Four Yeshiva Students Arrested In Holland For Smuggling Khat, Placed In Separate Jails

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JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Many Israelis have been caught lately smuggling the khat plant around Europe and among them were quite a few chareidim. Kikar Hashabat reports that 4 yeshiva students were arrested in a Dutch hotel after they were caught with khat. The students were sent to different jails in order to make their incarceration more difficult.

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Khat is legal in Israel but considered a drug in Europe as opposed to cannabis which is legal. A significant number of young people have been tempted into smuggling drugs for money, generally youths who have dropped out of their frameworks and are excited by the free flight, hotel and visit abroad. Many of them are convinced that they are not involved in illegal activity, since khat is legal in Israel and is very popular in the Yemenite community.

Local Chabad emissary Rabbi Akiva Komisar who is in contact with the four youths said that “they are young chareidi yeshiva students who apparently innocently brought the khat without knowing that in Holland it is like trafficking hard drugs.

“Now there are four boys in jail, one is in a juvenile prison. We are trying via the prison chaplains to obtain lawyers for them. The authorities here take this seriously in order to deter those who come here to peddle drugs. Some drugs are permitted but khat is prohibited.

“The problem is that the dispatchers tell them that if there is a problem, the Chabad house will help but this doesn’t make a good impression with the authorities so we implore people not to come here with khat. Before the corona this was a problem throughout Europe and now people are beginning to come back, so we call on people not to come with such risky deals.”

The Amsterdam Chabad emissary, Rabbi Dov Pinkowitz, said that one of the boys was forced to eat vegetables for a few days because kosher food could not be brought to him.

Last year the Knesset passed a first reading of a bill by Shas MK Moshe Arbel regarding the matter of persuading people to convey prohibited items to and from abroad. Arbel said that the last few years had seen 110 Israelis arrested for smuggling khat. Some were expelled from the countries but others spent months and even years in jails depending on the amount of the drug found in their possession.

Arbel proposed a prison sentence of 20 years for those who persuaded the youths to take the drugs abroad to a country where the punishment for peddling such drugs is 3 years or more. The law passed its first reading unanimously.


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13 Comments
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Just2Truth
Just2Truth
2 years ago

Greed above all. Common sense: Disappeared.

Normal
Normal
2 years ago

How hard would it be to have signs at Ben Gurion saying it’s illegal to take out of Israel and you get jail if caught?

Anonymous
Anonymous
2 years ago

Here we go again. Every year. Same story. Sometimes different European city.

Stupid commentator
Stupid commentator
2 years ago

If the trip AND the Hotel AND all expenses are paid they are not innocent. Their stupid or “oiber-Chachumim”. Either way, we got to do what we can for them but you don’t have feel bad for them…

Kollelfaker
Kollelfaker
2 years ago

Gee I guess they were all mislead and didn’t know what they were carrying
Do the crime serve the time
Just wondering how much they were paid to take the chance

Moshe
Moshe
2 years ago

Innocent?
Rosh yeshivos should announce once a year that it’s illegal
No other way to get through their minds

Just sayin’
Just sayin’
2 years ago

Why are Yeshiva bachurim flying on an all expenses paid vacation to Holland??
Aren’t these the same Yeshiva boys that refuse to serve in the army because they need to learn?
Aren’t these the same yeshiva boys that can’t go to work because they need to sit and learn?
Aren’t these the same yeshiva boys that sit in the street and block traffic during Peleg demonstrations so that no one else can go to work?
Why are these boys not in yeshiva learning like they would like us to believe they are?
To those that are surprised by the good showing that the left of center parties made in the last election, I present you with exhibit A

Hard-working, tax paying citizens are fed up with these freeloaders pretending to be saints.

JACQUELINE BURNS
JACQUELINE BURNS
2 years ago

Fed up with this sort of thing. It is about time that Yeshivot started teaching their students the part of the Talmud which deals with Dina d’malkhuta dina (lit. “the law of the Government [in civil cases] is law,” or “the law of the land is the law”), is a principle in Jewish religious law that the civil law of a country is binding upon the Jewish inhabitants of that country, even if it conflicts with Jewish Law. The concept of dina d’malkhuta dina is similar to the concept of conflict of laws in other legal systems. It appears in at least twenty-five places in the Shulchan Arukh.

The principle of dina d’malchuta dina means that for Jews, obedience to the civil law of the country in which they live is viewed as a religiously mandated obligation and disobedience is a transgression, according to Jewish law. This general principle is subject to the qualifications that the government enacting the law must be one which is recognised by Jewish law as having legitimacy; the law must apply equitably to all the inhabitants, Jewish and non-Jewish alike; and the law must not contravene the spirit of the laws derived from the Torah even if a particular regulation may be contrary to a provision of Jewish law. 

I, for one, am furious when these people claim to be religious but only follow those religious obligations which suit them. It brings disgrace to all the Children of Israel & is Chilul HaShem.

Phineas
Phineas
2 years ago

At least it’s Holland and not Russia or somewhere in Southeast Asia. They will be treated humanely until this can be worked out diplomatically IMH.

Shmuel
Shmuel
2 years ago

They shouldn’t have done that, but it’s not that big of a deal. The Dutch are reasonable people, especially when it comes to relatively harmless substances. Something will be worked out.