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Israel city braces for thousands of protesters against exclusion of women
Haredim clashed with police officers, calling them Nazis, throughout Monday; at least six were arrested or detained for questioning.


Haredi children protesting in Beit shemesh on Monday.


Haredi men clashing with the police in Beit Shemesh, Monday.

More than 10,000 people are expected at a rally in Beit Shemesh on Monday to protest the exclusion of women as well as violence against girls and women by Haredi extremists. The rally will begin at 6 P.M., near the Orot Banot school.

The school's arguably most-famous student is Na'ama Margolese, the 8-year-old American immigrant who became a focal point after Channel 2 news broadcast a story Friday night showing her facing a daily gauntlet of abuse from Haredi extremists as she walks to school. The rally was originally slated to take place in the courtyard of the school, but the venue was changed after organizers said Haredi extremists had threatened violence unless the location were changed.
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The violent scenes in Beit Shemesh on Monday, when a Channel 2 news team was attacked by 200 Haredi men, were repeated on Monday: On Monday morning, dozens of ultra-Orthodox men surrounded police officers and municipal inspectors who came to remove, for at least the third time this week, a sign on Hazon Ish Street, in the Haredi neighborhood Nahala Vemenuha, ordering men and women to use separate sidewalks. The men tried to prevent the sign's removal, calling the police officers "Nazis" and dancing around them in circles.

"I'm frightened," cried the youngster, paralyzed by fear, as she stood on the street next to her school, refusing to budge. It was the same corner where she and her classmates have been cursed and spat at by ultra-Orthodox Jews for the past year.
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The outpouring of support for Na'ama has been matched, if not surpassed, by the public outrage at "Moshe," the Haredi driver who, in the televised report, sat behind the wheel of his car and explained, ever so casually, why spitting at a girl he was told was seven years old was justified.

"To spit on a girl who does not act according to the law of the Torah is okay," said Moshe. "Even at a seven year old. There are rabbis who empower us to know how to walk in the street and how a woman should act."

In fact, Na'ama is an Orthodox girl. In the report, she and her mother are shown wearing long-sleeved blouses, with their skirts extending past their knees. Hadassa - who together with her parents immigrated to Israel from Chicago in 1983 - is wearing a kerchief over her hair, as is the practice among some married Orthodox women. "As far they [the Haredim] are concerned, I'm not a religious woman," said Hadassa, who has branded her daughter's attackers "terrorists" and called for their arrest and incarceration.

Thousands of Israelis amassed near the Orot girl's school in Beit Shemesh on Tuesday to protest gender segregation in a city that has become a symbol for the struggle against religious extremism.

The rally was originally slated to take place in the courtyard of the school, but the venue was changed after organizers said Haredi extremists had threatened violence unless the location was changed.