Spitting, cursing, harassment matter of course in Beit Shemesh neighborhood
After several years in which Beit Shemesh has dropped off the media radar, the troubled city was thrust back into the limelight last week when a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) youth lobbed a stone at a 50-yearold woman, injuring her and causing her to bleed profusely from the head.
But according to non-haredi residents and activists, despite the lack of attention the city has received, such incidents have been part of their lives for years and are an ongoing reality when entering extremist areas.
These extremists are part of a very small minority of the overall haredi community, often associated with radical Jerusalemite communities that originally came from the equally radical Mea She’arim neighborhood in Jerusalem, and are fiercely anti-Zionist, violent and puritanical in their approach to Jewish law in general and female modesty in particular.
For non-haredi Beit Shemesh residents, especially women, who pass through the most radical neighborhood in the city, Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, being spat at and cursed by children in the area occurs as a matter of course, while Israeli flags flying from cars are routinely ripped off.
Even stone throwing, although relatively rare, is a well-known threat. Although there have been few incidents in which anyone has been injured, some residents have spoken of near misses where serious injury could have occurred.
Just this past Saturday night, a 15-year-old haredi youth threw a stone at a police patrol car, damaging the windshield, and was arrested over the incident.
Another resident, who is religious, wrote recently on a Facebook thread that haredi youths shouted “shiksa” at her daughter and threw part of a cement block at the group of girls she was walking with, narrowly missing one of them.
Indeed, social media is full of reports by Beit Shemesh residents of various attacks of one kind or another.
In general, it is residents of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef and the neighborhoods abutting Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet on the other side of the radical neighborhood who suffer the most from the extreme hostility of the local radicals.
This is due to their proximity and the geographical reality of the city in which the quickest and easiest route for residents of Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef wishing to get to other parts of the city passes through Ramat Beit