Orthodox Jews turn violent protests against reporter

July 7, 10:09 AMBirmingham Atheism ExaminerJerome Triplett

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                  Orthodox Jews Protesting the use of a parking lot on Saturdays

Ultra Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, in an attempt to enforce their strict religious beliefs and practices on others, turned their wrath on ABC Middle East correspondent Anne Barker this past weekend. Her offense was using a tape recorder on a Saturday.

Orthodox Jews are angry over the decision to open a municipal car park during Shabbat in order to accommodate the large numbers of tourists, as well as Jews who do not subscribe to the unbending rules of Orthodox Judaism. Many of the protests have erupted in violence, with Orthodox Jews throwing rocks, starting fires, flinging rotten garbage, and now cornering and assaulting an innocent non-Jew.

As Mrs. Barker began making her way towards the protest, dressed conservatively in an attempt to avoid being assaulted, she realized too late that she had entered on the wrong street, finding herself in the middle of the Orthodox Jewish Protesters. Things took a turn for the worse when she took out her recorder and microphone in an attempt to record what was going on.

“Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me”, Mrs. Barker reports. The men then herded her against a brick wall as they continued, the spit coming in like rain, covering her recorder, hair, face, shoes and glasses so thickly that she was able to smell it. She reports that things escalated from there, “Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me”.

Mrs. Barker finally escaped behind the safety of riot police, though on the other side of this line there were Orthodox Jews as well, many of them continuing to scream at her. Mrs. Barker reports that while she would have normally stayed to continue reporting on the protest, she felt so humiliated and degraded by being spat on, cursed and assaulted she simply left the scene while struggling to keep from crying.

Concerning the Orthodox Jews who assaulted her, Mrs. Barker said, “They might be supremely religious, but their behavior - to me - was far from charitable or benevolent”.