Andy Garin

Yesterday, Rabbi Yehuda Gilad from ישיבת מעלה גלבוע visited the West Bank and wrote the statement below (provided in our translation): “With God’s help, Rosh Chodesh Nisan, ‘a time of atonement for all their generations.’ Yesterday, I went through a difficult and deeply unsettling experience. I visited Khirbet Humsa (about a 30-minute drive from our yeshiva), where a pogrom by “hilltop youth” took place a week ago. I heard the details of what happened there from several sources, including Ruti, a woman I have known for years and trust completely. It turns out that in the middle of the night, a group of rioters (around 30–40 people) arrived equipped with clubs and many zip ties. They bound the men (and apparently also two foreign volunteers, though I am not certain of this), and then beat them all over their bodies with fists and sticks. We saw many remnants of the zip ties at the site. The men required hospital treatment in Afula for injuries of varying severity. At the same time, the attackers stole the entire herd—about 300 animals—belonging to the few families who live there in unimaginable poverty. When I first heard there was also sexual violence, I did not believe it… Yesterday we arrived at the site with Ruti, a friend of mine who is well known to them. When they saw us—Rabbi Avidan Friedman and me—they recoiled in fear and gestured anxiously at the kippot on our heads. Ruti tried to calm them, explaining that we were not among the attackers. Still, at the beginning of the encounter they were hesitant and frightened. I heard directly, firsthand, from a young man what had happened there. From his expression, the blue bruise around his eye, and his sorrowful gaze, it was clear he was telling the truth. In that same conversation (with the help of a translator), he described in detail the prolonged abuse they endured while bound. Then, with visible shame, he described something I had previously been unable to believe. I find it difficult, and my hands tremble as I write this about Jews, and yet I will write it because I am convinced it indeed occurred: yes, these perpetrators painfully bound his genitals. Not to mention the humiliation inherent in this. These events recall the pogroms our ancestors endured in various exiles. Have we become like the worst of the nations? I want to turn to the question - what must be done? But I feel I am still at the stage of crying out. Alas, what has become of us?”