The jeering crowds of men, held back by a thin security cordon as they screamed at the small group of women heading to the most sacred site in Judaism, occasionally made contact, kicking, pushing or tripping one of the would-be worshippers.
Sarah Moody, a 27-year-old preparing to become a rabbi, was among those knocked to the ground by the mob. As she scrambled back to her feet and headed towards the Western Wall, her knees were bruised and there were tears welling in her eyes. “It was frightening,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over cries of “evil-doers”, “anarchists” and other insults, and the shrill of blasting whistles. “They were right over me.”
The skirmish was the latest battle in a long-running war between women and increasingly vocal and assertive religious hardliners over the public role and private rights of women in Israel, in which many believe the heart of their country and democracy is at stake.
Over the last decade in different parts of Israel, women have been barred from sections of buses, banned from speaking at cemeteries, blocked from pavements, physically attacked for their clothing choices, airbrushed from newspapers and magazines and removed from the airwaves and news photos.
These challenges are rooted in the objections of many in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to men and women mixing in public places, and to public representations of women in any form, from actors in advertisements to public figures on the news, or images in books. They affect everything from morning commutes and interior decoration to the most solemn religious ceremonies. Moody was attacked for joining public prayers and the celebration of a bat mitzvah – a girl’s coming of age ceremony – at the Western Wall.
Women have responded to the many attempts to restrict their public roles and physical presence by turning to Israel’s powerful legal system, and again and again the courts have supported them, insisting that segregation is illegal and women should not be silenced.
They have ruled in favour of a woman prevented from speaking at her own father’s burial, against a radio station that barred women from its airwaves – even blocking them from calling phone-in shows – and against bus companies that tried to segregate seating. The women who gather at the Western Wall each month had their right to worship enshrined by the supreme court.
But important as these legal rulings are, they rely on government enforcement and community respect, and both are in short supply in a country where religion and state are closely entwined, and ultra-Orthodox politicians command a powerful and loyal voting block, women activists say.
“[My friend] was prevented from speaking at her own dad’s funeral, and she actually appealed to the supreme court against cemetery authorities,” said Yael Rockman, director of Kolech, a feminist movement for Orthodox Jewish women.
“She won the case, but in terms of implementation of that ruling, what you see now is that in each area it is different; in some they respect it, but sometimes the authorities still make it difficult for women – it really depends.”
Nor can the courts legislate for tastes. Advertisers who remove women from their posters and shops, or bus firms which tried to segregate their buses, insist they are simply catering to a growing market, one tempting even to international giants such as Ikea.
A special edition of the catalogue for the Swedish firm’s affordable modern furniture, printed for Israel’s Haredi community, landed on doorsteps late last month, filled with photos of stylish interiors that would look familiar around the world, but for a single-sex version of model families posing inside them. There were no women or girls studying beside the bookshelves, grabbing snacks in the kitchen or relaxing in interiors populated only by men.
When a similar catalogue published by Ikea in Saudi Arabia in 2012 came to wider attention, the company was quick to issue an apology, clarifying that “excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the Ikea Group values”.
In Israel, though, the firm was initially unrepentant, saying that the catalogue was in response to requests and “allows the religious and Haredi community to enjoy looking at the products and solutions that Ikea offers”.
The head of the local franchise eventually apologised, but did not halt distribution of the catalogue, to the fury and dismay of many feminists.
A furniture catalogue aimed at a conservative religious community may seem like a petty concern but the impact of occasions when women are barred, blocked or removed from public life is cumulative, feminists say.
“This is spreading from something small to many areas in life – that’s why it’s important that we are here. People often don’t even mean badly, they think they are following [religious] rules, but they don’t understand that the impact is bad,” Rockman said.
Israeli demographics also mean that the regulations of ultra-Orthodox groups are likely to have an ever-greater impact on the lives of all Israeli women, even the most secular.
The population growth rate for the ultra-Orthodox, who currently account for one in 10 Israelis, significantly outpaces the overall rate, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
“The Haredi population will increase remarkably both in size and in its share of the population, even if the course of the lowest alternative projection is followed,” a CBS official, Ari Paltiel, told a UN-organised conference in 2013. At least one in every six Israelis will be ultra-Orthodox in 40 years, his predictions show – and perhaps more than a third.
The rapid growth is changing the ultra-Orthodox communities themselves though, feminists say, and the communities which are the most prominent in seeking to restrict women are also seeing the birth of a feminist movement that may be key to the long-term defence of current rights.
“It’s important to understand that the prohibition on displaying images of girls and women is new,” Naama Idan, an ultra-Orthodox businesswoman, wrote in a public rebuke to Ikea in Haaretz newspaper.
“Haredi life is based on the observance of the Torah’s commandments but, over the past 50 years, we have adopted commandments and rules that do not exist in the Torah. One of the worst of them is concealing images of women and girls.”