45 crushed to death, over 150 hurt in stampede at mass Lag B’Omer event in Meron

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1. The following exerpt is from an article in Arutz Sheva, dated May 3:

   “On this Lag Ba’omer, I was part of the security for the event. Throughout the bonfire lighting, people saw me with the vest and asked me for water, because already during the first stage of the event, it was very hot there.

   “At some point, I decided to leave the area, because I found that I was sweating terribly. It happened a few minutes after the Rebbe lit the bonfire. The moment I arrived at the deadly passage, I heard people screaming, ‘Police aren’t letting anyone pass, go back!’

   “The bottom line is, even if I wanted to – turning around was irrelevant. At that time I did not understand the logic of the police, who had blocked the only path to the exit. Even looking back I am not certain of the reason for the blockage – but it is clear to me, with certainty, that there was a blockage there.

   “There was tremendous congestion there. In my heart I hoped that the thousands who were there would push the barricade and burst out. But the minutes passed and it did not happen. I was standing there for 5-10 minutes, people saw my vest, yelled, ‘Hatzalah!’ but my hands were tied and I could not offer help. Not to myself, and certainly not to others. At some point I saw people around me fainting.

   “To my great horror, some of the people became trapped there with their three-year-old child who had just had his first haircut. A person from the second level, from the hospitality, who saw what was happening and screamed terrifying screams that ‘there are people dead, we need to open,’ reached his hand into the crowd, lifted the children up, and saved their lives – literally.

   “From the other side, there was a tall iron fence. I saw people climbing on the fence and saving their lives. I understood that this was my chance. But I simply wasn’t able to, from a physical standpoint. You need to understand that people arrived there already suffering from difficulty breathing.

   According to this witness, the police had blocked both possible exits from the passageway, causing those trapped inside it to have no oxygen. As a result died and many more became very ill. It certainly looks like premeditated murder to me.

2. This is an excerpt from another article in the Times of Israel, dated April 30.

   Eyewitnesses accused police of blocking a key exit route at the bottom of the narrow walkway, which had for years been seen as a dangerous potential bottleneck.

   “There’s an aluminum-floored walkway, then a stairway, and then there was a barrier,” said Eli Pollack, the head of the United Hatzalah emergency rescue service. “It was a death trap.”

   It wasn’t immediately clear why police may have prevented some people from leaving the scene as the disaster began to unfold — a move which would have reduced pressure on the packed crowd — but officers were apparently unaware[???} of the severity of the situation and were trying to keep some areas clear of congregants.

   Footage from the scene shows police at one point ripping off metal barriers in order to enable people to escape and to widen the passageway.

   Witnesses and survivors described the panic and the fear amid the stampede, with many struggling for breath, trapped next to the dead, and waiting long minutes for rescue.

   “We were walking out, everything was flowing, suddenly it stopped,” a survivor identified as Zohar told Channel 12. “Everyone was pressed up against each other and we did not understand why. I lifted up my head and I saw police blocking the entrance, I shouted to them ‘people are dying here.’”

   Broken glasses are seen at the site of a stampede during Lag B’Omer festivities at Mt. Meron in northern Israel, April 30, 2021 (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
   Another survivor said from a hospital bed that he slipped on the walkway before being trampled. He was trapped under the crowd for some 10 minutes before first responders cleared the crowd and began treating him, he said.

   Sounds like murder or at least manslaughter to me.

3. Another quote from the same article (emphasis mine):

   On Thursday, hours before the disaster, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri bragged to the Haredi radio station Kol Hai that he had successfully prevented Health Ministry officials from limiting the number of attendees over coronavirus fears. Deri lamented that the professional echelon at the ministry did not grasp that attendees would be protected by the spiritual influence of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the second-century sage commemorated at the Meron festival.

   “The government clerks don’t understand,” he said. “This is a holy day, and the largest gathering of Jews [each year].” Bad things, he suggested, don’t happen to Jews on religious pilgrimage: “One should trust in Rabbi Shimon in times of distress.”

   Even as he bragged of his and the Haredi community’s political power, he then deployed, instinctively, the rhetoric of victimhood. He urged listeners “to pray for the world of Torah and for Judaism, which are in danger. They’re in great danger.”
   

   https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/

4. Analysis
   After Meron calamity, Haredim question the price of their own autonomy
   Ultra-Orthodox media figures are calling for a commission of inquiry, and lashing the state for letting their community endanger itself
   Haviv Rettig Gur
   An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man weeps at a cemetery in Bnei Brak, during the funeral of one of the victims of the Meron crush on April 30, 2021. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

   The shock of Friday’s catastrophe at Mount Meron is still raw. The graves of the victims, including the children killed in the crush, are still fresh. Yet the debate over what it all means for the country and for Haredi society has only begun.

