Israeli police, ultra-Orthodox Jews clash over women’s segregation

PanARMENIAN.Net - Clashes erupted on Monday, Dec 26 between police and several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews from a town near Jerusalem who are campaigning for men and women to be segregated.

Israeli police had stepped up their patrols in Beit Shemesh following unrest sparked by discrimination against women imposed by a radical fringe of the town's religious Jews.

Several demonstrators were taken in for questioning after police and journalists were roughed up and insulted by ultra-Orthodox men telling them to "clear off".

Earlier, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a man from Beit Shemesh had been arrested over an assault on Sunday on a TV crew filming a sign instructing women to cross the street to avoid walking past a synagogue.

The Haaretz newspaper said that the cameraman from commercial station Channel Two was thrown to the ground and his sound recordist grabbed by the throat in the attack by ultra-Orthodox men.

Israeli media said images broadcast on Channel Two last week of an ultra-Orthodox man in Beit Shemesh spitting at a woman led to his arrest on Saturday night. The Jerusalem Post said he was freed by magistrates on Sunday after being fined and ordered to stay out of Beit Shemesh for a week.

The violence in the town west of Jerusalem came after a wave of incidents elsewhere in Israel in which women have been compelled to sit at the back of segregated buses serving ultra-Orthodox areas or get off, despite court rulings that women may sit where they please.

Women's rights activists say that the ultra-Orthodox – around 10 per cent of the population – have become increasingly radical over gender segregation and are winning concessions that harm women, according to The Telegraph.