On Nov 10, 2006, at 9:05 AM, Bryan Atinsky wrote:
> "Thanks to him today large protests exist today and we saw how they
> (gay
> groups) are retreating more and more. That's what rabbi Kahane
> taught us
> – self-sacrifice," right-wing activist Noam Fderman said.
That's one way to put it, though it seems they're more interested in sacrificing others.
This business about a "death curse" is something else.
Doug
----
Financial Times - November 7, 2006
Gay Pride protests highlight Israel’s divisions By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem
Thousands of police are due to deploy in Jerusalem on Friday to protect a Gay Pride parade after a week of riots and protests by the city's ultra-Orthodox community failed to persuade the authorities to cancel the annual event.
Organisers have agreed to change the route of the parade to avoid the centre of the city. However, the concession did not sway opponents of the march who, for a sixth night running, blocked streets in religious neighbourhoods, stoned police and planted a fake bomb.
A number of people, including police, have been injured and dozens of protesters arrested.
The annual parade has always been controversial among an ultra- Orthodox community that regards homosexuality as an abomination and sees the event as a desecration of the holy city. An ultra-Orthodox man stabbed three participants at last year's march.
This year's unprecedented protests, however, have highlighted wider divisions in Israeli society stirred up by last year's evacuation of settlers from Gaza and this year's Lebanon war.
The protesters have been doubly offended by the timing of this year's event. Postponed because of the Lebanon conflict, its rescheduling coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht in which Jews were systematically attacked by Nazi gangs in 1938 Germany.
While secular leaders support the gay community's democratic right to hold the march, nationalist settler groups who failed to prevent the Gaza withdrawal have backed ultra-Orthodox demands for the event to be banned.
Menachem Mazuz, attorney-general, ruled this week that the re-routed parade should go ahead despite fears among police that it could lead to violence.
In a dispute that appears to have engaged every sector of Israeli society, he was denounced by, among others, Arcadi Gaydamak, the billionaire businessman. However, left-wing politicians defended his decision, while Yael Gelman, mayor of the coastal town of Herzliya, called on her fellow mayors from around the country to show solidarity by attending Friday's march.
A rabbinical court was on Tuesday considering placing a pulsa denura – popularly regarded as a death curse – on parade participants, the police and Mr Mazuz. Similar curses were in the past placed on Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1994, and Ariel Sharon, the prime minister who ordered the Gaza withdrawal.
Less demonstrative opposition to the parade has also been expressed by Muslim leaders and some Christian groups.
The claim of one leading rabbi that "obscenity and promiscuity in the Holy Land" was to blame for Israel's failings in the war against Hizbollah echoed claims by right-wing commentators at the height of the Lebanon conflict that the moral fibre of Zionism had been undermined by a culture of hedonism.
Israel's growing ultra-Orthodox community is historically non-Zionist or even anti-Zionist. More recently, however, some sectors have aligned themselves with religious nationalists, particularly in opposition to the Gaza withdrawal.
A recent opinion poll indicated the ultra-Orthodox were the most unpopular minority in Israeli society. Many Israelis resent the refusal of many of the community to serve in the armed forces as well as the payment of welfare to ultra-Orthodox men who opt for religious study over work.
The divisions are particularly apparent in Jerusalem, with an ultra- Orthodox mayor and an Orthodox population estimated at above 40 per cent.
Some Jerusalem residents lament the spread of the ultra-Orthodox into previously secular neighbourhoods, where they impose strict observance of the Sabbath. Yisrael Gliss, an ultra-Orthodox journalist, recently told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth: "The haredim [ultra-Orthodox] will take control of Jerusalem and those who don't like it can leave."