2,000 Protest Haredi Religious Coercion in Jerusalem
December 10, 2009
By Nir Hasson, November 28th, 2009
About two thousand secular Israelis demonstrated in central Jerusalem on Saturday evening, to protest police weakness in the face of what they branded ultra-Orthodox religious coercion and violence.
Police said there was no violence as protestors marched through the western part of Jerusalem, waving blue and white Israeli flags and holding placards reading “Jerusalem will not fall,” and “We are sick of [religious] coercion.”
The demonstration came after months of Haredi protests against parking lots in the capital that are open on Shabbat, which occasionally spilled over into violence.
There have recently also been demonstrations against computer chip manufacturer Intel for running a plant in Jerusalem on the Sabbath; earlier on Saturday, dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews protested outside facility.
MK Nitzan Horowitz, of the left-wing Meretz party, participated in the march, during which he denounced the frequent recourse to violence by the ultra-Orthodox.
“Once its education, another time it’s Intel; once it’s the Pride March - but these are just excuses to demonstrate force, violence and coercion,” he said.
“There will be no Jerusalem without seculars, there will be no Jerusalem without a free Kiryat Yovel; and if Jerusalem will not be free, the State of Israel won’t be free either.”
Horowitz was referring to a largely secular Jerusalem neighborhood into which hundreds of ultra-Orthodox families have moved, leading the residents to fear a Haredi takeover.
The Forum of Organizations for a Free Jerusalem, an umbrella group for secular organizations, held the march under the slogan, “Taking Jerusalem back - and by walking.”
To read the original article in Haaretz, please click here
[Reprinted from haaretz.com - with thanks]
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