Jerusalem, Israel - An infant's death has spawned a controversial criminal case centering on one of Israel's most insular Jewish sects.
At issue in a Jerusalem court is whether a 19-year-old yeshiva student named Yisrael Vales fatally beat his 3-month-old son, Yitzhak, during a burst of anger last month The case sparked three days of street disturbances and has spilled beyond the impoverished enclave where Vales now sits under house arrest.
The pitched sentiments surrounding the allegations underscore the often uneasy relations between Israel's secular majority and the largely cloistered world of black-clad believers generally called ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, Jews.
Authorities say Vales confessed to police that he slapped and beat his son while caring for him on April 2 because he could not cope with the child's crying. The prosecution alleges that the defendant admitted that he had slapped, pinched and bitten the boy at least once before. Vales, who is charged with manslaughter and child abuse, is being defended by of one of Israel's most famous defense attorneys.
Vales' family is prominent within the Edah Haredit movement, composed of Ashkenazi Jews who reject Israel as a heresy, refuse government assistance and prefer to live apart, with their own religious leaders to oversee religious courts, marriages, burials and certification for kosher food.
Fellow Edah Haredit members in the Mea Shearim neighborhood, where Vales lives with his 19-year-old wife, Hanna, have rallied to his defense, accusing Israeli authorities of coercing a confession and trying to smear their community.
The neighborhood erupted just before the Passover observance last month when supporters demanded that police release Vales. Posters went up accusing the government of a "blood libel" against the community.
Hundreds of people blocked roads, hurled stones at police and motorists and set fire to municipal trash bins, causing $30,000 in damage, city officials said.
"They felt they were being discriminated against by the entire so-called Zionist society, which consists of the majority of Jews in Israel. His community felt it was being placed in a defensive position," said Menachem Friedman, a professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv who studies haredi culture. "Their main fear is the government is out to get them."
A judge later freed Vales on bail but placed him under house arrest at his grandparents' home, sparking accusations from some Israeli child-welfare advocates that authorities buckled to pressure.
Along the cluttered alleys of Mea Shearim, outsiders are greeted with a wary gaze, banners warn against immodest dress and much of the neighborly conversation takes place in the Yiddish of Old Europe.
The allegations against Vales have placed the privacy-minded community on a collision course with the outside world. Vales stepped into an Israeli courtroom for a procedural hearing Thursday, accompanied by his wife and a dozen supporters, who wore side locks and knee-length black coats and formed a protective ring to keep reporters and news photographers at bay.
Prosecutors say Vales told police he was frustrated that his wife was working at a job outside the home and irritated that their child was born with a muscle defect in the neck that caused the infant's head to tilt to one side.
The boy died in a Jerusalem hospital eight days after the attack. Prosecutors say head injuries, including retinal bleeding, point to "shaken baby syndrome." Authorities did not perform an autopsy in deference to community sensitivities over treatment of the dead.
"We have the medical evidence in this case, and we also have a confession," prosecutor Nick Kaufman said.