Three Haredim wearing IDF uniform were verbally attacked on Wednesday evening by a crowd of radical members of the community while they were praying in a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Yisrael.

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As the angry mob grew, the soldiers were prevented from leaving the synagogue and forced to endure a barrage of slurs and insults, including being called “Nazis.”

Radical Haredim surround synagogue (צילום: קבוצת מחאות החרדים הקיצוניים, חיים גולדברג, אקטואליק)

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Police arrived at the scene and the soldiers were eventually extricated from the synagogue unharmed. However, as the police vehicles made their way to the scene, they were hit by stones, eggs and other objects thrown by the agitated group.

The soldiers praying in the synagogue

The soldiers went to pray in the neighborhood which is considered to be one of the most hostile breeding grounds for radical Haredim vehemently opposed to members of their community drafting into the IDF.

While the number of radical Haredim responsible for such vitriolic abuse and violence remains proportionately low, their actions have become the subject of serious concern for security forces as the extent of their incitement and invective appears to have risen to increasingly potent levels.

One of the soldiers extricated from the synagogue

At the beginning of June, the Israel Police launched an investigation into posters put up calling on ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students required to draft into the IDF to “murder female soldiers” with the rifles they receive in the military.

The poster’s content signalled a significant escalation in the levels of incitement, which thus far has already been characterized by assaulting Haredi soldiers, protests, and burning effigies of ultra-Orthodox soldiers.