Hundreds of members of the Viznitz Hassidic court gathered on Wednesday outside the Attorney General's office in the Governmental Campus in Jerusalem to protest the recent wave of arrests of haredi draft dodgers and the economic sanctions being imposed on haredi Torah institutions and families.
The demonstration, which began at 6:00 p.m. in coordination with and with approval of the police, was unusual compared to other haredi demonstrations.
Instead of a noisy gathering and roadblocks, the organizers organized a "makeshift study hall" on Wolfson Street, with hundreds of participants sitting at tables with religious books, staging a "protest study session."
According to the organizers, the protest aims to send a message to the judicial system and defense establishment that the answer to the sanctions would be an increase in Torah study.
The event opened with a massive afternoon prayer service followed by an address by the head of one of the Hassidic yeshivas.
The participants then studied for an hour, after which they held a prayer gathering to conclude the event.
During the rally, the Hassidic rabbis criticized Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and recent High Court rulings that led to the withdrawal of government funding, the cancellation of daycare and after-school program subsidies, and the arrests of haredi yeshiva students who refused to report to military recruitment offices.
Sources within the Hassidic court said, "The purpose of the protest is to give voice to the pain of the families being persecuted. The message to the system is clear and unequivocal: They will not succeed in breaking Torah scholars-not through prison bars and not through financial pressure. The haredi public will continue its way of life at any cost."