Leaflet seemingly calls for murder of haredi soldiers

Suspicions were voiced that the leaflet could be a fabrication after leaflet found in haredi Jerusalem neighborhood.

By JEREMY SHARON
Flyer calling for war against hardakim 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Hiddush)
Flyer calling for war against hardakim 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Hiddush)
A leaflet found in the haredi Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo on Monday appears to call on people to murder haredi soldiers.
Suspicions were voiced, however, that the leaflet could be a fabrication.
The leaflet says that it is a religious commandment to wage war against enemies in the Land of Israel and that the Israeli government – or “the evil regime and its emissaries the hardakim [a derogatory term for haredi soldiers],” as the poster describes them – constitutes such an enemy in present times.
“Therefore, at every time of day there should be people available in the Holy Land to fulfill with beauty and self-sacrifice the zealousness of Pinhas of ‘and he took a spear in his hand’ to perform harakiri on every single hardak until those who cause others to sin will be no more,” the leaflet reads.
Harakiri is the name of Japanese ritual disembowelment. The reference to Pinhas is to a narrative in the biblical Book of Numbers in which Pinhas impales a Jewish man and a Midianite woman with a spear for having sexual relations in front of Moses and the Israelite congregation.
The flyers were supposedly produced by an organization named Fortress – The Center for Defense against Problems of Enlistment.
Suspicion was raised about the authenticity of the document, however, principally because it was not professionally produced and did not appear to be printed at a printing press as most such notices, pamphlets and leaflets usually are.
It could be that the leaflet was therefore the work of a lone extremist or was entirely fabricated.
The Fortress organization does exist, however, and was established in April to fight against haredi enlistment.
Hiddush, a religious-freedom lobbying group, says that a scan of the leaflet was forwarded to it anonymously.
The leaflet provides a phone number for further information.
Upon calling the number an automatic answering system provides callers with several extension options including “reporting a youth or yeshiva student who has enlisted or has been tempted to enlist,” “the discreet passing of any important information,” and “volunteering for the organization’s activities.”
Hiddush passed the flyer to the police and called for an immediate investigation.
“In light of the wave of violence against haredi soldiers there is a need for decisive and unequivocal action to prevent injuries and death,” said Reform rabbi and Hiddush director Uri Regev.
In the last week there have been three incidents of violent attacks against religious soldiers in haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The attacks have come against a backdrop of a campaign of incitement against haredi soldiers, conducted by radical elements in the ultra- Orthodox community in protest against proposed legislation to draft haredi men into military service.