All of the eruv wires in most Jerusalem neighborhoods were
broken on the night of Shabbos Parshas Re'eh by a group of
hooligans, leaving hundreds of thousands of Jerusalem
residents with no kosher eruv whatsoever. A gathering of
rabbonim representing all neighborhoods was held to form a
plan of action to deal with the rash of destructive incidents
aimed at the Shabbos-observant public.
For several weeks secularists have been going on the rampage
in south Jerusalem neighborhoods, especially Kiryat Yovel and
Kiryat Menachem, where the costly erection of poles for
eruvin mehudorim has triggered resentment among
secular figures, including officials at the Kiryat Yovel
community administration as well as secular political figures
at City Hall.
Chareidi representatives such at MK Rabbi Uri Maklev urged
ranking police officers to take action, yet despite their
explanations of the importance of building and maintaining
eruvin for Shabbos-observant Jews, police have done nothing
to lay their hands on the vandals — except for a brief,
fruitless investigation of two suspects last week. Last
Friday rabbonim and public figures warned that eruv wires in
Jerusalem might be severed as part of efforts to anger the
chareidi public, and their warning proved all too true.
On Friday afternoon the rabbonim in charge of the eruv in
several neighborhoods made special preparations and on
Shabbos night conducted a stakeout to ensure the eruv
remained unharmed, after realizing their requests to police
to protect the eruv had gone unanswered.
One of the rabbonim who lay in hiding on Shabbos night told
Yated Ne'eman that around 1:00 am two Mazda cars
parked near the eruv and three agitated ruffians stepped out,
hurling coarse remarks at shomer Shabbos Jews nearby.
"We couldn't do a thing because of kedushas Shabbos,"
he said. "We urged them to leave, but to no avail. As we
stood there they tore down and destroyed the eruv, cutting
the wires from one pole after the next. But we didn't know
the extent of the damage until Motzei Shabbos."
Immediately after Shabbos, several activists who set out to
assess the extent of the damage were astonished to find the
damage had left most of the city's neighborhoods without an
eruv on Shabbos and enormous sums to construct and maintain
them had gone to waste. Eruv wires were severed in Kiryat
Yovel, Kiryat Menachem, Armon Hanatziv, Bayit Vegan, Givat
Mordechai, Gival Shaul and other parts of the city. These
neighborhoods have only one eruv and when it was ruined the
residents had to rely on the other eruvin surrounding the
city, such as the Rabbinical Council eruv and the Eida
Chareidis eruv, but these too had been destroyed and in this
case all of the backups erected over the years to prevent
possible mishaps were not enough since they were wrecked
deliberately. Thus all of the routes leading to the Kosel
Maarovi, Bikur Cholim Hospital, Shaarei Tzedek Hospital,
Hadassah Ein Kerem and Hadassah Har Hatzofim, the Magen David
Adom building near the entrance to the city and all of the
routes connecting different neighborhoods were left with no
eruv whatsoever.
When news that most of Jerusalem had been left without a
kosher eruv the chareidi community railed against police
inaction and encouragement for the vandalism voiced by
secular political figures seeking support in the upcoming
elections.
