Israeli prosecutors indicted two haredi men for assaulting
police officers called to the scene of a mob attack on a haredi soldier in
Jerusalem.
The two men, Joseph Braun and Jacob Krischavski, were
charged on Thursday with attacking several police officers on Tuesday during a
riot that erupted in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim. If convicted,
the defendants could face at least three years in prison.
The attack came two days after Israel’s Knesset approved a
proposal to draft haredi men into the Israeli Defense Forces. A small number of
haredi leaders have allowed and in some cases encouraged enlistment, but the
majority have resisted the draft. The proposed law has sparked numerous
protests.
Another haredi soldier was assaulted in Jerusalem on
Thursday, this time in the neighborhood of Shmuel Hanavi, situated north of Mea
Shearim. Assailants threw objects at the soldier from a van, according to NRG,
the news site of the Maariv daily.
On Tuesday, officers were called to Mea Shearim after dozens
of haredi men intimidated a haredi soldier. The men gathered outside the office
of the uncle of the soldier, who came to visit his uncle during a short leave
from the army, according to the indictment filed on Thursday by the Jerusalem
prosecutor’s office with the city’s Magistrate’s Court.
The soldier, who does not live in Jerusalem, was wearing a
uniform and a black kipah. Several dozen men gathered around him and hurled
garbage as he was walking to the office. He entered the office, changed to
civilian clothes and called police as the crowd chanted insults outside.
The two defendants and several other individuals hurled
stones, metal bars and water buckets at the police. Braun and Krischavski, both
in their early 20s, were charged with aggravated assault of a police officer,
obstructing a police officer and rioting.
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