Magen Davids burned in London
A “sickening” video showing giant blue and white Stars of David being set alight by ultra-Orthodox Jews during Lag b’Omer celebrations in North London has provoked widespread anger and revulsion among fellow Charedim, reports the UK Jewish News.
A clip posted on YouTube last week showed a large white star burning below a blue one suspended several feet in the air as scores of onlookers swayed to celebratory music.
Adults are seen ensuring young children are kept well away from the flames during what appears to be a highly organised event.
Senior Stamford Hill community leader Rabbi Avraham Pinter said: “The lighting of a bonfire is a longstanding tradition on Lag b’Omer. Its origins are in bringing light to the world and all its reasons are spiritual.
“To use it for any other reason, particularly a political one, is wrong and an aberration. It’s probably just a few hotheads behind this.”
Although elements of the strictly Orthodox Jewish world oppose the creation of the modern State of Israel ahead of the arrival of the Messiah, the use of a symbol typically used to represent Judaism itself made this particularly shocking.
It’s believed that the video was taken last weekend at an address in Stamford Hill which sometimes plays host to Yeshivas Toras Chesed.
The Jewish Chronicle quoted the head of the yeshivah, Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Babad.
“We belong to Satmar and we are anti-Zionist but usually in Satmar we don’t do such things,” he said. “The boys just did it and nobody made an issue out of it. They just did it and we didn’t do anything about it.”
A Stamford Hill community source told the Jewish News he was “sickened” by the clip.
“The vast majority of our community would be shocked by this. You would expect the people in a scene like this to be from Hamas rather than Jews.”
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