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The ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 10 percent of Israel's population and are its fastest growing sector because of a high birth rate. In the past, they have generally confined their strict lifestyle to their own neighborhoods. But they have become increasingly aggressive in trying to impose their ways on others, as their population has grown and spread to new areas. "It is clear that Israeli society is faced with a challenge that I am not sure it can handle," said Menachem Friedman, a professor emeritus of Bar Ilan University and expert on the ultra-Orthodox, "a challenge that is no less and no more than an existential challenge." Most of Israel's secular majority, in cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa, is not directly affected, but in a few places like Beit Shemesh
-- a city of 100,000 people that include ultra-Orthodox, modern Orthodox and secular Jews
-- tensions have erupted into the open. Last week, a young Israeli woman caused a nationwide uproar when she refused a religious man's order to move to the back of a bus, and in Jerusalem, the country's largest city, advertisers have been forced to remove female faces from billboards because of persistent vandalism. In Beit Shemesh, parents in Naama's school take turns escorting their daughters into school property to protect them. The parents, too, have been cursed and spat upon. Hadassa Margolese, Naama's 30-year-old Chicago-born mother, an Orthodox Jew who covers her hair and wears long sleeves and a long skirt, says, "It shouldn't matter what I look like. Someone should be allowed to walk around in sleeveless shirts and pants and not be harassed." On Monday, dozens of ultra-Orthodox men heckled AP journalists who were filming a sign calling for segregation of sidewalks outside their synagogue, chanting "shame on you," "get out of here" and "anti-Semites." Also Monday, dozens ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at TV crews and police, and set a trash can on fire, police said. Six men were taken into custody. City spokesman Matityahu Rosenzweig condemned the violence but said it is the work of a small minority and has been taken out of proportion. "Every society has its fringes, and the police should take action on this," he said. For Margolese, the recent clashes -- and the price of exposing her young daughter
-- boil down to a fight over her very home. "They want to push us out of Beit Shemesh. They want to take over the city," said Margolese.
[Associated
Press;
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