While thousands protested in the Tel Aviv Museum plaza for universal military draft ,some 1,000 people staged an alternative procession from Kaplan street to Rothschild Avenue as part of the social justice protest movement.
The protesters blocked Allenby Street and burned some of the signs they were carrying.
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"We are in favor of equally distributing the burden, both of the haredi and secular public. But the burden should also be equally distributed between the tycoons and the middle class, and between the government and the citizens," said Shir Notsky, one of the organizers.
Social protest rally
(באדיבות משטרת ישראל)
'We want equality, not the rule of the wealthy' (Photo: Benny Deutch)
"This protest is the answer to the institutional rally organized by the parties who want to divide and rule by spreading hatred against haredim – the necessary scapegoat," said another organizer.
Another protester said that "the high cost of living connects between all people – seculars, haredim, religious and Arabs."
Protesters enact 'crime scene' (Photo: Benny Deutch)
Asked whether the alternative protest on Rothschild was held in order to express disagreement with the IDF reservists' protest, Itzik Alrov, who led the Cottage cheese boycott last summer, said that regardless of being religious, the protest on Rothschild was planned weeks in advance.
The protesters stopped next to several banks and yelled: "We want equality, not the rule of the wealthy" and "we are modern slaves."
Some of the demonstrators then enacted a display resembling a "crime scene" – several activists lay on the ground, while others sketched a line around them using a chalk, as is customary in crime scenes.