Tel-Chai Nation

The anti-military Haredi rioters continued their repellent acts this past Shabbat evening:

Ultra-Orthodox activists clashed Saturday night with supporters of a Jerusalem soccer club, with Beitar fans throwing rocks at the protesters, who responded in kind. Police dispersed the crowds, and there were no reports of injuries or arrests.

The ultra-Orthodox protesters had stopped traffic on Shivtei Israel and Haturim streets in the capital, as well as torching dumpsters, police said.

The soccer fans, who had earlier watched their team beat Hapoel Ashkelon 2-0 at Teddy Stadium, returned along a route that took them through the demonstrations and stopped to confront the Haredi protesters.

Well it's hard to feel sorry for the Haredi rioters if that's all they can think to do. Some of the Haredis connected with the rioters apparently yelled at people having a special celebration in the Yehuda Market too:

The demonstration Saturday came hours after violent clashes between members of the ultra-Orthodox community and secular Jerusalemites in the Mahane Yehuda Market.

Trouble began at midday, when several demonstrators tried to disrupt a joint religious-secular event that saw some 100 people gather in the closed market to enjoy food and joint activities, the Kol Ha’Ir local news site reported.

Organized by city council member Fleur Hassan-Nahoum and the Yerushalmit Movement, which campaigns for cooperation between communities in the capital, the happening was arranged to include only kosher food and adhere to religious restrictions for Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

The ultra-Orthodox demonstrators shouted at participants until police moved them away.

According to the Ynet news site, the protesters then moved to another location in the city, on Haneviim Street, where some 200 other demonstrators had gathered for a weekly protest, organized by the anti-Zionist Orthodox Council of Jerusalem, against the operation of businesses on Shabbat.

Some 20 secular counter-protesters against religious coercion confronted the Haredi activists. Although police tried to keep the two camps separated, some of the ultra-Orthodox demonstrators reportedly attacked secular protesters. There were no reports of arrests of injuries in the clashes.

The Jerusalem Post says:

The event was specifically designed so that there would be no infraction of the laws of the Sabbath to enable religious and secular alike could attend, including no music.

Despite these strenuous efforts to create an inclusive space for different sectors of the community to come together, a large group of haredi men who had been protesting vehicular traffic on close-by Hanevi’im Street then made their way to Mahaneh Yehuda to protest the event.

The horde of protesters were already on site at 3 o’clock when the event was scheduled, indicating they had planned in advance to be present and protest.

The men, some of whom appear to have been from the radical Yerushalmi communities in Mea She’arim and its environs, began shouting “Shabbes,” harassing participants, and generally disturbing the event.

The situation was not helped by a group of secular counter-haredi protesters who had been present on Hanevi’im Street, and who followed the haredi group to Mahaneh Yehuda and protested the disturbance they were causing there.

According to Fleur Hassan- Nahoum, a member of the Jerusalem Municipal Council for Yerushalmim who helped organize the event, there was a small amount of pushing and shoving between the two groups.

Hassan-Nahoum said that she tried to reason with the demonstrators at one point, but they would not speak to her because she is a woman.

Instead, she organized a group of several women to begin singing and advancing towards the protesters causing them to disperse somewhat.

Another Jerusalem Municipal Council member from the haredi United Torah Judaism party was also present, and he eventually convinced the mob to leave, pointing out to them that there was no Sabbath desecration taking place.

The police were called to the scene but made no arrests.

That's a terrible shame, again, if the police were not willing to ensure that obnoxious disruptors of an event that's meant to be for happiness aren't punished for ruining everything. The event may have improved and become livelier after they were cleared away, but that's still no excuse for the police's failure to send the Haredi protestors a message that their behavior won't be tolerated.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Jerusalem, military, misogyny, Moonbattery