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23 Kislev 5761 - December 20, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Community Police
by Chaim Walder

Before becoming a ba'al teshuva, Azriel Karchov was a police officer at the Tel Aviv headquarters. His job was simple: to apprehend criminals. Karchov wasn't a social worker or a family consultant. So when he was told to apprehend a particular criminal, he wasn't supposed to inquire about the guy's family or personal problems. His sole concern was to convey the crook to a prison cell. Anyone who has ever seen Karchov knows that this presented him with no difficulties.

After returning to the Judaism of his fathers, Karchov was appointed the investigating officer in the Ramat Gan police department. He gradually became acquainted with a different type of police work. Over the years, links were formed between him and chareidi groups in Bnei Brak involved in welfare, including the Municipal welfare services, the Mishmeres Hachinuch Vehakodesh, the Family and Child Center, and Ezer Mitzion. Karchov became familiar with chareidi reluctance to involve public authorities in their problems. With time, he became trusted by city rabbonim to handle local problems appropriately.

Please note: Bnei Brak has the lowest crime rate in the country. Until now, it didn't even have a police station, and most of the cases reaching the Ramat Gan police department were what they call in police jargon, "genizah" cases. A veteran policeman once told me: "The cases from Bnei Brak are so simple and easy, that in the worst case they are dealt with at supersonic speed, and in most cases, at the speed of light."

What is a genizah case? Social problems: spats between neighbors, complaints about noise, petty arguments. These things are hardly ever handled by the Ramat Gan police, because when compared to the serious crimes they must deal with, these cases are small potatoes.

There have been more serious cases but they, too, hardly ever reached the police, because people generally don't complain to a body they don't trust. But what can one do? The chareidi community doesn't have a lot of confidence in the police for various reasons.

Karchov expected to be promoted rapidly in police investigation ranks. But then, the rabbonim of Bnei Brak and Mayor Rabbi Mordechai Karelitz asked the upper echelons of the police department to set up a community police station in Bnei Brak, one which residents would trust for filing both serious and light complaints; where they would be treated at supersonic speed.

The only officer suited for that job was Karchov.

The station was set up. The Bnei Brak Municipality invested NIS 100,000 in it, and Azriel, along with four more policemen, began to man the Center for Community Police.

So why I am writing about this?

Because the chareidi community has grown, and although it is not crime-ridden, there is an urgent need for an enforcement system for cases that the botei din can't handle. Most people in Bnei Brak obey the rabbonim, who constitute the best enforcement system one can find. However, among so many people, kein yirbu, there is already a periphery -- mainly youngsters who have left yeshivos, but also some adults who sometimes need a strong arm that can handle their problems or the problems they cause their surroundings.

One organization that entered the niche of communal policing was the Mishmeres Hachinuch Vehakodesh, whose positive activity is vital for the maintenance of proper communal life. However, the hands of the Mishmeres are tied in many areas. They have no legal enforcement authority, a fact that is frustrating for necessary action in some educational cases. The feeling has always been that Bnei Brak residents are exposed to all sorts of problems to which the police do not relate.

This is why it was urgent to open a police station that would not conflict with the needs of the chareidi community. This could only have been achieved by collaboration among police and local rabbonim. Now there is a strong arm to help keep order in Bnei Brak, an arm recognized by both the Torah establishment and the Municipality, an arm to which local rabbonim can turn when necessary.

"Community police," on principle, is meant to meet the people's needs, to preserve order with a fatherly, supportive perspective, not from a unfeeling one of just "let's catch the thief," and to make certain that there won't be thieves or thefts.

I've already met families who are suffering greatly because of the actions of one particular member of the family. Yet no one utters a word, because they are afraid of the outcome. Approaching the Ramat Gan police department was problematic. Now, turning to the police is less problematic, because the hands are those of Karchov and his mind is in agreement with directives of local rabbonim as well as communal leaders who have finally solved the problem which so oppressed the chareidi community: enforcing order in the streets of Bnei Brak.

Here's the problem, however: there is no financing for this small police station, and Karchov and his officers are struggling more or less on their own. The communal leaders must help empower this station, because of the importance of protecting Bnei Brak society from. . . its very own fringe elements. You should not need it, but the number is 6181748.

Now all we have to do is to hope that activists will establish such stations in other chareidi centers.

 

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