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‘Day of Resistance’ | Tens of Thousands Gather at Tel Aviv Protest, 79 Arrested in Nationwide Demonstrations [1]
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Date: 2023-07-11
Wrapped in prayer shawls and holding Israeli flags, a group of protesters began Tuesday’s “Day of Resistance” against the judicial overhaul with a worship service in front of Likud MK Danny Danon’s home in the city of Ra'anana.
As the small group of 20 worshipers prayed, other demonstrators, who have held vigil in front of Danon’s home for months, chanted pro-democracy slogans as cars honked in support.
Open gallery view Josh Teitelbaum leading the service, on Tuesday. Credit: Allison Kaplan Sommer
The prayers were led by Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, a history professor at Bar Ilan University, one of the leaders of the local protest movement, which he said has a unique character because “Ra'anana has an exceptionally good relationship between religious and secular people.”
Teitelbaum moved to Israel in 1981. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where his father, Rabbi David Teitelbaum was active in the civil rights movement who marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, alongside Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and was briefly jailed. He was lauded for his activism by President Barack Obama.
Open gallery view Scott Lenga, on Tuesday. Credit: Allison Sommer Kaplan
With that background, he said, it was meaningful to him to have helped launch the protests in Ra'anana last December which has grown into “the biggest social movement that Israel has ever seen.”
Since the movement began, he said, he has led a weekly musical havdalah (literally “separation”) after dark on Saturday following the Ra'anana protest, bringing secular and religious Jews together.
The participation of Orthodox and other visibly observant Israelis at the forefront of the pro-democracy protest movement is vital, Teitelbaum said.
Open gallery view The protesters in Ra'anana on Tuesday. Credit: Allison Kaplan Sommer
“People are always coming up to me to say that they're so moved to see people like us there because the current government is alienating them from Judaism.”
A participant in the service, Scott Lenga, an immigrant from St. Louis, Missouri, who, alongside Teitelbaum has been part of the Ra'anana protest group since the beginning, agreed that it was “very important to show that this government doesn't represent all things religious.”
Another participant, David Schwartz, a Conservative Jew who immigrated to Ra'anana from New Jersey, said he came in order to “show that there's unity in this movement by religious, secular, Ashkenazi, and Mizrahi, and that we need to preserve pluralism and a liberal society where citizens can practice Judaism the way they please.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-11/ty-article-live/israeli-protesters-gear-up-for-day-of-disruption-after-key-judicial-overhaul-bill-vote/00000189-42b8-d25e-a1ed-4abb06930000
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