Thousands of religious Israelis demonstrate against court ruling

Jun 17, 2010, 14:45 GMT

Tel Aviv - Scores of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated in two Israel cities Thursday afternoon to protest a Supreme Court court ruling against discrimination on ethnic grounds at a religious school.

Reports from the demonstrations said around 35,000 people demonstrated in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, and approximately 50,000 showed up to a demonstration in Jerusalem.

In its decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court called for imprisoning parents from the religious settlement of Emmanuel, in the northern West Bank, if they did not agree to implement a previous court decision and cancel separate classes for pupils belonging to the Ashkenazi, or European, stream of Judaism, and those from the Sephardi, or Oriental, stream.

The parents deny they are discriminating against Sephardi pupils, and say instead they have the right to prevent their children from studying with those considered to be less religious.

The demonstrators in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak were expected to converge on police headquarters in Jerusalem, in a massive show of defiant support for the Emmanuel parents who are expected to arrive there at 1700 local time (1400 GMT) to begin serving their two-week jail terms.

The issue of the jail terms for the Emmanuel parents is seen by many as a test of whether religious tradition should trump secular law in Israel.

While the ultra-Orthoodx demonstrators carried placards proclaiming the superiority of religious law, counter-demonstrators Thursday, led by Nitzan Horowitz, an openly gay liberal legislator, carried signs saying 'one nation - one law' and 'yes to law, no to discrimination.'