"Good riddance" • Belgium celebrates victory over Friedman

This afternoon, the court in Antwerp, Belgium, accepted the appeal of the school administration of "Bnos Yerushalayim" of Belz Hasidim, against the decision to place Moshe Aryeh Friedman's two sons into the institution.

The decision has not yet been officially published and will be published tomorrow morning. But in the Haredi street in Belgium, celebrations already broke out at the decision.

• Victory for Belz: Friedman's sons won't learn with girls

"The feeling is a big relife, tremendous joy," responds David Deman, a journalist and writer and the unoffical speaker of Belz in the case: "Antwerp is a small town where we have established a quality build institution, and the demand to be accepted to it is great. The feeling all along was that there's a person who wants to spoil and destroy in one moment all we have built with our own labor.

"We had many plans on how to act against the decision of the court to put his sons into the classrooms, but we decided to act in line with our rabbis and as the Rebbe of Belz instructed us, and apparently it is recorded to our benefit. Thank G-d," he adds, "you could say today we got rid of him, the girls who did not come to school for a long time can return to normal."

After the decision, Daman hopes the children will be removed from the custody of Friedman: "We've passed the story with him which lasted two months and there is no way to describe what his children are going through with him for years.

"As we know him, he has no limits, he can inform the legal authorities against innocent avreichim, but we are confident that there's a Creator of the world and He guards us in other cases just like this case"

Finally he says, "the entire Hareidi community raised their hat for us for not being dragged into Friedman's false media campaign, and most importantly we have the rights of the Rebbe Shlita and the Rebbes who passed away. And such an action will not pass quietly, especially when in Heaven they see a Jew whose sole purpose is to undermine a sacred institution."

Purim miracle

Attorney Henry Rosenberg, a familiar figure in the Haredi street in Antwerp, who is in contact with the family of Moshe Aryeh Friedman described in a conversation with Behadrey Haredim the court's decision as a Purim miracle. He said, "The city felt tremendous joy today , it is really a salvation for us. "

"There is no legal way in which Moshe Aryeh Friedman could rescue his reputation. Unless he would go for a long legal process to discuss at a higher court and this process may take years, while in the meantime it does not delay the earlier decision and his children have to stay at home."

Attorney Rosenberg sent a letter today to the state Attorney in which he demands Friedman sends his children to an educational institution, "He sued almost every hareidi institution in the city, claiming that his children are suffering at home, now he will have to send his children to a mixed institution of learning of non-Jews.

"Both his family and the haredi community wants him to leave the city, and he will probably continue to London from here."

Brought about unity

Journalist Michael Zeev Freilich from the Jood Actueel news site, told Behadrey Haredim that he spoke this evening with the school principal of Bnos Yerushalayim of the Belz Hasidim: "He is happy in a way which is hard to describe , it is a day of tidings for all parents and students at the school and for the entire community in Antwerp. "

Freilich says the principal and other parties involved in the case, have not yet received the decision of the court, "So it is possible the court gave a brief period of a few days for Friedman's children to attend school until he finds them another institution and then the school may remove them forcibly ".

He added: "There is only one positive thing Friedman made by turning to the courts - he managed to unite all the hareidi community with no difference between one chassidus to another, between one community and another and now it seems the end of the story. And the desire of all of us is that he will leave Belgium."

We approached Moshe Aryeh Friedman to hear his reaction but he declined to comment until he receives the documents of the court's decision.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!