The hareidi-religious community now has its own “equality” symbol for use in online campaigns.
The "Dossim" project, which fights anti-hareidi incitement, created the new symbol: a black box with two horizontal bars, the top one white and the bottom one yellow.
The design mimics the logo used by supporters of gay marriage in the United States and elsewhere. That logo, two pink bars similar to an “equals” sign on a red background, was recently updated by Israeli Facebook users in a blue-and-white version for Human Rights Day.
Dossim chose white, yellow and black as the colors most widely associated with the hareidi community.
The group told Kikar Hashabbat, “Everyone wants equality. Usually there are those willing to fight against outrageous discrimination – except when it comes to one form of discrimination, one that even Justice Minister Tzipi Livni supports.”
Livni spoke out Wednesday against a bill that would have created affirmative action programs for hareidi Jews similar to those currently in use to aid Ethiopian immigrants and Druze Israelis. The bill’s author, MK Meir Porush of the hareidi-religious Yahadut Hatorah party, argued that hareidi job-seekers often receive fewer requests for interviews than non-hareidi candidates with similar qualifications, and that hareidi lawyers have had trouble being accepted to the State Attorney’s Office.
Livni argued that the hareidi community’s underrepresentation in public life is its own fault, and that hareidi Jews for the most part do not want to work.
But the Dossim group - whose name is taken from a derogatory term for “religious” - argued Thursday that in wake of Livni’s speech, those who dislike hareidi Jews will need to choose a side.
“Any self-respecting hareidi-phobe will need to decide whether to keep trying to justify his hate with logic, or to admit that he hates them just because,” the group said on its website.
“Of course, the hareidim are all one black bearded bloc,” the group said sarcastically, adding, “If ‘they are all parasites who want to live at our expense, now all ‘they’ want is to end discrimination against them so they can get jobs – what’s the problem?”