The fight in Ponovitz, was, who should daven Maariv

From the absurd to the insane! I'm telling you guys, they need to be drafted in the army!

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A long-running quarrel within the famed Ponovezeh Yeshiva in Bnei Barak has burst once again into bouts of violence and brawling among the two feuding sides loyal to two separate rabbis who both claim to head the institution.

On Sunday night, dozens of yeshiva students were involved in a fierce melee apparently over who which faction had the rights to lead the evening prayers. Some twenty students were reportedly injured during the fighting during which a prayer stand was thrown into a crowd of students and one of the yeshiva deans central to the conflict, Rabbi Shmuel Markowitz, was struck.

A student thought to be responsible for striking Rabbi Markowitz was arrested on Monday.

The latest skirmish follows a series of fights that have taken place in recent days and weeks which led last Thursday to a massive police operation in which several dozen yeshiva students were arrested for their part in the violence.

Most of those arrested were loyal to Rabbi Markowitz and his faction, known as “the terrorists.”

Those loyal to the faction of yeshiva president Rabbi Eliezer Kehanaman, son of Ponevezh founder Rabbi Avraham Kehanaman, along with Rabbis Gershon Edelstein and Baruch Dov Poborski are known as “the haters.”

Violence broke out again on Sunday night between the two factions over who would have the right to lead the evening prayers. The skirmish grew within the yeshiva halls during which Markowitz was hurt, allegedly by Rabbi Yossi Kehanaman, son of Preident Rabbi Eliezer Kehanaman.

Markowitz has now filed a complaint against the younger Kehanaman with the Bnei Brak police, although he has denied the charge and was released.

This led members of “the terrorists” faction to violently vandalize a dormitory belonging to “the haters.”

The dispute over the leadership of the yeshiva started back in 2001, with the death of Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach, the undisputed dean of the Ponevezh Yeshiva and the spiritual head of the non-hassidic haredi community.

A power struggle for control over the yeshiva, its institutions and its valuable real estate ensued between one of the co-yeshiva deans Markovitz and yeshiva president Kahneman, along with rabbis and co-deans Edelstein Poborski.

Former leader of the non-hassidic haredi world the late Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv expressed his support for Markovitz, while most of the other leading rabbis in the haredi stronghold of Bnei Brak,have publicly supported Kahneman, who also has the backing of the veteran teaching staff of the yeshiva.

Content provided as courtesy of the Jerusalem Post

30 Ponovitz Yeshiva Students arrested for trying to kill each other

 No difference between Chassidishe Hooligans and Yeshivesha Hooligans. Chassidim fight for who is the legitimate Rebbe, and the Litvishe fight for who is the legitimate  Rosh Yeshivah. It's all about power, and they have their naive minions fighting for their cause.
My solution to all this, is to send them all to the army!

Bnei Brak early Thursday morning to carry out dozens of arrests at one of the Haredi world’s flagship yeshivas, following a series of complaints about violence, vandalism, and arson among a small core group of offenders, Tel Aviv police said Thursday.

Thirty yeshiva students were arrested during the raid at the famous Ponovezh Yeshiva, as police went door to door with lists of students, looking for suspects involved in what has been described by police and reports in the Haredi press as a feud between two rival groups of students at Ponovezh.

One of the groups is described in various reports in the Haredi press as “the terrorists”, and the other as “the haters”. The two follow separate rabbis, according to a statement made by one of the suspect’s attorneys in court on Thursday.

Over the past several months, police said they have received dozens of police complaints about acts of violence and vandalism and carried out the arrests in order to try to calm the situation at the yeshiva, known as possibly the most renowned Litvak yeshiva in the world.

One of the incidents mentioned in several reports in the Haredi press on Thursday, was of an incident during the month of Elul, before the high holidays, when students from the “terrorists” group ransacked a library at the yeshiva associated with their rivals. The incident was described as a “pogrom” in reports on Haredi internet sites Thursday.

Police said the raids were meant to focus on a core group of instigators, and by Thursday afternoon, 26 of the 30 were released without conditions. Another four were released from custody and ordered banned from Bnei Brak for three days. During their hearing Thursday, the presiding judge said that because of the type of allegations and the young age of the defendants, there was no reason to keep them in custody.