Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Dispute tearing apart Israel’s Gur Hasidic sect turns violent
The scenes in several ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods around Israel on the Jewish Sabbath, May 21, seemed taken out of a horror movie. In Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh and Ashdod, frightened worshipers barricaded themselves inside synagogues while angry mobs tried to break down the doors. Those who dared go out were beaten and their prayer shawls grabbed and desecrated, forcing them to flee back inside, wounded and bloodied.
The violence was not limited to synagogues. Some members of the Gur sect, one of Judaism's largest dynastic courts, were attacked and beaten while walking on the street. They were extricated from the mob by passersby and taken to hospitals.
In other related incidents on Saturday, cars were vandalized, as were ultra-Orthodox synagogues in the cities of Jerusalem and Ashdod.
The warring sides were members of the same group, wearing the same traditional clothing, indistinguishable to an outsider. But the difference between them is deep, bitter and bloody, a power struggle pitting the 160-year-old religious group against those who split off to form a new community in 2019.
The rift dates back to 1996 and the death of the Gur sect's previous leader. His position was handed down to his son, Rabbi Yaakov Alter, who allegedly felt threatened by his cousin, Rabbi Shaul Alter, head of the main Gur yeshiva. He distanced his cousin from positions of influence and eventually shut down the rabbinical seminar.
Things came to a head with an argument over real estate owned by the sect in New York's Catskill Mountains. The disputed land had been a summer retreat and camp for its members, but became run down and piled up tax arrears. The camp's director, David Berliner, agreed to pay off the debts but also registered the land under his name. Senior members of the sect, who discovered his move after the fact, decided to ban Berliner from all Gur synagogues until he returned the deed of ownership.
However, Rabbi Shaul Alter, who had avoided clashing publicly with his cousin until that time, took Berliner's side in the dispute. His letter of support was construed as a declaration of war against the established leadership, and he was kicked out of the sect. Some 500 families followed him in Israel, and an additional 500 in England and the US subsequently.
The numbers were small given that the sect's membership in Israel alone numbers more than 12,000 families. But the Gur leaders feared others might follow Alter, a charismatic figure considered an outstanding biblical scholar. The sect's leadership issued a statement considered highly controversial even in other rabbinical courts that are not strangers to such power plays. Its members were instructed to cut off all ties with the rebels, including between parents and children.
The boycotts did the job, perhaps too well. The rebellion died out. The son of the sect's leader, Rabbi Shlomo Zvi Alter, even established an organization for the boys who turned their backs on their parents who joined the new community. The organization, named "Asfeni" (Hebrew for "gather me up"), created tensions but did not generate a blowup – until it took in three girls.
Two of the girls, aged 16 and 18, were the daughters of the Sandik family originally from the town of Ashdod. When the parents decided to join the breakaway rabbi and move to the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak, the two asked to stay behind and continue their studies in the Gur sect's institutions.
The parents refused, claiming the teachers at the girls' seminary had incited their daughters against them. When the family moved to Bnei Brak, the girls ran away to the community in Ashdod. There, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the girls were connected by phone to the Gur sect, listening to incitement against the opposing camp, portrayed as infidels. The younger girl violated a civil court ruling instructing her to return home.
The parents claim the girl, who has since been living in a boarding school, was kidnapped by the Gur sect. The community, on the other hand, claims the Sandik girl ran away of her own volition.
The Sandik father then waited for the Gur Rabbi at a cemetery memorial service, took up a megaphone and called upon the rabbi to return his daughters to him.
The small group of followers that accompanied the Gur Rabbi claimed the father had approached their leader in a threatening manner. The next day, one of the group's rabbis issued a call to its members to "protest the criminal act and the disrespect of the Rabbi." The call was heeded by hundreds of incensed young followers, who attacked members of the breakaway group.
The Gur leadership refuses to apologize. Following a visit by senior police officers, the sect's chief rabbi issued a call to his followers to display restraint, but the group believes its actions were justified. "All the red lines were crossed," said the group's spokesman, Avraham Zilberstein. "The Hasidim will not forgive any disrespect of the Rabbi and will be willing to pay the price."
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