Police Humiliation of Elisheva Federman
'Every Woman Who Heard te News was Totally Shocked'
Cheshvan 7, 5769, 05 November 08 01:05
by Hillel Fendel(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of Hevron women descended on the local police station Wednesday morning, protesting the police humiliation of Elisheva Federman.
Elisheva Federman was whisked away by police on Tuesday as she was walking in the street to pick up her daughter from the nursery. In her words:
"Ten days after they destroyed my house and threw me and my family out while beating us, they decided they must justify what they did by accusing me of attacking a police officer..."At the police station, after they questioned me and accused me, they said that in light of the accusations, they have to take a DNA sampling from me [- something that is usually done only for murderers and rapists, the interviewer commented]. I didn't agree, since I didn't murder anyone, so they said that they don't need me to agree and they could take it by force."They brought me into a room, and brought in a policewoman to take some hairs from my head, and gave me a choice: Either I would allow her to take the hairs and the policemen would not look, or I could resist, in which case, the policemen would watch as she takes my hair-covering off and takes the hairs. I was of course not anxious to get beaten again by the policemen, after what I experienced last week, so I said I would not resist. The policemen left, leaving the door open, and she took off my hair-covering off and took out ten hairs from my head."
Reactions to the news in Hevron and elsewhere were furious. "Every woman who heard this was totally shocked," said Hevron resident Anat Cohen - and after hearing the report of the humiliation, Cohen and dozens of other women burst into the local police station.
"We decided we could not allow this to go without a response," Cohen later told Arutz-7. "For the policewoman to look Elisheva in the eye and say, 'If you don't let us take off your hair covering, we will take it forcefully,' is the crossing of a grave red line. This is a blow at the elementary human rights of dignity and a woman's honor."
Jewish Law prohibits a married woman from appearing in public with her hair uncovered. Beyond the legal requirement, however, it is considered a deep violation of her modesty and privacy to have her hair uncovered in public.
"We arrived at the police station with signs and we protested," she said. "We went inside, and the policemen immediately jumped on us and pushed us outside, where we continued to demonstrate for about an hour."
She noted that the police "told Noam [Elisheva's husband] after the destruction last week that if she does not come on her own for a police investigation, they would 'pluck her up' on the street in the middle of the day - and that's what they did."
DNA testing of Jews has happened only once in recent memory, Elisheva Federman said: "A few years ago, a man had some hairs taken from his beard, but the police were roundly criticized and they did not do it again - until now... It is all totally legal, as the policemen said, but it's just another brick in the wall dividing between those who come to expel and humiliate and Israel's most loyal sons."
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