AP/BRIAN HENDLER
An Orthodox man confronts a police officer in Jerusalem.
City Of Threats
Jersualem sees no let-up to the accusations,
and some worry about stepped-up violence.
LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
irst the good news: Con-
trary to numerous Israeli
media reports, haredim
(Orthodox) have not threat-
/-
ened the life of Judge Aharon
Barak, president of the Supreme
Court, over the closure of
Jerusalem's Bar-Ilan Street.
The bad news is that haredi
violence and threats of violence
against secular Israelis have es-
calated in recent weeks, partly
=--- against the background of the
weekly, violent demonstrations
on Bar-Ilan Street, which runs
through one of the capital's
haredineighborhoods.
News stories since the begin-
ning of August have it that Mr.
Barak has been under full-time
guard due to haredi threats. The
threats supposedly were made
/
after the Court issued a tempo-
rary injunction late last month
against the closure of Bar-Ilan
during Shabbat prayer hours.
"There have been no threats
against the president of the
Supreme Court," said Eyal
Racheli, head of the security de-
tail for Israel's courts. "As far as
\--,
/--
I know there is no guard on Mr.
Barak's house, or any complaints
about threats against him," said
Eric Bar-Chen, a spokesman for
the Ministry of Internal Securi-
ty.
But real haredi violence with
real victims has been flaring up.
Female employees of the Edu-
cation Ministry and of the
Jerusalem Municipality's Cul-
ture Department, whose offices
are at the edges of haredi neigh-
borhoods, have reported being
assaulted by haredim for dress-
ing "immodestly." Standard Is-
raeli summer fashion easily
qualifies as "immodest" in hare-
di eyes.
One Education Ministry em-
ployee, Sigalit Amar, 26, was sit-
ting in her car at the edge of the
N
haredi neighborhood Meah
Shearim when dozens of haredi
men smashed her car windows,
rocked her car and threatened to
burn it and kill her. She was res-
cued by non-haredi passersby.
Other women employees who
work near Meah Shearim and
the nearby haredi Geula neigh-
borhood have been hit, spat
upon, called "whore," and had -
their tires slashed. 'Women from
my office come to work wounded
and shaking because haredi men,
women and children have just
threw stones at them," said Ed-
ucation Ministry employee Nava
Segev.
A haredi man was arrested
when he attacked an undercov-
er plainclothes policewoman.
Posters have gone up on Meah
Shearim walls calling for the Ed-
ucation Ministry to get out of the
neighborhood, and haredi women
have begun a "modesty patrol"
on the streets.
Ornan Yekutieli, head of the
Meretz faction in the Jerusalem
City Council, and a long-time
leader of battles against what
secular activists call "religious
coercion," has had his phone
monitored by police over the last
month.
`Tye been getting dozens and
dozens of threats," he said. "My
son picked up the phone and a
man told him, `We're going to
bash yOur father's skull in.' An-
other caller told me, 'All we need
is two more rabbis to agree and
then we're going to put out a
death warrant on you."'
Mr. Yekutieli, who is fre-
quently interviewed on televi-
sion, and a leader of Meretz's
Sabbath convoys on Bar-Ilan to
prevent haredim from blocking
the street to traffic, is a familiar
face to local haredim. "At the
CITY page 50
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