Dispute tearing apart Israel’s Gur Hasidic sect turns violent
The split within the Gur Hasidic court, which has already divided families, turned last weekend into physical clashes and assaults.
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.