   A few overpowering facts, not least that nearly all the victims were Haredi, are driving an unusual new introspection, and leading the major media outlets of the community to turn against one of its characteristic traits: its longstanding and much-criticized “autonomy” from the Israeli state.

   By Haviv Rettig Gur 2 May 2021, 9:59 pm 10

   https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/

   I am not going to repost my previous comment but this article supports it.

5. @ Reader:
   Hi Reader, I used to have this issue. Try logging out and log back in. I have had this problem in the past and this seems to resolve the issue, at least it did for me. Good luck.

6. My last comment disappeared after it was posted for a few minutes.

   Before that happened, I couldn’t edit it for some reason.

7. @ Sebastien Zorn:
   The article you cite is clearly biased.

   Officials working in the Ministry of Internal Security have apparently already consulted with the Ministry’s legal adviser and are planning to shift blame toward the Supreme Court, which prevented, they allege, the then-Finance Minister in 2013, Yair Lapid, from wresting control of the Meron holy site from the religious bodies supposedly in control of it. The Court then ordered the two sides – the government and the religious bodies – to come to a compromise agreement, and as a result, Lapid’s order was effectively frozen and nothing in Meron changed.

   The Supreme Court is supposed to follow the law, it cannot do anything and everything it wants, even though it may seem this way.

   It wasn’t the Supreme Court’s order that “froze” the transfer of control.

   It was the lack of desire of one of the parties to negotiate.

   This is the party which is sitting now nice and quiet watching the events unfold and not taking any responsibility for anything (they actually expected 200,000 people to attend, not the 100,000 which were actually there).

   BTW, this is from one of the talkbacks under an article on Ynet:

   Tell me who can control these gatherings of Haredis
   Poor women soldiers and women first responders were spat at and cursed and were abused for trying to help . PLEASE DONT BLAME POLICE. Todah Raba mishtara

   https://www.ynetnews.com/article/B1ot11aYPO?utm_source=Taboola_internal&utm_medium=organic

8. Government, police planning to blame Supreme Court for Meron disaster

   https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/305434

9. Here is my opinion (for all it’s worth).

   I wouldn’t take control of the place from the Hassidic groups unless they agree to it.

   If they don’t agree, I would have them (the heads of the Hassidic groups) sign an affidavit that they assume full control of Mt. Meron, i.e., they are free to do with the place whatever they want.

   However:
   1) they will accept any future accidents with the possible loss of life as their sole responsibility, and acknowledge that such accidents may be inevitable;

   2) they will lose the ability to file complaints or assign blame to anyone but themselves or their agents;

   3) they will agree to fully compensate the possible victims of any accident on Mt. Meron and within a certain (to be determined) distance from Mt. Meron for loss of life and damage to health and the accompanying medical and/or burial expenses;

   4) there will be no police presence there and those in full control of Mt. Meron will assume all the duties previously performed by the police.

   This is an adult way to do things.

10. Some will try and make the police the fall guys for the horrible catastrophe at Mt. Meron. Certainly not from the big picture and history of the place should they be blamed.

    ‘You can’t move a stone at Meron without facing Hassidic opposition’
    Former head of the regional council where Mount Meron is located tells Ynet he for years tried to eliminate the dangers at the location, but religious groups use government connections and corruption to have the place ‘in a chokehold’

    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SJuXYhovu

11. @ Reader:

    I think it’s pretty clear from the Newsweek article that there was a long chain of “irresponsiblility” including a few very important individuals in the government.

    If I considered Newsweek a reliable source, I would have to agree with you, Reader, seeing that they clearly state it as such. But for myself, I judge Newsweek as part of the Fake News propagandist mouth pieces of the Leftists and this story, though may bear out as accurate, I suspect, based on its nearness to the event, is likely a distortion. Given Ohana’s statement and his position, it well may be that there are many highly positioned individuals involved, which is why an investigation beyond the police is necessary, as you suggest. But I have come to trust nothing I learn first from the MSM and I am usually well rewarded in this. The truth will come to light, but it is not likely to be seen in a fair context written within the pages of these Leftist disinformation centers known affectionately as the MSM except by some oversight on their part.

12. @ peloni1986:
    I think it’s pretty clear from the Newsweek article that there was a long chain of “irresponsiblility” including a few very important individuals in the government.

    That’s why I think it would be simplistic to dump the blame on the police.

13. @ Reader:

    What is unfortunate?

    That Ohana is taking responsibility?

    No, of course not. Ohana’s acceptance of responsibility while defending the police under his authority was recommendable, though his statement was a bit confusing. I recall Ohana as a capable Justice Minister and I had hoped to see him return in that position. The political fallout of this incident, I think will not end here. These are what I was referring to as unfortunate. In truth, I think the public inquiry will also be somewhat undermined by his early statement. The inquiry will take many months and though Ohana references “authorities beyond the police are to blame for the holiday’s gruesome outcome”, no one will recall anything but his immediate claim of responsibility regardless of their findings.

