by BARAK RAVID and REVITAL BLUMENFELD
Sign in Beit Shemesh instructing women not to dally on the street. PHOTO/Michal Patel
Uproar following TV exposé on ultra-religious men in Beit Shemesh cursing, spitting, and throwing rocks at women and girls deemed ‘immodestly dressed.’
In recent weeks, the central Israel town of Beit Shemesh has seen increased violence by ultra-religious men, attacking women and girls, who they feel have been dressed in an immodest manner.
These men have resorted to cursing, spitting, and even rock-throwing. Signs have been hung in the town center instructing women not to “dally in the street.”
The situation in the town was brought to the forefront of Israeli public discourse, this weekend in a Channel 2 exposé, aired this Friday, about a 8-year-old girl who is afraid to go to her school – located a mere 300 meters from her house – because of the violence she had experienced by men, who felt the religious girl’s attire was not modest enough.
The exposé led Tsviki Levin, an actor with the Beit Lessin theater group, to start a Facebook group titled “A thousand Israelis going to Beit Shemesh to protect little Naama,” which already has more than 5,500 members.
“I opened the Facebook group to help Naama but she is just a symbol for something bigger and more acute and dangerous for all of Israeli society.” Levin said on Friday.
“There are hundreds of women and girls like her, paying the price of exclusion, intimidation, and humiliation, from extremist religious groups.”
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