A video showing a former Ganei Tikva city council member screaming at two Hasidic yeshiva men collecting charity for a bride's wedding fund is circulating widely across the Haredi world, just two days before the Tisha B'Av fast.
The incident happened Monday night, when the two young men knocked on the door of Eli Sacriano, who previously served on the Ganei Tikva council with the Yesh Tikva list. Rather than offering a donation or even politely saying he was unable to help them, Sacriano began shouting at them the moment he opened the door, telling them plainly that he did not want to see them and that they were not his brothers. He demanded they leave the building immediately and stop collecting money, at one point telling them they already take enough money from the state.
According to the footage, the two men tried to defuse the situation and gently extended a hand in peace, but Sacriano refused it, chased them down the stairwell, and warned that he would call the police if they did not leave.
The clip is the second such incident to circulate in Haredi circles in a short span, after two other young men were reportedly humiliated during a separate charity collection for a bride's wedding fund. Commentators say the footage has reopened a broader conversation about rising hostility, both online and in public, toward yeshiva students and anyone visibly identified as Haredi.
The local Shas chairman, Tal Matityahu, responded sharply, saying he was shocked to hear that Jews had been expelled from a building by a former city council member solely because they were Haredi. He called it a crossing of a red line into baseless hatred and exclusion that has no place in the community, and condemned what he described as bullying, arrogant conduct.
Matityahu went further, calling it audacious in the extreme to think one could restrict a person's freedom of movement based on their appearance. He said Gani Tikva prides itself on being a pluralistic, inclusive community with room for secular, traditional, religious, and Haredi residents alike, but argued that a small number of people who call themselves enlightened and liberal allow themselves to treat Haredim with contempt over their faith, lifestyle, and appearance, warning that this kind of behavior only tears at the fabric of the Jewish people.
He closed by calling on residents to show responsibility and restraint, especially during the Three Weeks, when Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple brought about by baseless hatred. He said it falls to elected officials to lower the temperature, and that the man involved should apologize, both to the two men who were expelled and to the wider Haredi community for the harm caused.
