Extreme pressure

Beit Shemesh residents are viewing a haredi campaign against a national religious girls’ school as an attempt by the ultra-Orthodox to assert their control over the city.

By ATARA BECK
Beit Shemesh girls school protest 521 (photo credit: Atara Beck)
Beit Shemesh girls school protest 521
(photo credit: Atara Beck)
‘What we’re doing here right now is the first organized effort in Beit Shemesh to say no to any kind of coercion,” says community activist Rabbi Dov Lipman regarding the ongoing abuse in the name of religion upon city residents by a small but powerful group of religious extremists, culminating in the terrorizing of little girls. Lipman and his followers are determined to “take the city back.”
In recent years, the haredi population in Beit Shemesh, including the Ramat Beit Shemesh suburbs, has reached 40 percent, thus changing the face of the city. Although most of the haredim have settled in peacefully, several extremists have resorted to violence in their determination to keep their community segregated while growing and expanding.
Apparently this small group is affiliated with the minority in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim that has been dictating dress code and other lifestyle choices through intimidation and brutality.
Lipman, whose fight to save the city from these extremists and bring unity among all Jews has made national headlines, stresses that the extremists comprise merely 50 to 100 families out of a haredi population of at least 30,000.
The most recent scare tactics in Beit Shemesh were aimed at Bnot Orot, a girls’ elementary school under the national-religious Sha’alei Torah educational system.
It opened on September 1 at a new location in Givat Sharett, bordering Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, a haredi development where the extremists live.
Givat Sharett and its surrounding areas comprise mainly religious-Zionist and secular residents. Like Ramat Beit Shemesh, it has a large Anglo population.
The old Bnot Orot school building was decrepit and deemed unsafe, and the plot of land on which the new edifice stands had been designated for Bnot Orot by the Education Ministry and the municipality.
The extremists who live nearby claim that the school’s dress code doesn’t meet their modesty standards.
A few days before the beginning of the school year, they broke into the building, issued threats of violence and harassed staff, parents and pupils. It wasn’t until the last minute that the school’s opening was certain – the result of protests by hundreds of residents.
Ever since, the girls and their families have been subjected to daily taunts, egg-throwing and other forms of harassment. Perhaps the vilest was a bag of excrement left in the school yard.
“The trouble started about two years ago, as soon as construction of the school building began,” Lipman explains. “I actually went to meet the extremist leaders, and they told me there was no way they would allow a school with an Israeli flag in their neighborhood. This is not so much about the girls. What they really want is to take over our neighborhood.”
“It’s all about who’s going to be in control of this city,” says Sha’alei Torah parent Shmuel Katz, adding that the extremists are a “violent and aggressive minority.”
Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul, who is haredi, had originally agreed that the new building would be designated for Bnot Orot. A few days before the school year was to begin, after staff and parents had worked hard to prepare the new building for Bnot Orot, the municipality issued a statement that “Sha’alei Torah is not showing the flexibility necessary and is stubbornly insisting on putting the girls’ school there…. The mayor is working tirelessly to bring both sides to the negotiating table and to find a reasonable solution.”
Abutbul demanded that the girls return to the old premises for their own safety, claiming in a public statement that police had passed on information about potential violence against the pupils – a claim that was repudiated categorically by police, who have been guarding the school daily.
Nevertheless, the ministry ordered that the new building house Bnot Orot, and the mayor was forced to concede.
“This is a fight not only for us but for all of Beit Shemesh, religious and secular, not to give in to extremists,” asserts Bnot Orot parent Miriam Weil.
“There is no modesty issue,” says Yehudis Schamroth, one of the main organizers of a visit to Bnot Orot for some 40 Anglo haredi women from Ramat Beit Shemesh last Friday in a show of solidarity.
More were expected to attend, but they and their families were threatened by the extremists.
“This is not a protest,” she told the group of women before their departure. “It’s a gesture of love and kindness.”
“Groups of men that are very, very evil, very, very violent and very hostile beat people up,” Schamroth said. “They don’t represent the rabbanim [rabbis], but the rabbanim won’t speak up against them. They [extremists] are a mafia. Nobody has control over them.”
She explained that although some had been arrested and put in jail in the past, the infractions, such as taunting, are so minor that the perpetrators are released within a short time. When people are actually beaten up, the victims are often reluctant to report the incident to the authorities.
“It reminds me of spousal abuse,” Schamroth says.
“And since the rabbanim don’t assist them [the victims], they give up. The police are helpful to a point, but if you don’t report it, they can’t do much.”
The Bnot Orot girls, who dress according to Halacha, albeit not to haredi standards (they don’t wear stockings), were thrilled by their visitors, who brought them flowers and notes proclaiming sisterhood among all the girls and women of the diverse communities of Beit Shemesh. City Council member Richard Peres, who holds the education portfolio, praised police and school staff and assured the pupils, “We are with you. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
Two days later, women from Modi’in sent packages of goodies and a bracelet for each pupil. “The girls and teachers are so excited. We feel we are not alone,” exclaims a grateful parent.
“In walking from the Orot school back to the train station and talking to a number of people along the way, I think that there is definitely a fighting spirit in Beit Shemesh to make it an inclusive and open city,” comments Danny Hershtal, coordinator of the Anglophone division of the Israel Beiteinu party and a candidate in the last national elections. “I look forward to visiting again in the near future, when all people can feel free to be in any public street without fear of insult or injury.