[RBS] Orot Banot - tomorrow evening's Chareidi demonstration - IMPORTANT

[Michael Barnett]

>From Dov Lipman

Regarding tomorrow evening's Chareidi demonstration against the existence of
Orot Banot at its location: This past Motzei Shabbat a few hundred chiloni,
dati, and moderate Chareidim, men, women, and youth, marched on Ben Zev,
across from Nachala Umenucha with Israeli flags held high and the singing of
hatikva at the end. We had permits from the police along with guidelines
which they set forth, and the police were there in great force to both
protect our right to march and to make sure we kept to their guidelines. No
one from Nachala Umenucha started up with us and it went peacefully.

Tomorrow's demonstration was planned with the police. They promised not to
use any violence and they promised not to make a move towards the school.
They will be gathering at the Yarden/Herzog kikar at 6:15p.m. for mincha and
some speeches.

My friends, despite our anger and strong feelings regarding what has
happened these past few weeks (today I was told that I "need to be cut into
little pieces" so believe me I can relate), they have a right in a free
country to demonstrate peacefully. If they move towards the school or turn
violent the police will take care of that.

The biggest mistake we can make is to gather en masse against them. Why?
First of all, we have no permit and cannot get one in one day so we would be
violating the law in doing so. Second, if anyone from our side instigates
anything, that person would be responsible for whatever happens next. Is
anyone really ready to face those consequences siply because they are
gathering to demonstrate?

The absolute best thing we can do is ignore it. We will have hard
information regarding which Rabbis participated and everyone can draw their
own conclusions and ask their own halachic questions regarding to deal with
their communities, stores, etc. after they join with the extremists. But in
terms of the issue of showing up tomorrow, after hours after discussions
with numerous forces involved, I strongly encourage everyone to simply stay
home and enjoy some nice, quiet family time.
(I will publicize who participated after the fact)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/pipermail/rbs/attachments/20110919/45951adc/attachment-0001.html>