An estimated 2,000+ secular activists marched on Bnei Brak Wednesday night, ostensibly to protest the funds the Netanyahu government plans to allocate to the Haredi community in the upcoming budget.
For whatever reason, be it racism or antisemitism, the marchers refused to acknowledge that Haredi voters are represented heavily in the government (18 MKs) and as such have the right to take care of their voters.
Israel Police reported a few incidents of verbal clashes between the marchers and Bnei Brak residents, but a more frequent exchange took place when Haredi locals handed out pastries and drinks to the marchers – That’s something you didn’t see in Skokie, Illinois when the Nazis marched down Jewish streets.
One large banner the secular demonstrators were carrying could be used in Skokie, in principle: “Ze lo Moshke. Ze Paritz” (It’s not the poor Jew, it’s the Baron), adorned with a picture of Finance Committee Chairman Moshe Gafni wearing a throne. Both calling the Haredi politician “Moshke” and describing him as being not the poor Jew but the evil land owner in the classic tale, make this banner a clear candidate for display at the Museum of Antisemitism.
A story of Moshke and the Paritz:
On the other side, a banner that was hung on a building by local residents read the Haredi town’s response to Jewish antisemitism: “Welcome! Bnei Brak will remain Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv will remain Tel Aviv. We must all learn to live together.”
Wednesday night’s march stood out more than anything else for its low numbers.
According to several reports, the organizers ran a desperate and failed effort on their WhatsApp to recruit protesters, but it appears that while the left’s latest targets are the Haredi “parasites,” most Israelis, including those on the left, don’t buy the message. And the fact that the police pushed the marchers away from Bnei Brak’s residential streets, forcing them to remain on Jabotinsky Street, the main drag connecting Tel Aviv with Petah Tikvah, helped show how small the group was.
Anarchists harass a Channel 14 reporter at the protest until police arrive to protect him and allow him to broadcast:
Earlier, the police positioned mounted cops and water cannons in the march area to deal with disturbances, but there was no need for them. There just weren’t enough leftists to put together a serious disturbance. And the few confrontations involved boomers expressing hate that had accumulated in their troubled psyches for decades, vs. amused groups of young Haredi men.
Another central slogan at the march was, “The donkeys have had enough,” a reference to the idea of secular Jews being the donkey on which Moshiach will ride into Jerusalem. You can take away many insights from this one, the most important of which is that the Illinois Nazis weren’t aware of the Talmudic reference.
