Haredim, Palestinians To Hold Joint Rock-Throwing Exercises

Jerusalem, May 29 – Leaders of Israel’s Haredi community and of Palestinian protesters announced today that they will organize sessions at which activists from both groups can exchange their collective wisdom on rock-throwing and other methods of expression opposition to Israelis.

The Badatz Eida Charedis, the most prominent organization of Israeli Haredim, and local groups of Palestinian activists from the Ramallah area will conduct rock-throwing exercises and hold presentations by grass-roots leaders to share their diverse yet parallel experiences, and, the organizers hope, develop new and more effective techniques and tactics for those confrontations.

The initiative was born of a recommendation by a Palestinian ambulance driver who keeps his vehicle stationed in the Haredi neighborhood of Shmuel HaNavi on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. Shmuel HaNavi Street has been the site of countless stone-throwing incidents in which secular Jews driving along the thoroughfare have their cars pelted with rocks as the neighborhood residents express their objections to the desecration of the Sabbath inherent in the use of an internal combustion engine. An offhand comment by the driver to his son caught the ear of a protest ringleader, who was unaware that the Haredim have such frequent recourse to stone-throwing.

“I’d always thought they were kind of docile,” admitted Khaled Ahmad of the Shuafat refrugee camp, an organizer of the program. “But I sneaked into the neighborhood one Saturday and saw just how practiced some of these people were, and how many of them specifically set aside rocks before the Sabbath,” lest the stones be rendered muktze, or forbidden to handle on the Sabbath itself. He also was surprised to learn about the depth of their ideological opposition to the IDF, either opposition to serving in it, or, in many cases, to its very existence, and the sometimes violent lengths to which some Haredim have gone to express that opposition. Ahmad put out feelers in the community to check whether the two groups might be able to learn from each other.

He found a willing set of partners. “Keeping an open mind is the most important thing we can do,” says Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss, president of the Badatz. “We have much to learn from the confrontations of others with the Israelis we dislike, as I am sure they have from us.” Rabbi Weiss said the first sessions would probably take place during the next few weeks. The matter is of some urgency, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which involves fasting during the day, currently coincides with the Jewish month of Tammuz; this year it covers the end of June and most of July. “We need to be as accommodating as possible to other people’s religious sensibilities, so as important as it is to get started quickly, it is even more important to demonstrate that we are sensitive to those who believe and practice differently from us.”