“Discrimination against women goes against the tradition of the Bible and the principles of Judaism,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the audience at an adult Bible contest gathering Tuesday evening as the rally was getting underway.
The rally comes a day after clashes between haredim and police in two neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh, a suburb of Jerusalem with a population of 80,000. Two residents were arrested.
About 300 haredi Orthodox men threw stones at police and burned trash cans Monday after the police removed a sign calling for the separation of the sexes on city streets, Haaretz reported. The signs had been replaced after being removed the previous day.
Rioters on Sunday reportedly surrounded and threw stones at the city workers who removed the signs. Some were said to have called the police who came to break up the riot “Nazis.”
One sign called for women to cross the street in front of a local yeshiva; another called for women to dress modestly in public. The sign removal began Sunday evening, when it was assumed that residents would be in their homes lighting Chanukah candles, Ynet reported.
Following media reports of attacks on women by haredi Orthodox men, the Beit Shemesh municipality said that it would install hundreds of security cameras in areas where harassment of women was occurring.
News teams from two Israeli television channels were attacked by haredi Orthodox men attempting to film in the city on Sunday and Monday.
Netanyahu over the weekend called on the Israeli police to act aggressively to stop violence against women in the public sphere. The order came from Netanyahu Saturday night through Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch following the television news report about Na’ama.
Netanyahu reportedly also spoke with Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to make certain that laws against excluding women from the public space were enforced.
Some haredi residents of Beit Shemesh, a suburb of some 80,000 people, are upset about the opening in September of a new Modern Orthodox girls’ school, Orot, across the street from their neighborhood. Confrontations between haredi Orthodox activists and Modern Orthodox opposite the school have waxed and waned since the beginning of the school year, and often resulted in violence.
Haredi protesters have thrown eggs and bags of excrement at the young girls and called them “sluts” and “shiksas.” Haredi opponents of the school say the girls and their mothers dress immodestly, with sleeves and skirts that are not sufficiently long.
Ten days ago Tanya Rosenblit made headlines – and became a heroine among moderate Israelis – when she refused a demand by an ultra-Orthodox passenger to move to the back of a bus, as is increasingly customary on lines serving that community.
Women have also been prevented from accepting an award handed out by the deputy health minister, himself ultra-Othrodox, and some religious soldiers have walked out of a ceremony which featured women singing – something forbidden by their rabbis.
There are also reports of supermarkets serving the ultra-Orthodox community refusing to employ women
For months now, dozens of Ultra-Orthodox Jews have gathered around the Orot Banot girls school, in which girls up to 6th grade attend their classes, and spit at them calling them prostitutes and whores.
Every girl must wear at least three layers of clothes, with the shal (cloak) covering all of these.
The eyes must be completely covered, by a cloth with tiny holes for vision and air circulation. They see, but are not seen.
Members of the cult are convinced that their actions are bringing the redemption closer. The girls are ordered to walk in the main streets, lekadesh shem shamayim berabim, i.e. to sanctify the name of God in public.
Aside from the clothes, there are shocking restrictions, like a prohibition against showering more than once a week, a chupah (wedding ceremony) with a mechitza (partition between the men and women, including the parents of the couple, and most seriously, the day of the wedding is set for a day that the bride is not permitted to her husband (against Jewish law), so that the guests won’t be brought to sin by seeing the husband and wife holding hands on their way to the yichud room. [After an Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony the couple have a few minutes of privacy. A couple cannot touch, nor consummate the marriage, unless the bride has been to the mikveh (ritual bath) since her last menstrual period. Usually great efforts are made to ensure that she has been to the mikveh before the wedding.]
The cult is supported by a certain rabbi whose name I won’t mention right now, who also supports them publicly and claims that they are bringing the redemption, although he also claims that one cannot force this custom on women who aren’t interested.
Still, many girls are known to be forced to dress like this against their will, and are rejected by their former community. In general, when a group of cult members walks in the street, a row of young women abuses them verbally and scolds them.
Rosamond Press 
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