Along with the demonstrations in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, protests were also held in Jaffa against the mass prayer held by yeshiva students in a public area for the benefit of the local residents.
Barak Leibovich, a member of the religious community in Jaffa, spoke about the event in an interview with Israel National News.
Leibovich clarifies that this is a prayer that has been held traditionally for several years, even before the coronavirus made it impossible to allow the large crowd that comes to the prayers to participate. "They keep telling us 'why you don't pray in the synagogues' and 'why do you go outside'. The synagogues in Tel Aviv are very small. On a normal Shabbat, our synagogue has 40-50 seats and when we number 300-400, we must go outside. We don't hold the prayer in the Clock Square or in another central place, but on the edge of a large park, and this has been happening for many years."
Leibovich also points out that there has always been separate seating for men and women, as well as a mixed section. The partition was for those interested in it. In addition, he points out that in preparation for last Yom Kippur during the Mincha prayer on the eve of the holiday, Rabbi Mali, the head of the yeshiva, told the worshipers that if there are women who choose to sit with the men or vice versa, not to disturb them because peace is more important.
Indeed that is what happened. Already during the Kol Nidrei prayer that starts Yom Kippur, a number of women sat down among the yeshiva students, and on the other hand, a number of men sat down with the women. It was then that about twenty protesters arrived prepared for the approaching protest, with phones in their hands ready to record and take pictures. Leibovich says that after about an hour in which the prayer was conducted as usual, which apparently disappointed the protesters, they started making noise, playing music on the phones, holding a kind of loud symposium on literature, and when one of the worshipers asked that they respect the place and the prayer, "they started shouting 'Settlers', 'What are you? They are doing it here', 'separation', etc., shouting started," says Barak.
"I approached one of them and told her, 'I'm not a settler. There's no problem being a settler, God forbid, but my grandfather came to this city in 1939, and my daughter attends the same school that my mother attended seventy years ago. It's not that we came recently, we know the city quite well."
The commotion at the 'Kol Nidrei' prayer continued until the police cleared the protesters and kept them away from the place. "During the lockdown, we decided that we don't pray outside anymore because there is no strength for these fights. It's not pleasant," he says. The decision was to gather in the Yeshiva's Beit Midrash and pray there, but it turns out that this also did not calm the protesters who prepared for another round of riots. "The protesters arrived at the park and found it empty, and some of them came to the gates of the yeshiva and with their phones took pictures of people standing during the Ne'ilah prayer that ends the day, throwing comments like 'what are you doing here', 'separation', 'taking over'. It was very unpleasant. These are a small number of people who belong to radical groups with a lot of anger, but it was very unpleasant and people left with hard feelings, but despite everything, the Ne'ila prayer was very uplifting."
When asked if he finds a connection between the events and the upcoming municipal elections, Leibovich clarifies that he is not interested in entering the topic of politics, but he has no doubt that the messages coming from the city's leaders "are simply unbelievable. Both Barbivai and Huldai. Barbivai has now said that whoever does not meet the liberal standards will not be here. We were here long before you. You will not determine what the standards of Tel Aviv-Yafo are."
"There is a discourse here in which everything is allowed," says Leibovich, who expected condemnation from the leadership and mentions that when there is a concert in Yarkon Park, you don't disturb and that generally you don't shout in parks. This is not how a cultured person behaves. "This is very low level of behavior that is accepted with a wink by the city's leadership that hangs it on the Supreme Court ruling."
Leibovich emphasizes that he and the worshipers who sought to maintain a religious lifestyle on Yom Kippur are not members of any organization seeking to convert or bring someone closer, but only to live according to their faith and observe the mitzvot, "and this is under attack. We are not trying to change Tel Aviv-Yafo Tel Aviv-Jaffa has always been a city with a large traditional population and still 30 percent of the city's residents voted for the coalition parties in the last elections. Not the whole city is secular. This is a diverse city and it is important to keep it that way. And we feel that our minority rights are being trampled upon."