District Commissioner Campbell, in the capacity of Administrative Judge, today fined five followers of the Gerer Rebbe two pounds each, or eight days imprisonment, for defending their leader during an altercation with the police at the Cave of Machpela near Hebron, Sept. 25. The other five arrested Chassidim were released.
The clash with the police occured when an Arab policeman allegedly roughly shoved the Gerer Rebbe, scion of one of the most influential Chassidic dynasties in Poland, when the latter, unaware that a special permit is needed, attempted to enter the Cave of Machpela, tomb of the Hebrew patriachs. The Gerer Rebbe himself narrowly escaped arrest.
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