Regardless of my political position, every time I talk about indictments again, I return to my private indictment.
State of Israel v. Yaakov Levy.
A baseless and false indictment from a thousand to a character, whose menacing shadow accompanied me for many years.
No, it was not easy.
Yes, there is smoke without fire.
And no, no, no.
It has nothing to do with Netanyahu.
One day, years ago, two workers came to my backyard and started demolishing a wall.
You read that right.
Everything was new to me.
For the first time in my life I was the father of a soft baby, for the first time in my life I was the legal and fresh owner of an old two and a half room apartment, with a small yard, and how not - picturesque.
I went out, stunned and barefoot, and tried to explain to the workers that whoever commissioned this work from them had misled them.
The "demolition wall" does not belong to these people at all.
It belongs to me.
In fact, these are neighbors who went to a violent fight against me, the new neighbor, because they covet part of my picturesque yard.
that's it.
I explained that these people, authentic synagogue members from the best Jerusalem stereotype, are threatening on the street to harm our baby.
These things confused the workers.
They just came to do work.
In old Jerusalem neighborhoods it is difficult to find hands and feet in the tangle of partnerships, cushions, key fees and agreements in distorted handwriting from the turn of the century.
And in general, since when do renovators want to look at papers?
I announced, however, politely but explicitly, that I could not let them continue working.
Let them sit down for coffee and wait.
I'll talk to a lawyer, and they will talk to the good people who sent them.
All is well.
Soon the owners of the conflict arrived with a great noise and tried to sniff something out.
A few moments later one of them threw himself on the ground and pretended I had injured him.
He was an older man, and he rewarded himself for blaming me.
Whoever my wife was in those days worked as a TV director, and she took out a camera and filmed the event.
The fact that everything was filmed, at short range and with a professional camera, made me treat the whole incident with a ridiculous grin.
"What will they already be able to claim?"
I told anyone who just bothered to hear the hallucinatory story.
All the friends laughed, and so did I.
We had no idea what else was going to happen.
Within a few days I realized I was on a battlefield.
People on the street approached and angrily asked why I, a man who makes devines as if he were normative, beat the elderly.
Abusive ads appeared on walls and columns.
Every few days, animal carcasses were thrown into the yard, which became a little less picturesque, and anonymous threatening letters arrived almost daily.
Additional letters were sent to the places where I worked and demanded that I be fired, denounced and rolled off all the stairs.
The chairman of the Disabled People's Union also contacted me one day following letters that reached him and claimed that I was cruelly beating people with special needs. From day to day it became less and less funny. To be honest, it made Kafka a school.
But of all the sloppy and false letters, the worst of all was the indictment.
It happened after a few summonses to the police station where I answered questions and mostly reminded the cops of the tape.
The videotape I gave to the police on the day of the incident clarifies it better than any verbal answer I can formulate.
I watched quite a few police series, and it was clear to me that the apology would arrive soon.
A pair of cops will come to my house.
They would smile awkwardly, politely refuse an offer to have a drink, mumble that they had been in the field for years and had never seen anything so absurd.
Something like that.
I did not think of an indictment.
• • •
But that's exactly what it was.
Indictment.
The State of Israel is against me.
Assault of an elderly person in aggravated circumstances.
My lawyer suggested with full empathy that I prepare myself.
I love you and believe you, he repeated.
But there are very few credits in cases of this kind.
You better evacuate.
Life as you know it, your good name, your professional path - it is better to prepare for the possibility that it is all over and complete.
A stain of violent assault, you know, does not come off in the wash.
And ... yes.
There is also the small matter with the period of imprisonment.
Not less than half a year.
You should get used to the smell of lysol.
And that is, more or less.
Four years have passed.
A cute daughter was born.
Saturdays and holidays, birthdays and a blessed family routine, but a murky cloud lay over everything.
An unhealthy period, I remember.
From time to time summonses came to court.
We got up.
We sat down.
We said we understood what was being said, and we recorded the date of the next hearing set by the judge.
But nothing special happened.
And here one night, at a late hour, the lawyer called me, and for the first time since the beginning of the affair his voice sounded happy and cordial.
It was a night before the real trial, the one where the lawyers would demonstrate their sharpness, witnesses would be questioned and the verdict would begin to take shape in the judge's head.
It was clear it was not going to be a night of pampering sleep.
And suddenly this phone.
The lawyer, happy but also angry, said it was.
It's over.
The police prosecutor had just contacted him urgently and begged for a brief meeting at a coffee shop.
Delete the bag and ask to do it quietly and without being embarrassed.
Over and done.
What happened?
I asked.
Only now did they remember to insert the tape into the device and watch it, he replied.
do you get it?
For four years, four p ** ing years, they had a tape recording in a locker in the prosecutor's office.
And only now has anyone bothered to bend over.
Reach out.
Insert into the device and press PLAY.
• • •
This is the story of my indictment.
Due to my love for the Hebrew language and the readership, I spared you ugly details.
Years passed, and I had long since left the neighborhood I loved.
The baby the neighbors threatened is about to enlist soon, and that story is hardly mentioned.
But his conclusions do not leave me.
Senior leadership positions should be assigned solely to clean-handed people.
That's how I believe.
But nonetheless I fear a reality where any candidate worthy of an important position will have to take into account that his opponents may do anything to get him indicted.
They will not have to put in much effort, I know that.
Because I was not a candidate for any key position, and the seekers of my evil were not people who were sophisticated, connected or particularly strong.
The idea of stipulating in law the disqualification of a candidate against whom an indictment is filed is not unfounded.
But it must come alongside a thick layer of protection that will prevent false complaints and incriminations, and most importantly take into account that such complaints and incriminations are only likely to come.
And yes, this is a story I hardly tell.
It's not good for my health.
Still, last week I rolled out some of it on a radio broadcast.
Immediately after the broadcast, I usually hop to the Mahane Yehuda market near the ulpan, to shop on Shabbat.
And here, in front of the stand of Moshe Parsley, I was surprised to meet the honorable retired judge who was shopping with her partner.
They too were surprised to meet me.
Yes, they listened to the show.
Yes, she remembers every detail.
No, this is not the most delusional thing she has had in her career.
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
