Ultra-Orthodox Protest Israel High Court Rulings

In an intensifying struggle over the identity and soul of the Jewish state, tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews poured into the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday to pray, sing, support or inveigh against Israel’s liberal Supreme Court in separate rallies.

Each side seemed determined to show itself the more peaceful, however, and together they defied predictions that the demonstrations might turn violent. Police reported only minor scuffles.

The demonstration by the ultra-Orthodox, Israel’s most observant Jews, dwarfed its secular rival, drawing more than 250,000 people, according to police. The largest rally in Jerusalem in many years, it transformed a bustling neighborhood near the city’s western entrance into a sea of bearded men in black hats and black suits or long frock coats. Their wives and daughters, clad in long skirts and modest blouses, stood near the edges of the crowd, separated from most of the men and boys.

Debate has simmered in Israel for years over such fundamental issues as what kind of state the Jewish homeland should be: a liberal secular democracy, much like others in the world, or a Jewish state, in which Halakha, or religious law, is predominant, at least in matters affecting the observant.

The conflict between the secular Jewish majority and the ultra-Orthodox minority has deepened with the series of recent court decisions. The Supreme Court has ended a blanket exemption from army service for observant men studying in Jewish seminaries; allowed stores run by kibbutzim, or collective farms, to open on the Jewish Sabbath; and required that members of the liberal Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism be allowed to serve on local councils that govern day-to-day religious matters.

The court also is expected to rule soon in a case on the sensitive issue of conversion--whether those converted to Judaism by non-Orthodox rabbis should be recognized here as Jews. The Orthodox fear they may lose a long-standing monopoly on performing recognized conversions in Israel.

But rarely have the battle lines in the growing culture war been drawn as clearly as they were Sunday.

Participants blew rams’ horns, the traditional call to arms for biblical warriors, and prayed en masse for an end to what many describe as religious persecution by the nation’s highest court. Recent rulings by the 15-member panel and several lower courts have challenged the authority and privileges of the ultra-Orthodox and provoked an angry response.

“The very essence of the way we’ve been raised and have existed as Jews for thousands of years is under attack,” Moshe Zabari, 43, a seminary student, said as he waited for the gathering to begin. “People are just fed up.”

A few hundred yards away, separated from the religious by a small army of police, an estimated 50,000 students, lawyers, residents of collective farms and other Israelis gathered on the grassy slopes of a park near the Supreme Court to express support for the beleaguered justices. They also voiced concern about the political clout of the ultra-Orthodox minority in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are the basis of democracy,” said Dror Kobliner, 50, who works as a computer analyst for a bank and wore a knitted skullcap. “Judaism is a religion that brings freedom to the world. What the ‘black hats’ are doing is opposite of what Judaism should be. What they are doing is primitive, it’s tribal.”

His wife, Hilla, 52, who teaches Hebrew at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, added: “What they are doing has nothing to do with the essence of the Jewish religion. Judaism was always dynamic, changing, critical of itself, moving forward. The [ultra-Orthodox] are stuck in time and in history.”

At Sacher Park, the crowd was a mixture of university students, gray-haired retirees and chicly outfitted professionals. There were men with ponytails, dreadlocks and earrings, and women with spiky hair, bare midriffs and tight leggings. Taped rock music played, and a few people brought picnics.

Half a mile away, thousands of religious Jews swayed in prayer, chanting, many with their eyes closed and hands raised, asking forgiveness for their own sins and those of others.

Several said they worried that the courts intend to change the Jewish nature of the Jewish state, involving themselves in areas that observant Jews believe should be left for rabbinical courts.

Secular Israelis feel equally threatened. Under Netanyahu’s government, the tiny religious parties that have always helped make up ruling coalitions have gained political power and a larger share than before of the state budget.

Jerusalem Bureau Chief Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.