A rabbi was violently assaulted in Jaffa in an apparent hate crime on Sunday as he sought to buy an apartment to house his yeshiva.
Two 30-year-old men have been arrested for the beating of Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, who leads Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in the mixed Jewish-Arab city adjacent to Tel Aviv.
Channel 12 reported that Mali and his colleague went to a building in Jaffa to view the property. The two were surrounded by Arab residents in the area, who started shouting at them and ordering them to leave. When they refused and began filming the incident, the suspects began beating Mali and his colleague.
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Mali did not need hospitalization for his injuries.
The photos posted online showed the rabbi, sixty years old, being kicked to the ground.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the “violent attack” and called on law enforcement to bring the attackers to justice quickly.
Right-wing lawmakers also strongly condemned the attack, calling it anti-Semitic.
“The state of Israel is not one shtetl in which Jews can be hurt, “Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett wrote on Twitter, referring to Jewish hamlets in Eastern Europe. “The severe and blatant violence against Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, the chief of the hesesh yeshiva in Jaffa, is a … national shame.”
“We are witnessing a series of attacks by Arab attackers on Torah-observing Jews who are deliberate and anti-Semitic,” he said.
Jerusalem’s Foreign Minister Rafi Peretz described the incident as “terrible” and urged police to bring the attackers to justice.
Police said they were investigating the case.
The incident came days after a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem was arrested on suspicion of slapping two ultra-Orthodox boys on a train in the capital and then posted footage of the unprovoked attack on TikTok.
