Simchat Beit HaShoeva in Mea Shearim

B"H

Many things have been written about the Simchat Beit HaShoeva celebrations in Mea Shearim. The fanatic Sikarikim threaten everyone in the neighbourhood. Women are not allowed to leave the house. A secular feminist student living in Kfar Saba and without any knowledge about the haredi world wanted to demonstrate in the middle of Mea Shearim. All kinds of weird issues about haredi have been raised by the secular press. The most funny event is probably secular women wanting to storm Mea Shearim in order to free haredi women. A joke because those haredi women look down on those secular feminist women. Do the secular really think that any haredi woman is listening to them ?

Last night I went to Mea Shearim with a friend and we didn't even get down until the end of Mea Shearim Street. As we entered from Kikar Shabbat, we found the neighbourhood's main street more than packed. Thousands of people were around. Almost all of them Haredim, young Yeshiva students and seminary girls. An unbelievable scene but far too crowded. My friend and me started taking pictures and no one yelled at us. In fact, plenty of Haredim took pictures themselves.

We walked a few meters towards the center of Mea Shearim Street and suddenly the crowd started moving from the other direction. I saw two cops trying to deal with the situation but they were pushed out by some Toldot Aharon Chassidim. Three other cops without uniforms were around but nothing helped. The reason for the chaos were a few drunk American Yeshiva guys living in a house nearby. Some of them yelled out of the window and others were dancing wildly outside.

Due to the pushing, the cops and everything else, hundreds of Haredim just stopped walking and started waiting for some action to happen. Someone threw a stink bomb and this was it. Haredi mothers from the neighbourhood pushed their children home. The drunk Americans didn't stop yelling. 

American parents should see what their kids are doing here ! 

Studying at the MIR Yeshiva but drinking and yelling at their Mea Shearim neighbours. One guy leant out of the window and almost threw up on the masses; another three Americans were sitting drunk on the ground.

After all the mess and the stink, we decided to go to Karlin - Stolin but there it was so packed that we couldn't even get near the entrance. However, Karlin had a screen outside and thus we saw what is going on inside. Chassidim dancing wildly.

The Satmarer Beit Midrash across (of Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum) was half empty and nothing was going on).

We took plenty of photos and I will put them into the blog soon. Hopefully American parents will see what their children are doing in Israel. Causing a mess for local Haredim and being the worst example to Mea Shearim children.

This was not a festive atmosphere but only a huge mess !