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Secular media personalities slam hate campaign against Chabad, religious Jews in Tel Aviv

“If you’re so afraid that your child will be affected from one time that he puts on tefillin… the problem is with you,” said Guy Lerer.

By World Israel News Staff

Reuven Lediansky, an attorney running for mayor of Tel Aviv, recently slammed emissaries from the world-famous Chabad movement as “extremist messianics’ and a threat to children.

The candidate and self-described “secular warrior” who recently served as deputy mayor of the city reposted a video of a secular woman berating a Chabad emissary for manning a booth on a city street where men and teenage boys can wrap tefillin (phylacteries) and pray. He praised her for protecting the city’s youth.

A number of secular media personalities have denounced Lediansky, Yeshiva World News reported. TV host Guy Lerer, for example, said, “Liberal brothers, why does it bother you so much that Chabadnikim are standing and asking people to put on tefillin? Aren’t there more important things? There are more important things!”

“If you’re so afraid that your child will be affected from one time that he puts on tefillin, and it will turn around and change his life, the problem is not with the Chabadnikim –  the problem is with you and the confidence you have in the education you gave your child,” he added.

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Secular actor and radio host Shai Goldstein also slammed the hate-mongering against Chabad and ultra-Orthodox Jews, YWN noted. He posted a photo of himself on social media donning tefillin with the caption: “You don’t want them with a table of tefillin on your street, you yell at them and drive them out, but when they come as ZAKA or Hatzalah -the first one to take care of you after an attack – you don’t drive them out, do you?

“And when you need crutches, God-forbid, you go to Yad Sarah, no? So what’s your problem? Aren’t you tired of being two-faced?”

ZAKA, United Hatzalah and Yad Sarah were founded and are staffed by Orthodox Jewish volunteers.