A widow of the Meron tragedy has come forward with a painful account of her experience traveling to the tziyun of Rav Shimon bar Yochai, describing what she calls a ten-hour ordeal marked by mistreatment and insensitivity at the hands of police, as she attempted to mark her husband’s yahrtzeit.

Racheli Goldberg, whose husband was among those killed in the Meron disaster five years ago, set out with her yesomim to visit the kever despite ongoing restrictions and the security situation. Armed with all the necessary legal permits, she expected a journey of hisorerus and tefillah. Instead, she says, it became a distressing experience of “mistreatment under the auspices of the Israeli police.”

According to Goldberg, the difficulties began early in the trip, at the Gush Halav junction, where they were left waiting for hours in the rain and cold. She recounted that a police officer at the scene refused to recognize their official permits. “I stood in the rain, I pleaded respectfully, and in response I received brutal treatment and a police officer who shined a flashlight into my eyes as if I were a criminal… The insensitivity reached its peak at the Safsufa junction. The officer saw the permits and still chose to violate the procedures and block us. When I told him it was illegal and that we had the right to enter, he simply shouted: ‘There is no entry, the hilula is over.’”

She said the most painful aspect of the experience was its impact on her children, who continue to carry deep trauma from the tragedy in which they lost their father. Goldberg described how the conduct of police on the scene triggered those emotions once again. “My children carry deep trauma from the first year after the Meron disaster, where the police also behaved with brutality and a lack of sensitivity. When they were forced to again see uniforms acting with aggression and shouting, the result was a severe anxiety attack in the middle of the road.”

Goldberg also expressed anguish over what she described as a glaring contradiction throughout the ordeal. While her family was being held back for hours in harsh conditions, she said they saw police vehicles freely entering and exiting the area, along with empty buses passing by without allowing them to board. “The absurdity cried out to the heavens the entire time,” she wrote. “While they blocked us and forced my children to stand in the rain and cold, we saw police vehicles going in and out constantly with no apparent purpose.”

She concluded her account with a demand for accountability from authorities, calling on the state and senior officials to answer for what took place. “The State of Israel sent me with a legal permit in hand, but officers on the ground decided they were above the law. We reached the tziyun after 10 exhausting and unnecessary hours, after the emotional damage to my children had already been done. I will not remain silent about this bizayon.”

{Matzav.com}