Ultra-Orthodox Jews harass women in Israel

I've written about this before. "Ultra-Orthodox" Jews in Israel don't want mere women to be able to pray at the Western Wall (also called the Wailing Wall). Only men can talk to the imaginary being at the wall. Everyone knows that. And only men can wear the special imaginary-being accoutrements, such as shawls. Why is this the case? Because only men are special! That's why.

But recently the courts reversed longstanding policy and said women are entitled to pray at the wall. So did Israel's male ultra-Orthodox Jews obey this legal decision? Of course not!

Israeli police with metal barriers and human chains on Friday held back thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters who tried to prevent a liberal Jewish women's group from praying at a key holy site, the first time police have come down on the side of the women and not the protesters.  

It didn't end well, either.

Israeli TV video showed a packed Western Wall plaza with police forming a ring around the women and others shoving back ultra-Orthodox men. Female police officers had aligned in a human chain around young women protesters who were peering out at the Women of the Wall.

Pruce said police escorted the Women of the Wall out of the area after they finished their service and boarded them on buses, which were then pelted with stones as they left the Old City. 

These guys really, really hate women.

Many Israelis also feel the ultra-Orthodox attempt to impose their values on the rest of society, with their activists pushing for gender-segregated buses and sidewalks, defacing billboards showing women or trying to force women to dress modestly. 

The Jewish "ultra-Orthodox" god must be a really swell fella. His followers, too.

Image: Wikipedia Commons