14. @ peloni1986:
    What is unfortunate?

    That Ohana is taking responsibility?

    Why?

15. @ Reader:

    There are two investigations set to examine last week’s events, The Times of Israel reported. One will be conducted by the Police Internal Investigations Department into police failings, and another by the police for itself into the failures of other authorities to prevent the disastrous events.

    I find it unfortunate that there will be no review of the indecent beyond this. The Police Internal Investigations Department is, I suspect, not arms length enough from the police to gain the public’s confidence in their conclusions. I suspect there is likely a third investigation that will be setup sometime soon.

16. @ Reader:

    Amir Ohana, Israel’s public security minister, said he is taking responsibility

    This is unfortunate.

17. It looks like a few are responsible:
    https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-public-security-minister-says-hes-taking-responsibility-after-mount-meron-stampede-1588084

18. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    young haredi men who don’t want to be lifetime yeshiva students, which some experts say is roughly half of all haredi men

    There is another problem that no one talks about – just because someone is FFB (frum from birth), doesn’t mean that they have the intellectual capacity for the life-long yeshiva studies, or even for the regular heavy religious education.

    In the past most Jewish males had only heder education, the famous yeshivas had only several hundred students each, so what the hareidim are trying to accomplish now is unprecedented and ultimately cannot be done.

    So in the above case, “don’t want to” most likely means “can’t”.

19. From the May 2 edition of Arutz Sheva:

    Haredi journalist warned of danger – and is beating his chest in regret
    Aryeh Ehrlich tweeted in 2018 about the dangerous bottleneck in Meron – and now blames himself for not doing more to prevent tragedy.

    Scene of Meron tragedy
    Haredi journalist Aryeh Ehrlich warned three years ago about the Meron disaster – and is now beating his chest over not doing more to prevent it.

    Ehrlich, who writes for Mishpacha, tweeted in 2018: “First call to order: The narrow exit path leading from the bonfire area of the Toldot Aharon hasidic group creates a human bottleneck and horrendous shoving, on the level of an actual danger of being crushed.”

    In that tweet, he emphasized that, “This is the only exit.”

    “If we want to prevent a repeat of what happened at Rabbi Wosner’s funeral – we cannot hold the bonfire lighting at this place before we create a wide exit with signage.”

    This tweet was widely shared on Friday, after it became clear that the bottleneck at the site had caused the stampede which killed 45.

    However, Ehrlich himself on Friday tweeted that he is beating his chest in regret:

    “Everyone is quoting this tweet from 2018, in which I warned about the danger in the hallway of death,” he explained. “Only I am eating myself up and torturing myself for making do with a single tweet (and a few lines in a newspaper), and not taking the issue up obsessively and incessantly. I didn’t drive everyone mad, and I didn’t shake up all the authorities, and I didn’t do a series of articles and tweets on it, until someone did something.”

    It would seem that there was plenty of blame to go around for this tragedy.

20. @ Adam Dalgliesh:
    Regardless of all the other causes, the main culprit is the idiot who covered the inclined walk with metal making it extremely unsafe (when someone finally slipped on it, it caused a domino effect (also, probably, from the crowd pushing from behind) – it is a miracle that nothing like this happened earlier.

    However, now it may be impossible to find out who did this and when.

21. @ Frank Adam: Frank, these are all worthy suggestions in and of themselves. But even if they were all adopted by the Israeli government, it would not have prevented this disaster, because there still would have been a vast number of haredim intent on celebrating Lag B’Omer on Mount Meron.

    The Shas party , one of the the two major haredi parties, has now endorsed the draft for haredi men and secular education in haredi schools. Many rosh yeshivot (principals) of haredi primary and secondary schools now say they welcome secular education classes for their students, and have requested that the Department of Education to assign qualified teachers of these subjects to their schools, bu but claim that the department says it does not have the funds to hire the, and there is a shortage of qualified teachers.

    The Shas party, and some but not all factions of the United Torah Judaism party, now say that they accept a universal draft call-up for all haredi men (not women) of military age. According to this Shas proposal, all young haredi men would have to show up for their physical when called up, and then the army draft board would be free to select those men whom it considered qualified to serve. In making this proposal, the moderate haredi leaders know that the army will probably select for service only a small minority of haredi men who come to their physicals, because the majority of haredi men lack the educational background, skill sets and even physical fitness to be qualifies to serve. However, some “experts” say that about 3,000 haredi men a year would pass their physicals and be called up for service. In time, that would mean the number of young haredi men serving in the iDF would increase substantially from the small number who are serving today.

    Some moderate haredi leaders now recommend that young haredi men who don’t want to be lifetime yeshiva students, which some experts say is roughly half of all haredi men, should serve in the military. Also, they should obtain attend technical skills by attending technical institutes and community colleges, where they can learn enployable skills, and then get jobs that will bring in some income to haredi communities. The moderate haredi leaders have realized that the haredim cannot survive forever on government grants alone, that at some point the government will cut back on these grants, and so younger haredim will need to work to support their communities. Young haredi men can learn employable skills either in the IDF or in technical schools and community colleges.

    Several technical academies that specifically cater to haredi students have recently been established in Israel, mainly in the Jerusalem area.

    I think that the solution to the haredi “problem” is for the government to put firm but gentle and nonconfrontational pressure on the haredim to integrate themselves into Israeli society. I believe there are ways of doing this without adopting an adversarial attitude toward them or attacking them verbally. I believe that it is possible for the Israeli government to do this.

22. From Today’s Jerusalem Post. Clearly there was a “systemic” fairly to prepare adequately for the event, even though government officials were aware there was a risk to life. But they could not reach a consensus as to what the remedy was.

    The Jerusalem Post – Israel News CORONAVIRUS ISRAEL NEWS ISRAEL ELECTIONS WORLD NEWS MIDDLE EAST Login
    Jerusalem Post Israel News
    Police, health officials warned of Meron disaster just weeks before
    “We need to close the grave and limit the number of people.”
    By JERUSALEM POST STAFF MAY 1, 2021 21:10 Email Twitter Facebook fb-messenger
    Israeli rescue forces and police near the scene of a stampede that killed dozens and wounded dozens over 100 during the celebrations of the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer on Mt. Meron, in northern Israel on April 30, 2021 (photo credit: DAVID COHEN/FLASH 90)
    Israeli rescue forces and police near the scene of a stampede that killed dozens and wounded dozens over 100 during the celebrations of the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer on Mt. Meron, in northern Israel on April 30, 2021
    (photo credit: DAVID COHEN/FLASH 90)

    Top police officers and health officials warned of a disaster at Mount Meron and recommended closing the holy Jewish site at a meeting that was held two weeks before the holiday of Lag Ba’omer.
    On Thursday night, 45 people were killed in a deadly stampede at the site. The Justice Ministry has taken over the investigation although there were calls over the weekend to establish an independent state commission of inquiry.
    The meeting and its contents were revealed Saturday night by Kan News which published a protocol of a meeting that commander of the Northern Police District Shimon Lavi held with his senior command as well as top officials from the Health, Transportation and Interior ministries.
    At the meeting, Lavi said that the police are first and foremost concerned with the public’s safety. “The safety and security of the public and controlling the crowd and the pressure is our first priority,” he said at the opening of the meeting.
    He then went around the table and heard from the other officers. Commander of the Ha’amakim District said: “If the grave is open and all of Israel comes there will be too many people. We should close the gravesite.
    Commander of operations in the Northern District concurred: “We need to close the grave and limit the number of people.”
    The deputy head of traffic police in the North agreed: “We need to close the grave.”
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    In response, CEO of the Administration of Holy Sites in Israel which is responsible for management of Mount Meron, said that he prefers to keep it open and that anyhow he will need to consult with the Hassidic sects that traditionally converge on the grave of 2nd century Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai located there.
    Dr. Michal Cohen, the Health Ministry’s Northern District doctor, urged Lavi to close the site out of concern of a massive coronavirus infection spread. She warned of not using the “Green Pass” system under which only vaccinated or people who had recovered from COVID-19 could attend the event.
    Lavi said that the Green Pass system could not be used since it would create a massive crowd of people at the entrance to the holy site that would not be controllable, basically hinting at the disaster that would occur on Thursday night.
    Other police officers said that according to intelligence they had received, people planned to anyhow come and force their way into the site if it was not completely opened to the public. Limits had been placed on attendance at Mt. Meron in 2020 due to the pandemic.
    In the end, in the final decision, the police agreed to remove limits on the number of participants and not to use the Green Pass system.

    Tags Israel Police Health Ministry lag baomer Mount Meron
    rael

23. This tragedy is a direct result of the Haredi contempt for the State and the attitude that all government and police are the Tsar and Cossacks – even the Israeli government and police – who did advise a maximum of 10 000 attendees but as with Covid rules the Haredim pushed on because: “It’s only goyshke rules,” as a relative who “got religion” said about another government matter.
    The answer now is some sort of drastic firm financial but civil pressure to insist on national secular curriculum in Haredi schools – particularly maths and IT – and army or national service eg medical orderlies,nursing or electrician courses so that these bachurim can earn a living. Most importantly if it takes 4 years to gain bachelors’degrees in Israel then subsidised attendance at Yeshivot should be similarly limited – or transferred to a system similar to the “academic reserve” by which they do term-time studies and military training in the holidays.