The dean of haredi elementary school Tiferet Yaakov was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday upon his return from a fundraising trip abroad, reported Kikar News.
The suspect, Rabbi Eliyahu Tumbak of Beit Shemesh, is close to Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach of Bnei Brak and is suspected of money laundering.
In recent years, Tumbak has embarked on several fundraising missions for the “Peleg Yerushalmi” schools.
“They’re chasing after our community, there’s no other way to explain it,” said a source close to Tumbak. “If they continue acting this way, Israel will burn as they have never seen it burn. We will work like ancient Egypt did; we will say, ‘Let us outsmart him.’
“We will slander their leaders, we will make sure they have thick files with the police. Everyone who knows Rabbi Tumbak knows how straight and honest he is. It’s obvious this allegation is simply slander for the sake of harming us.”
The haredi community has suggested Tumbak’s arrest is connected to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s “threat” to “deal with those who resist drafting into the IDF.”
