Bnei Brak – Kidnapping or rescue operation?
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A 17-year-old girl, reported kidnapped on Monday night, was found today with her kidnappers – her family, residents of Ofakim, who apparently took her from a haredi home in Bnei Brak by force after she refused to return home.
Police arrested the family members, who claimed that their daughter was being brainwashed and pushed into a religious lifestyle by her haredi hosts. The family further claimed that the host parents mistreat their own children.
The Social Affairs Ministry confirmed that the Bnei Brak family in question is known to ministry representatives because a number of the couple’s biological children left the home, complaining of abuse. But despite this, the girl requested to return to the Bnei Brak family.
Because the girl is a minor, she was transferred to the custody of the state pending a formal decision on the issue.
The girl had come to Bnei Brak during Operation Cast Lead to escape the increased rocket barrages from Gaza. At the end of the operation, she did not want to return home.
Her family members did not accept her decision and tried repeatedly to convince her to come home using several means, including involvement by representatives from the Social Affairs Ministry. She refused to comply with their wishes.
Finally, the family took matters into their own hands. Area police had received an alert at 11 p.m. Monday night that four people (the family) had broken into an apartment in Bnei Brak using an ax, damaged the apartment, attacked the owners and took the girl following a struggle. They were later found with the girl in Yavne.
The Social Affairs Ministry confirmed that ongoing dialogue between the girl and her family had taken place in recent months and that several living arrangements had been offered to her by the ministry until she comes of age. At this point, parties are awaiting a court decision on the issue.
Meanwhile, the four family members involved in the kidnapping are also awaiting trial for their part in the incident.
Before attacking chilonim think if the story would have been reverse a frum girl 17 yrs old wants to move to her non frum comments if you think she has the rights than u can comment but if you think a 17 year old can’t choose on her own than be queit
When will the world come to the realization that a fourteen-year-old is just as competent as an eighteen-year old?
Any parent who thinks that by forcibly returning or keeping an older child in their home, that said child will “see the light”, will find out the hard way that it will only have the opposite effect. I say this for either direction, towards religion or away from it.
Reply to #2 . Kidnapping is one thing, what these people did ” four people (the family) had broken into an apartment in Bnei Brak using an ax, damaged the apartment, attacked the owners and took the girl following a struggle” is quite another an definitely illegal! If they had legal custody they could have gone to court and the government would have gladly done the court’s bidding, without the axe!
Nebuch for this girl..what ever the case is…she is one big confused girl..that needs major professional help
Reply to #7
I agree. The actions of the natural parents will probably go far in cementing this girl’s desire for the frum life.
i really feel bad for this girl! nebach she’s having such a hard time but on the other hand it’s like the frum family she was staying with was adopting her and they can’t addopt her without the family’s promission so they also were doing something against the law! poor family. nebach they are probally having a very hard time and i think that they shouldn’t go to jail for even one bit!
aren’t any of you above disturbed by the fact that this chareidi family had ”a number of other children” leave the home because of alleged abuse?i sure wouldn’t want my daughter living with them.
OY! I am afraid everyone here will be mad at me.
Now, I am NOT accusing the frum family of anything. I don’t know them.
But, here are my thoughts:
Cults to “brainwash” newbies in some ways.
If my child were caught up in a cult, and was refusing to leave a cult person’s home, I would do ANYTHING possible to get him/her out.
When one hires a “professional” to rescue and “deprogram” one’s kid from a cult, they have to take strong measures at times.
Now, YOU, I, and the rest of us Chareidim do not consider the Chareidi life to be a cult. But maybe that is how this girl’s parents see us?
Put yourself in their shoes. Not very comfy fit is it?
Though I DO believe that the Chariedi life is the “proper” way to live, I DO also understand the parents’ need to “rescue” their precious daughter from what they may have considered a brainwashing situation.
The frum family where she was staying may have been illegally and wrongly refusing to let this kid go back to her family. They also probably refused to open the door to the girl’s father.
Sure, we can debate, and we can say they should have handled it differently. But WE WERE NOT THERE! Maybe they felt they really had to do this or lose her.
No sense debating whether she is/was old or mature enough, and all that. It it were YOUR daughter you would try to save her even at 19!
So, maybe she will run away and go back. But, then, at least you knew you did your best, and you know she is not held against her will. You don’t KNOW that until you do rescue her and get her away from the source of influence.
I know I would give up my life to save my daughter. Woudn’t you?
With the limited information we have here, I am not ready to condemn this poor father for protecting his daughter from what he thinks is wrong in his eyes.
Plain simple “KIDNAPPERS”! hope they get their deserved justice for their violent acts.
#1 . u damm wrong!!!! how many (if u know anything what’s going on this days) so many 15 16 17 yr old boys and girls leaving home and go to a different lifestyle and NO u can’t do anything
“The girl had come to Bnei Brak during Operation Cast Lead to escape the increased rocket barrages from Gaza. At the end of the operation, she did not want to return home”.
Did anybody miss this? She didn’t want to return home to Gaza. Is this the story that was published a few months ago in Mishpacha or Der Blick about a Jewish girl of an Arab father? Askupeh
why should this be any different to “where is Yosele?”
they should sit in jail, just as the Charaidim did.
This girl is 17 not 18. As such she is under the dominion of her parents and if her parents do not want their daughter to live somewhere, it is their right. It makes no difference whether frum or not frum or green or purple.
My humble opinion, in a case like this you let the girl go home to her parents, and you guide her and help her with her new religous lifestyle in her own parents home, and you gain so much by this, first you show “drachahu darkei noam” and then there is a big chance that her way of living religously with her parents could bring the whole family back to yiddishkeit as we all know such stories.
the girl comes from a frum family. People get your facts straight. They tried solving this issue through the authorities and were led on a wild goose chase! This is israel we are talking about remember!
I believe that media exaggerates. Who says it is in fact true that the family was abusive to their own children?