If this happened in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, rest assured the Islamophobes would be blaming Islam.

Boy’s remains found in refrigerator; New York man in custody

(LA Times)

NEW YORK—A young Brooklyn boy who vanished while walking home from a day camp in one of the safest parts of the city was killed and dismembered by a stranger who he had turned to for help after getting lost, police said Wednesday.

An intense search for the missing 8-year-old, Leiby Kletzky, ended early Wednesday morning with the gruesome discovery of pieces of his dismembered body inside the home of a man who had been seen with the child around the time he disappeared, police said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the 35-year-old suspect, Levi Aron, made statements implicating himself in the boy’s death.

Photos: Missing boy found dead

Investigators tracked Aron with the help of surveillance video that showed him being approached by the lost boy.

When detectives arrived at the man’s home, they asked him where the boy was and he nodded toward the kitchen, Kelly said.

Detectives saw blood on the freezer door and they opened it to discover bloody knives, a cutting board and feet inside, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Additional body parts were found inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood.

Police and volunteers had been looking since late Monday afternoon for Leiby, who disappeared while on his way to meet his mother in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park.

The break in the case came when investigators focused on a grainy surveillance video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, walking down the street, while a man walked nearby.

Detectives noticed the man on the video going into a nearby dentist’s office, Browne said. The dentist, located later in New Jersey, said he remembered someone coming by to pay a bill for a patient, and police were able to identify Aron using records from the office. When they went to his home, they made the gruesome discovery.

Police said Aron lives alone in the apartment, in a building shared with his parents. He once had a summons for urinating in public but otherwise did not have a criminal record, Kelly said.

Outside the family’s apartment building Wednesday morning, men and women from the community clustered in separate groups. Many of the mothers gathered there said the streets are safe enough for a child Leiby’s age to walk home alone.

“This is a no-crime area,” said State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. He said the boy was the only son of the Kletzky family. The couple has four daughters, and the husband works as a driver for a private car service.

“Everybody is absolutely horrified,” he said. “Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension … to suddenly disappear and then the details … and the fact someone in the extended community … it’s awful,” he said.

He said the parents did not know Aron, who lived about a mile away from the boy.

At about 6:45 a.m., an NYPD crime unit carted away the trash bin where some of the body parts had been found and put it in a truck, and police officers walked in a line looking for evidence under cars and on sidewalks.

The medical examiner’s office will determine a cause of death and positive identification.

Leiby was one of the neighborhood’s many Hasidic Jews, an ultra-Orthodox people who live in tight-knit, somewhat insular communities and abide by strict religious rules that require men to wear dark clothing that includes a long coat and a fedora-type hat. Men often have long beards and ear locks.

Most of the 165,000 members in the New York City the area live in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and are part of three different sects. Hasidism traces its roots to 18th-century Eastern Europe.

A $100,000 reward had been offered, Hikind said the outpouring of support has been tremendous with people from all over the state volunteering their time to scour the neighborhood and hand out flyers.

Adel Erps, who lives two blocks from the family, said she was very upset because the state of the body means it will be more difficult to do a proper burial. Like other neighborhood residents congregating near the boy’s home Wednesday, she expressed shock that the suspect was Jewish.

“He’s a sick person obviously, but it hurts so much more,” she said.

Arab victim ‘stabbed 10 times by haredim’

by Hassan Shaalan from Israel News

Christian Arab assaulted near Safed says ‘Jews’ racism against us has reached point of real violence’

Alber Halul, who was stabbed Saturday night by a group of masked men he claims are haredim, recounted the attack Sunday. “They threatened to shoot us if we resisted and stabbed me 10 times – in my head, my leg, and my neck,” he told Ynet.

Halul, a 22-year old Christian Arab from the Galilee town of Gush Halav, was assaulted while with a group of friends at Ein Zeitim forest, near Safed.
He says that at around 12:30 am two vehicles arrived at their gathering place and eight masked men alighted, and attacked them. Halul is currently being treated for wounds in his back, head, and legs at Ziv Hospital in Safed.

“At around 12:30 five masked drove up in a Nissan jeep and began driving in circles near us. Then they left and came back with another vehicle, and came closer,” he recalled from his hospital bed.

“They threw stun grenades and fired in the air. Then eight masked men got out of the car and began to attack us. The guys I was with ran away but I stayed to protect a girl who was with us. They stabbed me 10 times in my head, my leg, and my neck until they hit me hard and I fell to the ground.”

Halul says he knows the men were ultra-Orthodox Jews although they wore masks. “While they were attacking us one of the said that if we dared to resist they’ll shoot us and we knew from their accent and their clothes that they were ultra-Orthodox,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time the 22-year old was attacked due to his race. “I won’t return to the forest again. The Jews’ hatred and racism against us has reached a point of real violence that threatens our lives,” he said.

I don’t want to blame anyone and hope that the police will reach the people behind this attack because such people shouldn’t be walking the streets – they are a menace to the Jewish and Arab public.”

But police have not yet made any arrests in the case, and say they have no suspects. “The case is still being investigated,” police said in a statement.

What do people think of this story? Haredim demand respect for Muslim grave site, and demand the contractor to pour a layer of concrete before they start building. Is it enough to pour concrete before they build or should it be left untouched? This also brings up the case of the Simon Wiesenthal Center which is building a “Museum of tolerance” over an ancient and historic Muslim graveyard.

Haredi Protester

About a month ago the Jerusalem municipality decided to open a parking lot in the city, a normal affair anywhere in the world but tensions arose when they decided to open it on Saturday, the Jewish holy day, and allowed it to be open for business on Saturdays thereafter. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim took offense to this as a desecration to the holy day when observant Jews are not allowed to do any work including such things as turning on and off light switches. Animosity between the city and the Haredim had already been high when the city arrested a Haredi woman who was accused of starving her child, a son of 4 who was only 15 pounds.

The case of the parking lot has gotten much attention in the media, with scenes of wailing, robed men in beards and big Russian hats yelling at Police and throwing stones at cars. Anne Barker of ABC was asked to cover the riots and the demonstrations against the parking lot, but it seems she did not bargain for the kind of abuse and degradation she was about face. In a harrowing account, Barker reports how she was verbally assaulted, showered with spit, and kicked by a mob of Haredi protesters,

As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights.

I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I’ve come up against riot police.

But I have to admit no protest – indeed no story in my career – has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This particular protest has been going on for weeks.

Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.

It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.

So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem’s Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it’s seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.

I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends – Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.

But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.

I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which.

By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.

I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.

They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour – to me – was far from charitable or benevolent.

As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

Spit like rain

I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.

It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.

Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.

I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.

It was lucky that I don’t speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.

As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.

Reassurance

Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.

I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.

I was allowed through, away from the main protest, although there were still Orthodox Jews on the other side, some of whom also yelled at me, in English, to take my recorder away.

Normally I should have stayed on the sidelines to watch the protest develop.

But when you’ve suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times – and you’re covered in other people’s spit – it’s not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.

I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.

What would be the reaction of the anti-Muslim blogosphere if the rioters in Jerusalem were not Ultra-Orthodox Jews but rather were Muslims? Wouldn’t they be in an uproar or at least gleefully extolling how evil Islam is, how the tenents of Islam and 9th century Muslim Law books sanction such non-sensical violence against innocents? Will they now in the name of consistency to their methodology of guilt by association and selective employment of texts blame Judaism for the behavior of the mob of Haredi protesters against this reporter who was humiliated and degraded? One would hope not as it is clear that the behavior of these protesters has nothing to do with Judaism, but per their track record it seems the loonie haters might be capable of doing anything at this point.