Residents of east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood were surprised to discover in recent days dozens of signs posted throughout the neighborhood streets, which urge women to dress modestly.
"Do not enter our neighborhood with immodest clothing," the signs, which no one has yet taken credit for, read.
Sheikh Jarrah is one of the capital's most controversial areas, hosting weekly Friday protests against the entrance of Jewish families instead of Arab ones who are evicted from their homes under a court order.
Modesty signs in Sheikh Jarrah (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
The notices, which were posted on street signs, bulletin boards, and trees, are signed by the "neighborhood residents".
Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity organization, which participates in the weekly protest, called the signs "a new pathetic provocation authored by Sheikh Jarrah settlers, which demonstrates how the radical Right – with the support of the police and Jerusalem municipality – turns a quiet Palestinian neighborhood into a Kiryat Arba outpost."
A source in the organization noted that "with the help of hundreds of people who come to protest weekly, Sheikh Jarrah settlers will one day return to their illegal outposts, and the neighborhood, which has turned into the symbol of Jewish-Arab solidarity against discrimination and despoliation, will go back to being the home of the evicted Palestinian families."
Meanwhile, spokesman for the neighborhood's Jewish residents, Yonatan Yossef, said the posters were fraudulent. "At first I thought that radical haredim put them up, but then I compared the signs to those in Meah Shearim, and notices they are not the same," Yossef told Ynet, hinting that perhaps leftist protestors were responsible.
"It's not us," he said. "There is a struggle within the radical Left, between those siding with feminism and women's liberty, and the more modest ones who respect the residents. Either way, it is a provocation."
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