows that for PC? If you hate Bin Laden, you can hate spiritual enemies too…)
Nebech, nebech, teaching yungerlite such hate. The mashiach will not arrive in THESE yungerlites lifetime. R’L
I think these august readers are missing the point. When you teach a child to hate and burn in effigy someone you disagree with, you are teaching him to act like the KKK – is that what you want the next dor Yisroel to be??? H”VS
Are we so ill mannered that we can’t talk things over carefully and have a dialogue? We have to resort to such extreme measures?
What if tomorrow he doesn’t like the psak of another Rav – will you burn his house down?
To numbers 12 and 13, you both exemplify why the Yidden are in golus.
give me a brake all you lapidniks you cant take a strong expresion you call it hate the laguise of debate losers hate racisum extrem s keap it ……pewinng out hate with the help of the total seculer mass midia a mesage with out words wich got caried around hit you all lapid camerads it is all for you grasp it hold it
My yiddishkeit teaches to hate enemies of Hashem. I assume yours does too. Can someone explain to me how this is just theoretical – practically we ought to love and ‘understand’ instead?