''I'm not giving up, but 'Skunk' is crazy damage. A month doesn't work here''

June 19, 2023   

Shimi Golovnetsitz, the owner of the Cellular Center at the Bar Ilan intersection in Jerusalem, has been suffering from violence and vandalism of his property for a year. On Sunday, at 8:45 p.m., near closing time, there was the third attack. Two young men appeared at the store's entrance, poured "Skunk" inside, and sprayed pepper spray at the salesperson sitting by the counter. Property worth 10,000 NIS was vandalized, and Shimi was forced to bear the damage again. In a conversation with Haredim 10, Golovanczitz recounts the ongoing suffering, while the police do nothing: "They want us to receive kosher from the Rabbinical Committee, we refuse. They have a method, they used to protest in front of all the stores and it didn't help them. Now they've picked up a new method, to go from store to store until it surrenders. They grab one and sit on it, that's how they closed seven stores. "Those who pour the 'boash' and spray the gas are Haredim. Sometimes there are those who come and protest in front of the store. Every time it's someone different. They send boys to pour 'boash'. They don't prepare the 'boash'. Preparing it is complicated. They take someone, pay them a few shekels and tell them: Pour it and run. Sometimes it's Arasim, sometimes it's Hasidim. "They probably got drunk on success and started coming to Bar Ilan. This is not the Mea Shearim or Geula area, this is not their area. It was something new, they caught me first. It's been like this for a year. "Six months ago I first received a 'skunk', a month later again. And there was a quiet six months without protests, without a 'skunk'. Because they arrested the person who burned the store in the Geula neighborhood, everything stopped. A month ago they came back and with them the 'skunk', broke into another store two weeks ago at night, poured 'skunk' over all the property. "Yesterday it was my turn, the faces of those attackers are visible. A police investigator told me yesterday that they have a very clear cast of the attacker. I ask: Why aren't the police dealing with them? Why isn't he in custody now? "The police were angry with me for contacting the media, I told them this was the third time... that the first two times within three days I received an SMS that the case was closed. Each time for a different reason. The first time, one of the attackers came with his face visible. "Even now there are faces - I'm very skeptical, in this country, as long as you don't shoot or stab and murder, then it doesn't interest anyone. In the end they say: Haredi, let's get it done.".   How does this affect you as a store owner? "I feel helpless, there's nothing I can do alone in the campaign. Tomorrow it could happen again. I don't want to give in to them, but the method works. This is my livelihood, I can't do it tomorrow. That's why I'm doing everything I can to make this terror end. "The 'skunk' is crazy damage, it stays for months. In the first few weeks I'm in trouble - you can't enter the store, it's problematic to sell. Today customers came in and ran away. The store hasn't functioned for a month, except for the damage, everything that the 'skunk' hit is going to the trash. I threw ten thousand shekels in the trash yesterday and I don't have insurance. They damaged two walls full of property." The police said in response to Haredim 10: "Under investigation.".