The five-day long anti-Golan-withdrawal hunger strike, led by Moshe Shamir and other intellectuals outside Premier Golda Meir’s Jerusalem home, ended today. Most of the strikers had disobeyed doctors orders to break their fast Friday or Saturday. On Friday, before the Shabbat, the strikers were joined by some 30 religious settlers from the Golan Heights and West Bank kibbutzim who spent the Shabbat praying, studying and singing in the special tents that the Jerusalem municipality put up for the comfort of the strikers. The municipality also provided a mobile latrine.
By Friday night the group of demonstrators swelled to nearly 2000 as Jerusalemites from several synagogues held their Sabbath eve services on the street outside the Premier’s home in solidarity with the demonstrators. Thousands more visited them throughout the day–including National Religious Party Knesseter and erstwhile Minister Zerach Warhaftig.
Before dawn today, police moved in to break up the demonstration upon complaints from neighbors that noise and dirt were mounting to alarming proportions. But the strikers’ leaders returned to the site midday to hold a pre-arranged news conference marking the formal end of their vigil.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
