Jerusalem city councilor Yael Antebi has been threatened, via the social network Facebook, after taking action to reduce the noise level of the call to prayer from mosques in Shuafat, Anata and Beit Hanina. The muezzins' pre-dawn calls to prayer from the mosques' loudspeakers awakens the residents of the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev.
Antebi wrote a letter to the commander of the police's Jerusalem District two weeks ago, and asked him to deal promptly with what she said was “unbearable noise” emanating from the mosques between the hours of 4 and 5 a.m. The noise disturbs the sleep of Pisgat Ze'ev residents, she wrote, wakes up small children, and harms the residents' quality of life. She also granted interviews to the media on this subject.
A few days ago, when she logged into social network Facebook on her computer, someone with an Arabic name threatened to “come with an Islamic army and send her to hell” if she did not stop. She has filed a complaint with the police regarding the threats.
Antebi said that the muezzins' use of powerful loudspeakers is also a nuisance to Muslim residents of the area who do not wish to wake up at 5 a.m. The law forbids use of loudspeakers between 11 p.m and 7 a.m.
Antebi said the mosques' loudspeakers are pointed upwards so that they are actually heard more loudly at a distance of several kilometers than they are in the immediate vicinity of the mosques. She noted that 100 years ago, there were no loudspeakers, such that the loudspeakers themselves cannot be deemed essential to Muslim practice. She also noted that in Morocco, loudspeakers are not used and instead, a channel on the radio is used for broadcasting the call to prayer to those who are interested and who do not use an alarm clock.