For the past 48 hours (and scheduled for 8 PM this evening as well) there has been mass rioting in Jerusalem over the arrest of a Chareidi/Ultra Orthodox woman from the Mea Shearim neighborhood, that police and welfare officials claim has been neglecting to feed her child.See pictures from last night's rioting here.
Hadassah Hospital staff has officially stated as well:
The Chareidi Community in Jerusalem feels they are wrongfully under attack, and that the woman did nothing wrong, let alone intentionally or otherwise, starve her child.Also Thursday, the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital rejected the haredi community's claims that the three-year-old child whose mother is suspected of starving him has cancer and had been undergoing chemotherapy.
"The child has not been diagnosed as a cancer patient and has not been receiving medications from the chemotherapy family," said Dr. Yair Birenboim, the hospital's deputy director-general.
According to Birnboim, the hospital's medical staff believes the child is suffering from malnutrition. "He is receiving an enriched diet, and I assume that once he recovers physically all the symptoms he has will pass. Within a few weeks, maybe even two or three months, he will be able to return to his family. We believe we saved his life." (YNET)
Israel has been rather brutal towards the woman and community in general:
Is this brutal media treatment? Maybe not.
I guess the normal reaction should be revulsion; try to save the child, keep him as far away from the mother as possible, imprison the mother...(or send her for psychiatric observation...clinical testing -- maybe she has postpartum depression?)
Yet the Chareidi community overall supports the mother and family, which is why there has been mass rioting around Jerusalem (rather violent and messy as well). Are they living in a dream world, denying reality? Perhaps the police and welfare workers are wrong...and the child was sick (as the family claims)...
The following just appeared on the "Chareidim" website -- documentation that the child was diagnosed with a serious, terminal illness, which would result in...loss of weight (exactly the way the child appears now).
In summary, it appears the child suffered the past year from [disease removed from publication due to privacy] and appears to be towards the end [of a terminal illness]. The results of the long illness are drastic weight reduction and sever malnutrition"
Maybe the family's claims were right all along, and this really was a terrible case of anti-Chareidi propaganda?
Time will tell - I assume by Sunday, this case will be much clearer -- and the streets of Jerusalem will probably be one big nasty mess.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד
