Carmel fire widow accuses Hadera rabbi of incitement
Widow of Asst.-Cmdr. Lior Boker says Rabbi Rafael Buvlil claimed that husband died as divine punishment for probe of yeshiva students.
By YAAKOV LAPPINCarmel Fire(photo credit: Associated Press)
The widow of a senior Northern District police officer who died in December’s Carmel fire disaster filed a police complaint against a rabbi in Hadera on Sunday alleging incitement.Na’ava Boker, widow of Asst.-Cmdr. Lior Boker, who was the head of operations for the Northern District, said Rabbi Rafael Buvlil of Hadera had claimed that Lior Boker died as divine punishment, due to an investigation he led that found that yeshiva students set fire to a synagogue in order to blame Hadera’s secular residents.Channel 2 News reported that Buvlil and Boker had clashed over the rabbi’s demand that roads around the synagogue be sealed off to traffic on Shabbat – a demand that was rejected by Boker, who was head of the Hadera police station at the time.In her complaint, Na’ava Boker cited a letter allegedly distributed by the rabbi to his followers in which he wrote that Boker had died due to “his blood libel” – a reference to the findings of the synagogue fire investigation.
