December 28, 2011 – New York – AJC denounced the hateful actions of a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, where an eight-year-old observant girl has been frequently taunted.

“It is inconceivable that any Jew should feel insecure, threatened by other Jews, all the more so in the State of Israel,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “The contempt displayed by some in the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community is totally inexcusable, and goes against both Jewish tradition and the democratic foundation of Israel.”

Tensions regarding the treatment of Israeli women by some in the Haredi Orthodox community have escalated in recent weeks. There have been mass protests, which AJC supports, against gender-segregated buses and separate sidewalks, in some neighborhoods, for men and women, and assaults on women whom Haredi extremists claim dress immodestly.

The young girl’s family is Modern Orthodox, and she was taunted while walking to the religious day school she and others in Beit Shemesh attend. Haredi men have regularly protested outside the school, and have outrageously called her, as well as some older women who live in the town, "prostitutes," even spitting on them.

Harris praised Israeli President Shimon Peres, who called the conflict in Beit Shemesh “a test for our nation to save the majority from the claws of a small minority who gnaws at the foundations of democracy." 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also has spoken out against these despicable actions. Israel will act against "anyone who harasses women, anyone who harasses people in the public sphere," Netanyahu told the Knesset today.

“Out of love for Israel, we are compelled to urge all involved to find ways quickly to restore essential civility and respect,” said Harris. “All religious streams should thrive in Israel, and any effort by one group to encroach on the rights and freedoms of others, in the name of their obscurantist view of Judaism, must be firmly rejected.”

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