DesertPeace: "Last night Jews throughout Israel celebrated the end of the Holiday season. There was, as we say in Yiddish...Tantzen in der gassen... Dancing in the streets."
Except those surrounded by an angry Islamic fascist crowd!Acco Yeshiva Under Arab SiegeBy Nissan Ratzlav-Katz and Hillel Fendel Hundreds of rioting Arabs surrounded a yeshiva in Acco (Acre) Saturday night, preventing the students from leaving the building. An IDF soldier was detained for shooting in the air. Local police were called in to break the Arab siege on the Hesder yeshiva, located in the Wolfson neighborhood of Acco. Police officers took control of the volatile situation and the crowd began to disperse. There were no injuries reported, but one person was arrested for discharging a firearm.
Accounts from Acco indicate that the riot and subsequent siege was preceded by verbal and possibly physical attacks on several yeshiva students by local Arabs as the students were dancing Torah scrolls through the streets. The police verified that a yeshiva student, an active-duty IDF soldier, fired his weapon in the air when he believed he detected a threat to himself and the other students, who were dancing and singing in traditional post-Simchat Torah celebrations. The gunfire led an Arab mob to surround the yeshiva, with the shooter and several dozen students retreating inside.
Acco, on Israel's Mediterranean coast north of the city of Haifa, is an ethnically mixed city of Arabs and Jews. Tensions have been high in the city since the beginning of the holy Moslem month of Ramadan three weeks ago. The situation has been especially taut in the Wolfson neighborhood, where Moslems have been broadcasting via loudspeaker verses of the Koran every evening. The police originally confiscated the loudspeakers, until local Arab leaders intervened. A compromise was then reached wherein Moslem chants would be broadcast at less-than-maximum volume and for two minutes each evening, to announce the end of the daily Ramadan fast. Jews in the neighborhood accused the authorities of caving in to the Arab demands, in violation of city laws forbidding such announcements in a residential neighborhood.
The Acco Hesder yeshiva has over 100 students who, in addition to combining Torah studies and military service, take part in educational activities with Acco schools and old age homes, assist children with disabilities, volunteer with the Civil Guard, and other community-serving projects. Acco is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities, mentioned in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back 3,500 years. In ancient times, all ships that arrived in the Land of Israel from abroad would dock at the port of Acco.