A "Hot" Summer in Jerusalem

Riots in Mea Shearim last Shabbat

B"H

It looks like a very hot political summer is coming up in Jerusalem.
The Edah HaCharedit against the secular Mayor Nir Barkat.

A haredi forum is announcing the next step of the Edah: This Shabbat, Kabbalat Shabbat is going to be celebrated in Bar Ilan Street.
Whatever that may mean.

Bar Ilan Street in Jerusalem is haredi and beyond that extremely famous for wild demonstrations. Just remember the demonstrations led by Rabbi Amram Blau; a former head of the Neturei Karta who died in 1974. But also after the Rabbi passed away, Bar Ilan Street has never lost its significance.

Bar Ilan Street in Jerusalem

Most Haredim think that, in the end, their society is going to win. Nir Barkat will give in and the only question is WHEN. The secular press, however, sees a dilemma for the mayor because he has to please the Haredim but, at the same time, the secular population as well.

Nir Barkat

I don't understand why the municipality has to open those parking lots on Shabbat. So far, Jerusalem has managed the traffic on Shabbat. What rather should be done is banning all the tour buses with the Gentiles streaming into the Christian Quarter of the Old City. Why do those buses have to park there and block all the sidewalks ?

On my German chassidic blog I received an interesting comment: One reader claimed that the police would only carry away a chassidic child in such a violent way. If the same child had been Arab, hardly anyone would have touched it, as the foreign press would have jumped on Israel.

An interesting point and actually very true.



Jerusalem's Municipality still announces the free parking lots on Shabbat.