Jerusalem Bracing Itself for Violence

Orthodox leaders in Jerusalem warned Sunday that their communities would respond “vigorously” next weekend to the opening of four cinema clubs here last Friday night. But secular leaders, buoyed by a high turnout at the film clubs, vowed to open two more next week.

A spokesman for the Eda Haredit ultra Orthodox community, centered in Mea Shearim, said the community had “behaved like good boys last Shabbat, but we will not behave that way next time.”

Avraham Yosef Lezerson, an Agudat Yisrael councilman, termed last Friday night “a black Shabbat” for Jerusalem, and said Mayor Teddy Kollek and the film organizers would “carry a heavy responsibility” for the consequences. “The status quo has been torn apart…we will not stand idly by,” Lezerson warned.

There were only sporadic incidents of rioting in Jerusalem during this past Shabbat, due to a strong reinforcement of the city’s police force. Mounted and riot-equipped policemen patrolled the exits to Mea Shearim on Friday night, and allowed only token groups of Orthodox to stage carefully limited protests against the film screenings. On Saturday afternoon the police had to use water cannons to contain a renewed outbreak, but by and large the fears of wholesale violence in Jerusalem proved premature.

In Haifa, however, Orthodox demonstrations against Sabbath desecration there turned nasty, and three Israel Radio reporters were severely beaten. The town’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Shear-Yashuv Cohen, called on religious residents to help police bring the miscreants to justice. The Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities in the capital are preparing, meanwhile, for a mass show of strength at the Western Wall Monday afternoon. Leading Aguda-affiliated rabbis, among them Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a noted halachist, and Rabbi Shalom Eliashiv, a former leading dayan, have called on religious people from all over the country to participate in a prayer-demonstration and tens of thousands are expected to attend.

Kollek, meanwhile, plans to set up a select committee to consider ways of offering nonreligious Jerusalemites Friday night cultural activities without offending the sensibilities of the Orthodox.

The secularist front, comprising Mapam, Citizens Rights Movement, Shinui, the Reform movement and unaffiliated secularists has called on the city officials to recognize that the high turnout at the film clubs on Friday — there were 1,000 people turned away from the Beit Agron cinema club alone for lack of tickets — shows the need for entertainment and culture in the capital for the non-Orthodox sector.

A SHOCKING INCIDENT

In a related incident, Israeli police bussed in hundreds of reinforcements to Jerusalem Friday as tensions in the city rose dangerously following the shearing-off of a young Orthodox boy’s “peyot” (side curls) last Thursday night.

Photographs of 11-year-old Nahum Hanun before and after the thug clipped the peyot in a Mea Shearim street were featured prominently in most Israeli papers Friday — and sent a shudder of shock through the entire country. The imagery immediately conveyed to many people’s minds was that of the Holocaust, and secular and religious leaders joined in condemning the act.

Nevertheless, police feared the attack would exacerbate an already tense situation. After three straight weekends of rioting over the Friday night cinema issue here, Orthodox rabbis have called for a mass prayer meeting at the Western Wall Monday night, where more than 100,000 people were expected.