Naama Margolese, a shy blonde girl with blue eyes and glasses, became a household name in late December when Channel 2 TV aired a report about the ultra-Orthodox men who regularly taunted her on her walk to school. In footage, Naama wears skirts to her ankles and covers her shoulders like the rest of the students at her Orthodox school, called Orot, for girls aged 6 to But ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, men call Naama and her friends whores and spit on them. In September, nine religious male soldiers refused to stay in an auditorium where women were singing during an official military ceremony.
But in recent years, the calls have radiated out of that Jerusalem shtetl to larger Orthodox sections of Jerusalem and beyond. Health clinics and post offices have begun to hold separate hours for men and women. Advertising agencies have stopped featuring women on billboards in Jerusalemβeven after they covered up their models with long sleevesβbecause fundamentalist Jews would vandalize the signs. In the past, these stories garnered only minor news coverage.
It was once a mostly traditional or Orthodox town, but in the last two decades, more stringent ultra-Orthodox newcomers have moved in from Jerusalem. These new ultra-Orthodox residents tended to congregate in their own neighborhoods. They postered public walls with pashkevilim , large block-print Hebrew papers that are vital media for people who shun mainstream Israeli TV, radio, and print news. On a sidewalk near a synagogue, they put up signs asking women to cross to the other side of the street and not to stop to chat because doing so would attract undue attention from the pious.
On buses that run through their neighborhoods, the ultra-Orthodox have managed to impose an unofficial rule that women must sit in the back. Beit Shemesh is also home to a new, tiny sect of ultra-conservative women who cover up in the style of the most observant Muslim women, from head to toe. The other 60 percent includes longtime residents, several thousand immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and a tight-knit community of English-speaking immigrants from the United States and Britain.
The Haredis, who have been fighting for a larger share of municipal funding and property, wanted the school building for themselves. Coleman volunteered to escort the girls during pickup and dropoff. Mira Aharonson said her daughter returned to school after the Sukkot holiday break to find her classroom reeking of dead fish. Feces had been smeared on the wall. Zvika Borenstein, who works in a hardware store, answered my questions in between snatches of Yiddish he spoke to his customers.
