Throughout the entire election day, reports streamed into
UTJ's election headquarters -- and to those of other
religious parties -- of Leftists who manned the polls in
various capacities who were disrupting the voting procedures
and causing the voters to wait for long hours, apparently in
order to discourage them from voting, and thus to cut the
number of voters in the chareidi and religious polls.
"I hope that in the end, we will see that the Leftists who
tried to interfere with the voting in the chareidi polls did
a chessed with us, because they succeeded in arousing
the chareidi street, and as a result the chareidim arrived
en masse in order to vote at the polls," said MK Rabbi
Avrohom Ravitz in reaction to the scandal caused by the
Leftists at the chareidi polls.
The disruptions began in the morning in virtually all of the
chareidi polls in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Kiryat Sefer, Ashdod,
Beit Shemesh, Telz Stone, Rechasim, Haifa and other chareidi
centers in the country. Members of the polls committees and
their chairman, who were often from the Leftist parties of
Yisrael Achat and Meretz, attempted to wear out the voters
for many hours, by exhaustive and exhausting checks to
ascertain if the identity cards in voters' possession really
belonged to them.
The central election headquarters of UTJ received shocking
reports about the worst kind of interference in the
democratic process by the Leftist activists, such as testing
the beards and payos of the men in order to "make
sure" that they were not disguised. Women were asked to
remove their sheitels for the same reason. Wherever
such serious incidents occurred, the voters were delayed for
long periods, among them elderly people, and in some cases
they were forced to wait in the sweltering sun until their
turn arrived.
In one of the polls in Bayit Vegan the chairman of one of the
polls, a representative of Meretz, was dismissed from her job
because scores of people stood outside the voting room
awaiting their turn. A similar incident occurred in Netanya,
where the UTJ representatives and representatives and of the
Rightist parties complained about the secretary of one of the
poll committees, who checked the identity of each voter for
ten minutes. The regional Elections Committee decided to
dismiss her.
From Haifa there were also many complaints of irregularities
and long lines. The regional election committee was asked to
come time and again to polls to ensure on orderly flow of the
voting.
The Haifa UTJ sent out representatives to observe the voting
in the area kibbutzim. They found many irregularities that
did not make the media reports. One saw a woman who appeared
to vote only to find that her name was already crossed off as
having voted.
In another case, the head of the polling station was also the
head of the local branch of a political party. From time to
time he closed the polls in order to go out and bring in
those of his supporters who had not yet voted. He personally
gave them voting slips and showed them which enveloped to put
them into.
Most of the complaints of delays came from chareidi
neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. In the afternoon,
the regional Election Committees of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak
issued instructions to all of the members of the polls
committees stating: "In accordance with the law, the polls
committees will identify the voters only by the number which
appears on the first page of their identity cards and by
their pictures. No polls committee is authorized to deny a
voter his right to vote as a result of any other type of
investigation, unless the potential voter does not appear on
the voters' list."
However many of the members of the polls committees ignored
the instructions of the regional and central elections
committees.
In Jerusalem, the chairman of the Regional Elections
Committee visited the problematic polls himself in order to
see what was happening. He was accompanied by the members of
the committee, and the UTJ representatives. Justice Koval,
the chairman of the committee was shocked by the reports of
the serious occurrences.
Indeed, the voting rate in the chareidi polls in the early
hours of the evening was especially high, and it was proved
that attempts to disrupt the voting only caused the chareidim
to come out in force and to fulfill the directives of
maranan verabonon, and the mitzvah of ve'osiso
kechol osher yorucho.
Violence In the Campaign
As election day neared, waves of violence against UTJ
activists erupted in chareidi centers throughout the country.
Here is a sample of the some of the more prominent
incidents.
Secular thugs in Tzfas attacked a 75 year old Auschwitz
survivor, severely injuring her. The elderly woman, who had
undergone the horrors of the Holocaust, and her sister are
the sole survivors of their family, which originated in
Transylvania. She and two other women were walking down
Yerushalayim Street in Tzfas, when suddenly three thugs
approached them and called out, "That old lady votes
gimmel." Then they pulled off her hat and
sheitel. The woman suffered a terrible trauma and is
still in a state of anxiety.
A UTJ volunteer in Or Yehuda, Dani Mushaiyev, went out to
"Gimmel Square" to hang UTJ signs, when six thugs suddenly
attacked and beat him. Mushaiyev refused to go to the
hospital. However on motzei Shabbos, after having felt
ill the entire day, he had no choice but to be
hospitalized.
A pogrom was carried out Friday night in a synagogue in
Ashdod's Rova Chet. Thugs penetrated the Heichal
Mordechai Tzvi synagogue on Hatzivoni Street, shattered
windows and scribbled the worst kind of graffiti on the
walls, including swastikas and a caricature of a chareidi Jew
over which the a big red "X" was scrawled.
During the pre-dawn hours of Shabbos parshas Bamidbor,
Meretz activists plastered campaign posters over the entrance
of the Kodshei Antopol synagogue on Oliphant Street in Tel
Aviv, thereby preventing the congregants from entering the
synagogue. Congregants arriving on the scene expressed their
shock at the brutal behavior of hoodlums of a movement that
claims to be a champion of tolerance.
The synagogue rabbi, Rav Shimon Frankel, told our reporter
that the incident was the main topic of discussion among Tel
Aviv's chareidi community, and that all were appalled by the
corrupt state of Meretz' activists. "Even in Tel Aviv, which
presents itself as a tolerant city, provocation against the
chareidi community is perpetrated," he said.
Also over Shabbos parshas Bamidbor, the final Shabbos
before election day, thugs broke into the UTJ Election
Headquarters on HaRav Kook Street in Bnei Brak, wreaking
havoc and destroying expensive equipment.
On Shabbos morning, passersby noticed that the headquarters
door was broken. Windows had been broken and contents of the
closets destroyed. Headquarters activists were shocked by the
willful destruction of anonymous vandals who sought to
terrorize UTJ activists.
On motzei Shabbos, Secretary-General of Degel HaTorah,
Rabbi Moshe Gafni, arrived on the scene. He told our reporter
that the verbal violence which the heads of the Leftist
movements spout has been translated into physical violence by
their activists, and this underscores the attitude the
chareidi community must expect after the elections.
"The activists of the Left see the great admiration with
which UTJ activists are received throughout the country and
how they succeed in a pleasant manner to persuade thousands
to vote for UTJ. We are thorns in the eyes of these Leftist
activists who are trying to stop us in every way possible,
even through physical violence.
"The de-legitimization of the chareidi public which the heads
and politicians of the Left are trying to bring about, brings
us back to the dark periods in the history of the Jewish
nation, and we must fight with all our might in order to stop
this repulsive trend.
"UTJ activists will not be deterred by things like property
and bodily damage. We will continue to work full force in
order to insure the success of United Torah Jewry," concluded
Rabbi Gafni.
Many other violent incidents and displays of hatred toward
UTJ workers throughout the country were also recorded.
