Several hundred ultra-Orthodox demonstrators belonging to a radical faction under influential Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach gathered in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square to protest against the arrest of a yeshiva student who failed to show up to the military induction center on the day of his enlistment. Protesters held signs against military enlistment and shouted slogans against joining the army. Throughout the demonstration, protesters set garbage cans alight and blocked roads in the area. The official reason given for the demonstration was the arrest of the yeshiva student, but it was actually a part of an ongoing struggle between two main Lithuanian Jewish streams. One of those streams is led by Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman and the other by Auerbach, who insists on maintaining a militant line against anything related to the state.
Hundreds of haredim protest arrest of draft-dodging man
Members of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach's Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox faction gather in Jerusalem's Shabbat Square to protest the arrest of one of their brethren, who was detained after evading his enlistment date.
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