Haredim continue Jerusalem protests
Unrest in Jerusalem continues with some 200 members of ultra-Othodox community protesting against parking lot's opening on Saturdays. Earlier, haredim rallied near Intel plant
Recent Saturdays have seen similar protests by haredi elements near the chip maker's plant, which operates on Shabbat, in addition to the routine demonstrations against the parking lot opening.
Last Saturday police prevented several dozen protestors from accessing the plant area. Some 50 haredim who demonstrated near a police roadblock that was set up along a road leading to the plant shouted "Shabbes" and called the officers "Nazis" and "Zionists, you caused the Holocaust."
Later that night thousands of secular and religious Jerusalemites and out-of-towners rallied in the capital to protest ultra-Orthodox violence and coercion.
The protesters marched from Paris Square to Zion Square in the city's center under the banner: "Iran is here – we're sick of haredi violence."
Earlier this week former Knesset Member Rabbi Menahem Porush, who spearheaded the haredi lobby to close Bar-Ilan Street on Shabbat in the 1980's and 1990's, told Ynet, "All those who are fomenting (opposition) are a very small group of young people consumed by hatred. It's nothing. We have no reason to be intimidated by them. We are growing bigger and will continue to do so. Nothing will stop it."
