Jerusalem Update

Posted by Atheist Under Ur Bed on July 8th, 2009

On July 5 I posted an entry about how religion continues to generate conflict and violence in what many people consider to be the holiest city on earth.

Here are more details:

—– Ultra-Orthodox Jews Riot Again (Robert Berger/The Voice of America; July 4)

Religious Jews have rioted in Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath for the second straight week.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of Jerusalem, throwing stones and scuffling with police. The demonstrators were protesting the opening of a parking lot on the Sabbath to accommodate an influx of Israeli visitors from around the country to Jerusalem’s Old City. Jewish religious law forbids driving on the Sabbath and the Orthodox accuse the secular government and public at large of desecrating the biblical holy day of rest.

Some demonstrators chanted that “Sabbath desecrators will die.”

Riots first erupted last month when the Jerusalem Municipality opened a lot near the Old City to ease a severe shortage of parking on the Sabbath. The violence underscores a deep divide between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular majority in Israel.

Secular Israeli Eran Abromovitz is fed up with ultra-Orthodox violence. “They’re disrupting the life of the city. We cannot continue in this situation. We the secular Jews demand that our rights to freedom be fulfilled. We demand that this parking lot and all the rest of the city be open to secular Jews,” he said.

The ultra-Orthodox say they are safeguarding Jerusalem as the Holy City. But as one group of secular activists put it: “Jerusalem is not Teheran.”

—– In Jerusalem, A Parking Lot War (Howard Schneider/The Washington Post; July 5)

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with riot police in central Jerusalem on Saturday night in the latest protest against the city’s decision to open a municipal parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath.

Dressed in traditional cloaks and fur hats, demonstrators forced the closure of several major streets, and some hurled rocks at motorists along a Jerusalem highway, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. No injuries were reported.

Known in Hebrew as “haredim,” or those who fear God, ultra-Orthodox Jews make up a growing percentage of Jerusalem’s population and have targeted the opening of the parking lot as part of an ongoing struggle over the city’s direction. They adhere to a rigid code of behavior, in which strict observance of the Sabbath is a central tenet.

“There is a difference between the desecration of the Sabbath on an individual basis and the cancellation of the Sabbath,” said Rabbi Shimon Weiss, a leader of the Eda Haredit movement, which has promised weekly protests until Mayor Nir Barkat reverses his decision. “The opening of the parking lot will bring about the opening of shops and shopping malls and more Sabbath desecration.”

Barkat’s decision to open a lot near the Old City’s Jaffa Gate aimed to solve a routine municipal problem — a lack of weekend parking — but disturbed the informal status quo regarding the period between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday.

During the Sabbath, most commerce is halted, though clusters of restaurants remain open, and certain roads are blocked to keep ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods quiet and car-free. But long-standing professional soccer games at the local stadium on Saturday are tolerated.

Municipal facilities are, as a rule, closed, so the decision to open the lot was seen as an official endorsement of driving on a day when Jewish law prohibits operating machinery, even pushing elevator buttons. On a recent Saturday, a steady trickle of cars flowed into the three-floor facility.

Barkat changed the location of the open lot to one farther from an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, promised it would be staffed by non-Jews and waived fees so money would not change hands, another Sabbath prohibition.

Still, the crowds have gathered. An estimated 30,000 people joined in a mass prayer one Friday night in June, and there are plans for a children’s protest this week.

“It’s as if they are calling upon the public to come and desecrate the Sabbath,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Goldknop, secretary of the Rabbinical Committee for the Sanctity of the Sabbath. “It hurts us and hurts our feelings and the feelings of any believing Jew.”

Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Jews say they want the city properly honored as the world’s holiest place. Secular residents, however, worry about intolerance and a loss of diversity, citing demands for gender-segregated buses, the recent jailing of a member of a “chastity squad” who assaulted a woman he thought was dressed immodestly and the decline of the secular Jewish population as Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities expand.

The ultra-Orthodox are expected to form a majority of Jerusalem’s half-million Jewish residents in about a decade, according to a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. The community, generally poorer and often engaged in subsidized religious study rather than traditional jobs, has depressed Jerusalem’s per capita income to among the lowest in Israel, the researchers estimated. [To learn more about how religion can make people poorer, see the entry I posted on July 7, 2008]

The study called for a broad effort to develop new industries and cultural centers to attract 100,000 people “of high socioeconomic status and human capital” — just the type that might like convenient parking on a Saturday.

Barkat championed similar themes in his mayoral campaign and has spent his first months in office courting biotechnology companies, Hollywood production firms and others to try to lure the professionals turning to Tel Aviv.

Daniel Greenberg, a Hebrew University student, helped organize recent counter-demonstrations in favor of the parking lot.

“We want to have a Jerusalem that is suitable for everyone who wants to live here,” he said.

—– Reporter Feels Mob’s Hate In The Holy City (Anne Barker/Australia’s ABC News; July 6)

The ABC’s Middle East correspondent Anne Barker became caught in violent street protests involving ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem at the weekend. This is her graphic account of her ordeal.

As a journalist I’ve covered more than my share of protests. Political protests in Canberra. Unions protesting for better conditions. Angry, loud protests against governments, or against perceived abuses of human rights.

I’ve been at violent rallies in East Timor. I’ve had rocks and metal darts thrown my way. I’ve come up against riot police.

But I have to admit no protest – indeed no story in my career – has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This particular protest has been going on for weeks.

Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.

It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.

So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem’s Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it’s seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.

I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends – Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.

But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.

I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which.

By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.

I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.

They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour – to me – was far from charitable or benevolent.

As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.

It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.

Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.

I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.

It was lucky that I don’t speak Yiddish. At least I was spared the knowledge of whatever filth they were screaming at me.

As I tried to get away I found myself up against the line of riot police blocking the crowd from going any further.

Israeli police in their flak jackets and helmets, with rifles and shields, were yelling just as loudly back at the protesting crowd.

I found them something of a reassurance against the angry, spitting mob.

I was allowed through, away from the main protest, although there were still Orthodox Jews on the other side, some of whom also yelled at me, in English, to take my recorder away.

Normally I should have stayed on the sidelines to watch the protest develop.

But when you’ve suffered the humiliation and degradation of being spat on so many times – and you’re covered in other people’s spit – it’s not easy to put it to the back of your mind and get on with the job.

I left down a side street and walked the long way back to the car, struggling to hold back the tears.