Tagged Beit Shemesh

JERUSALEM (JTA) — In April, Israeli police announced the arrest of a 22-year-old man in Beit Shemesh accused of multiple counts of child sexual assault. Short of celebrating the arrest of an abuser, local victims’ rights advocates took the authorities to task. Shana Aaronson, head of the Israeli branch… Read more »

Hadassa Margolese walking her daughter Naama to school in Beit Shemesh a few days after Naama was harassed by haredi Orthodox men, December 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Two years ago, Hadassa Margolese became a symbol of resistance to haredi Orthodox domination after she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to tell an Israeli reporter how religious men had spit on her as she walked to school. The report made headlines around the world and… Read more »

Dov Lipman, an American-born haredi Orthodox Knesset member for the centrist Yesh Atid party, speaking on the Knesset floor, March 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Dov Lipman has staked his budding political career on his reputation as a moderate haredi Orthodox leader, someone uniquely positioned to broker compromise between Israel’s increasingly polarized secular and religious communities. The problem is that Israel’s haredi leaders say he’s not actually haredi. Once seen… Read more »

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — Next to the Modern Orthodox Orot Banot girls school in Beit Shemesh, fresh mounds of dirt and a huge hole in the ground indicate the spot where a community center is being built. Orot Banot was at the center of conflict between local haredi… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The recent violence in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood has led me to speak out against the so-called “sikrikim” in the harshest possible terms, equating their actions to terrorism. Sikrikim is the name given to a fringe anti-Zionist vigilante group, loosely linked to Neturei… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — Suddenly, it seems, gender segregation is everywhere in Israel — buses, army bases, Jerusalem sidewalks, Beit Shemesh schoolyards and, above all, the front pages. What is going on here? Let’s start with the buses. In the late 1990s, at the request of some Haredim, the… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

What does it mean to be a Jewish and democratic state? This question came to light with the story of Na’ama Margolis. Na’ama, an 8-year-old modern Orthodox girl, was the victim of an offense by a small radical haredi (ultra-Orthodox) group called the Sicricim (Latin: Sicarii, the dagger man).… Read more »

Shlomo Fuchs, a haredi Israeli accused of harassing a female soldier for her refusal to move to the back of a bus, is released on bail in Jerusalem, Dec. 30, 2011. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90/JTA)

(JTA) — The cascade of condemnations started pouring in almost as soon as the Israeli TV report aired. It’s subject was  an 8-year-old girl harassed by haredi men on the way to her Modern Orthodox girls’ school in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh. The Israeli prime minister and… Read more »

Haredi Orthodox men clash with police in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, Dec. 26, 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash 90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For several years now, the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh has been the site of on-again, off-again religious violence. But it wasn’t until the plight of a fearful 8-year-old girl from a Modern Orthodox immigrant family from America was broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 over the… Read more »

Dov Lipman, left, a Modern Orthodox leader in Beit Shemesh, and a haredi Orthodox man, Moshe Friedman, engage in a shouting match near the Banot Orot school. (Michael Lipkin)

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb. The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood… Read more »