So Embarrassing

February 6, 2007 - 7:38 PM by Sarah

. . . on so many levels.

We take the good with the bad . . .

Rafi Goldmeier, himself a very religious Jew, explains how religious “zealots” in a suburb between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are making his commute harder and harder:

For the past week or so the roads through Ramat Bet Shemesh B have been shut down sporadically.

No, there have been no roadworks going on.

The cause of the road closures are a series of violent protests going on through the neighborhood of RBS B.

The exact source of the problem is a bit unclear. You will get different details from each person you ask. But the general story is that about 10 days ago a woman from RBS B was found dead. She was in the middle of divorce proceedings and her husband had had a restraining order keeping him away from her house. The restraining order had just expired and he had come by “to see the kids”. The next thing anybody knows is that she turns up dead in the street near her place of employment (she worked in a mikva).

Some of the local zealots assumed the police would attempt to take the body for an autopsy. They repeated an act that they did a few months ago in Ashdod and stole the body away under the watchful eye of the police. This time, though, they had to use violence to run off with the body. They got a group of people to help them and they beat up the few police who had been keeping watch over the body.

Eventually the situation was cleared up. They agreed there would be no autopsy, just an external examination. the body was returned, the funeral was held and all was ok.

Then the police came and arrested a number of people. This is where it gets unclear. It is unclear whether they arrested the people involved in stealing the body, involved in beating the police, involved in planning and running the incident, or just innocent bystanders who were “watching” at one of the original protests.

Since the police arrested those people, many people from that neighborhood have been holding protests in the streets on a daily and nightly basis. They throw rocks at buses. They shove garbage bins into the street. They hurl debris at people, buses, cars and police. I understand that the police have removed all the garbage bins from the area, so now the people are going out themselves and blocking the roads.

Rest of the story, and Rafi’s comments, here.

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