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In recent days, many Israelis have come to see the once-sleepy town of Beit Shemesh as a symbol of a national conflict. It’s an internal Israeli conflict, one between extremist members of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community and other Jewish Israelis.

At issue is the treatment, and place, of women and girls in public life. 
The one girl who has put a spotlight on Beit Shemesh is Na’ama Margolis. She is a shy, blonde, second-grader who wears glasses and comes from a religious family. Her parents immigrated to Israel from the US and Canada. Last Friday night, Na’ama appeared in a news report that seized national attention. The 8-year-old talked about how she was scared to walk to school, even while holding her mother’s hand, and despite the fact her school is only 300 yards from her family’s home.

Na’ama is afraid of the ultra-Orthodox men who started showing up at her school a few months ago. The school is a religious one, and the clothes the girls wear tend to reflect that. But for this group of ultra-Orthodox extremists, the girls’ clothes aren’t modest enough.

The men have shown up at the school, shouting nasty names, like whore and slut, at young girls and their mothers. They’ve reportedly spit on them as well.

As a result, tensions between the ultra-Orthodox community and the rest of Beit Shemesh are running high. 
Mira Aaronson, whom I met while pushing her toddler in a stroller near her home, dresses like an observant Jewish Israeli woman: her hair is covered, she wears a long-sleeved sweater and an ankle-length denim skirt. Aaronson said this is sad situation, but in Beit Shemesh, nothing short of hatred has developed between Jews like her and the most extreme members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

A low point, she said, was when her daughter’s classroom was broken into and vandalized. 
“Feces smeared all over the classroom,” Aaronson said. “It was like a stink bomb of dead fish and urine.” 


The tensions in Beit Shemesh are partly about ideals of modesty, according to Shalom Lerner, a former deputy mayor. But Lerner said they’re also about territory.

“We have so many ultra-Orthodox people in Beit Shemesh, and in a certain way they’re trying to change the shape of the city,” Lerner said. “It’s becoming very orthodox, with them trying to change the lifestyles of other people.”

Lerner said Israeli authorities made a mistake years ago when they allowed ultra-Orthodox communities to put up street signs that instructed women how to dress modestly, or not to dawdle in front of synagogues.

When police removed signs this week, scuffles broke out between officers and crowds of ultra-Orthodox men. 
Zvika Borenstein, who works in a hardware store in an ultra-Orthodox section of Beit Shemesh, said he’s not happy with the men from his community who have tried to intimidate non-ultra-Orthodox women and girls.

“Modesty is something you learn from parents,” Borenstein said. “Shouting at girls isn’t going to accomplish anything.”


Outside the hardware store, another ultra-Orthodox man who gave his name as Mittelman said he hadn’t heard about the incidents at the girls’ school because he doesn’t read secular newspapers or listen to the news.

But Mittleman said the ultra-Orthodox community must remain segregated from the rest of Israeli society, including its Jewish neighbors.

Meanwhile, the Margolis family is getting a lot of public support. On Monday night, the family’s living room was full of news cameras there to film the lighting of the Hanukkah candles. Rabbi Haim Amsalem, who’s also a member of the Israeli parliament, compared ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists to the extremists in the Islamic theocracy of Iran.

“We don’t want to live here like in Tehran,” Amsalem said, citing examples of women being forced to cover up. 


Na’ama Margolis’s mother Hadassah told me that she sees the conflict at her daughter’s school as an example of a bigger problem in Israel.

“I’m hoping that all over the country we see a difference and we see a change in the way women are being treated at the moment. I want this craziness to stop,” Margolis said.

On Tuesday, thousands of people came out in Beit Shemesh to protest what they see as an attempt by religious zealots to impose their rules on Israeli society at large. Ahead of the demonstration, Israel’s president Shimon Peres urged people to stand up against Jewish extremism, in what he called a fight for the nation’s soul.