Orthodox protesters said barred from Jerusalem anti-violence rally

Police on Saturday night prevented Orthodox protesters from participating in an anti-violence rally in Jerusalem’s Zion Square, Channel 2 reported.

The demonstration in the capital came after two attacks in recent days: one at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade on Thursday by an ultra-Orthodox assailant, and the firebombing Friday of a Palestinian home that killed a Palestinian toddler, allegedly by Jewish extremists. Similar rallies were held in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba.

Channel 2 obtained footage of police preventing ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox men from approaching the demonstration. In the clip, an ultra-Orthodox man can be seen asking police to pass through the barrier to access a nearby kiosk. The policeman refuses. “Why? Because I’m religious? Because I’m Haredi?” asks the man. “Yes,” the cop replies.

Meanwhile, other secular protesters are seen passing through without inspection.

The Israel Police denied the allegations, saying that it had allowed dozens of ultra-Orthodox people to pass.

“We went out to celebrate our son’s birthday in Jerusalem, and suddenly the police at the entrance blocked us, because my husband was wearing a yarmulke,” said Efrat Potash. “They let the secular go through, but I — a woman with a baby carriage and children, who clearly does not fit the profile of a murderer — was not allowed in.”

Potash decried the “shameful” treatment by police, while emphasizing that the onlookers had appealed to police to let them through.

“It’s outrageous that an entire community is being vilified because of the actions of one man who was mentally ill,” said Potash, referring to the gay pride parade stabber, Yishai Schlissel. Schlissel carried out a similar attack 10 years ago, and was released from prison only some three weeks ago. “It was a terrible feeling, the children were crying, and we left.”

Another man who identified himself as Yaakov said he had wanted to join the protest with a friend, but was stopped by police. Ultimately, the two removed their skullcaps and were allowed to pass.

“What was shameful was that people without yarmulkes did pass,” he said. “When religious people really argued with them, they were offered to enter accompanied [by police]. The officer there told us to imagine what would happen if it was the opposite, if a secular man from the pride parade would try to enter Kikar Hashabbat [a square in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem].

“But I am not Yishai Schlissel,” he continued. “I am not an extremist, and I am far from being a fanatical Haredi.”

In response to the report, police said they were ordered to be on high alert.

“The policemen securing the area were told to be on high alert and thoroughly examine [protesters]. They checked secular, Haredi, and other people who raised their suspicions. Many dozens of ultra-Orthodox people passed the barriers,” it said in a statement. “Moreover, there were those who tried to be provocateurs, or arrived without identification, or heckled the protesters. Of those, some were not allowed into the demonstration area, and some were detained.”

The “profiling” was denounced on Sunday by Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg, who also decried a move to extend security forces’ right to hold suspects without trial — widely applied to Palestinian suspects in the West Bank — to Israelis as well.

“Human rights are for everyone,” she said. “Administrative detention without trial, profiling based on race or religion, violates human rights and must not be used. It doesn’t matter against whom. Neither the detention of Jews as a deterrent or revenge, nor preventing Haredim from passing near the demonstration, will bring about the required reform of Israeli society. The opposite is true. This change must come from the meticulous safeguarding of everyone’s rights, and particularly of minority groups who are generally excluded by those in power. Arabs, Haredim — human rights are for everyone.”

Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Yinon Magal, a lawmaker from Bennett’s Jewish Home party, were barred from speaking at a Tel Aviv rally Saturday night against violence and incitement, after they refused to sign a form drawn up by the organizers committing themselves to legislative activism for LGBT rights. At the same event, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz from the Likud party was heckled and booed by protesters who came to demonstrate against hate crimes of recent days.