Jerusalem, Israel — After weeks of rising clashes between the police and devoutly Orthodox demonstrators over a decision to open municipal parking lots on the Sabbath, haredi groups here are planning a mass protest next week outside the municipality.
The Sabbath parking dispute marks the first secular-religious flare-up in the city since secular Mayor Nir Barkat was elected last November, and it has already prompted a coalition defection by an ultra-Orthodox council member from Shas.
Haredi rabbis call the decision to open public parking lots on Saturday in the city center a desecration of the Sabbath and an insult to the city’s strictly ultra-Orthodox residents.
“It doesn’t seem that there is a solution, so we’re continuing to escalate,” said Shmuel Takenheim, a former haredi journalist who
functions as an unofficial spokesman for the non-Zionist group, “Ha’Eida HaHaredi,” which has a reputation for violent protest. “This is a fight for the character of the city center, and we can’t restrain ourselves,” Takenheim said.
Last Friday night, tens of thousands of opponents of opening the parking lots gathered in a generally peaceful mass prayer service here.
But by Saturday night, the demonstration turned violent, with protestors throwing rocks at police and security officers arresting about 20 demonstrators.
The embers of the demonstration continued this week, as youths set garbage bins on fire near the devoutly religious neighborhood of Mea She’arim.
Takenheim said the rabbis decided to deploy teams of protestors this weekend outside of the “Karta” lot, a municipal deck just outside of the walls of the Old City run on the weekend by Arabs. The decision to open the Karta lot was intended as a compromise after the ultra-Orthodox protested the opening of a lot inside the walls of the Old City by the municipality.
“You can’t open a place in the center of the city where all of the Jews are going to the Western Wall,” said Takenheim, who accused Barkat of trying to strong-arm the ultra-Orthodox to make political mileage with secular and Modern Orthodox residents of the city.
The ultra-Orthodox protests did draw a counter-demonstration at city hall by secular residents urging Barkat not to back down from the threats.
A spokesman for the mayor said the decision to open the parking lot in the center of the city was made at the request of the police because of an increase in tourist traffic, which prompted a rash of illegal parking.
The mayor “has found a real solution to a real problem while maintaining the status quo of Shabbat,” said Barkat spokesman Stephan Miller. “The issue was an issue of public safety and the process was completely transparent. Now the issue is behind us.”
But Shai Izenberg, the news editor at the ultra-Orthodox Web site B’hadrei Haredim, said that the protest against the parking lots isn’t going to die down soon. The demonstrations have snowballed from the margins of the ultra-Orthodox into the mainstream.
“It’s gotten out of control. Now that it’s become a fight of the entire haredi community, he said. “If the situation in Jerusalem continues to burn, I believe that the ultra-Orthodox might pull out of the mayor’s coalition.”
Barkat’s haredi allies on the City Council thought the haredi rabbis wouldn’t oppose the opening of the parking lots, Izenberg said. Uri Lupoliansky, Barkat’s ultra-Orthodox predecessor, opened up parking lots in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Karem without any opposition, Izenberg said.
But the location of the lots next to the Old City has given Sabbath hardliners potent fire. Once representatives of the more extreme ultra-Orthodox groups went out into the streets, other rabbis had no alternative but to follow suit, observers said.
And yet both ultra-Orthodox and secular commentators say that the protests have exposed once again the ongoing rift among haredi groups that became evident when Barkat was elected with the help of a sect that opposed ultra-Orthodox candidate Meir Porush.
Analysts say there’s a dispute among the ultra-Orthodox about the degree to which their political representatives from United Torah Judaism party and Shas should cooperate with a secular mayor.
“These are not normal days in the haredi politics,” wrote Yair Ettinger in the Haaretz newspaper. “While it seems to the outsider that the haredi protest is directed only at the ‘religion hating’ mayor (as he is nicknamed in posters), the truth is that the anger is aimed just as much at members of the United Torah Judaism party who sit in his coalition.”
“The Sabbath will prevail!!” shout posters that line the streets in the neighborhood around the Jerusalem intersection known as “Sabbath Square.”
Yehuda Gil Karon, a 17-year-old yeshiva student who participated in the protests said, “It really feels like a war,” he said. “People look at [Barkat] as if he’s against the ultra-Orthodox. The rabbis say that everyone has to go out and protest. I think it will continue until the municipality closes the parking lot.”
At the Greentec music store on Sabbath Square, a group of young Haredi men debated whether the violent protests were advancing or hurting the ultra-Orthodox effort to promote Sabbath observance.
Yitzi Geller, a 22-year-old yeshiva student from Brooklyn defended the violence used during the demonstration against the parking lots.
“These people are desecrating the Sabbath right in front of our eyes. It’s right next to the Kotel,” he said, referring to the Western Wall. “You should do whatever it takes to stop it. The Brisker Rav said if it hurts, you scream.”
But a music store employee who also identified himself as an ultra-Orthodox supporter of United Torah Judaism said the protestors are behaving like “bullies” and don’t represent the haredi public.
“They are causing more desecration of the Sabbath than they are preventing,” said Eli, who declined to give his last name for fear of being attacked. “Their behavior is worse than the Arabs. They’re the same people in Iran who go with Ahmedinejad. If everyone gets their way with violence, there will be anarchy.”