Free Republic

In Acre this past weekend, what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of Simchat Torah degenerated into a near pogrom when for two nights an Arab mob physically attacked Jewish worshipers with crowbars, rocks and firecrackers, and verbally assaulted them with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. The worshipers were students from the hesder yeshiva Ruah Tzfonit (Northern Wind) located in the mixed Jewish-Arab Wolfson neighborhood. According to Rabbi Yossi Stern, who leads the yeshiva, "Each year we dance in the city's neighborhoods. On Friday, as we walked to where we planned to celebrate, the Arabs attacked us with rocks and...