2 Israeli female soldiers chased by rioting by ultra Orthodox men rescued by police

[IwantToRetire]

In staggering footage of the attack, a handful of officers were seen shielding the two servicewomen as they fled a Haredi mob thronging the street, which was littered with garbage and overturned garbage dumpsters. ...

One of the servicewomen told the Walla news outlet that she had asked her commanders not to send them into the city, but was given no choice. The pair had entered wearing skirts and left their weapons at home so as not to provoke residents. ...

Speaking on the edge of the city after the riots had calmed, Tel Aviv District police commander Haim Sargaroff appeared to place partial blame on the army, saying it “did not coordinate” with law enforcement in advance.

“The moment we know that an IDF force is entering [a Haredi area], we are prepared to provide reinforcement, but when they enter without coordinating with us, when they enter and start carrying out an operation, we are only [able to] react,” he said. ...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-female-soldiers-chased-by-rioting-haredi-mob-in-bnei-brak-rescued-by-police/

I know I shouldn't laugh. But this would be like the Parachute Regiment being chased out of some loyalist district in Antrim by Free Presbyterians for smiling on the Sabbath.

Just finished reading Simon Sebag Montefiore's 'Jersualem' - and the region has been a story of successive invasions, war lords, religious acrimony, death, destruction, beheadings, hangings, slavery...for millennia. Every now and then a more enlightened leader and regime takes over...but it doesn't last for long.

Their attackers are ultra-orthodox Jews. They need to learn that women are fully human and entitled to do their jobs without being harassed. They are not doing Israel any favours, either, by being so misogynistic.

Since the IDF defends Israel (D = Defence) I should think not. I don't object to what the IDF does either, since I back Israel as the only democracy in the region and the only place where e.g. Christians can practice their religion in any way publicly (everywhere else in the region tolerance is at the whim of the government making Christians wary of opposing regimes in any way whatsoever).
The Haredi should not take out what they do not put in. And relying on God to preserve Israel is testing God, which surely they should not be doing? God has provided the IDF through the state of Israel and thus serving in it is doing the will of God - if you are inclined to that way of thinking.

It drives me round the twist when someone plops an article and doesn't provide their own opinion, or any framework at all for the discussion they're hoping to have.

A bot could have posted this.

Yes I agree, I have been wondering.

The women were chased because they were women soldiers.

The group of protestors do not chase male members of the IDF.

Although it is true that the Haredi protestors have been prepared to use violence in some of the ongoing protests around the proposal that they should no longer be exempt from being conscripted.

And the implication that this isn't about women is just absurd.

The article referenced that the women felt they had to where skirts? Why to you think they thought that?

They asked not to be sent? Why do you think that?

And as was commented in the article be other people, it isn't acceptable that in a city that is part of a country that says it uphold western democratic rights that there are no go areas.

And it was only in the last few years that Israeli women were complaining that in some areas where Haredi were in the majority, that "modesty patrols" made them feel unwelcome.

Let alone bus segregation

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230824-israeli-women-protest-gender-segregation-on-public-transport

Linked to this article in Haaretz which indicates that even if the conscription of Haredi goes ahead, and some actually enter the army, plans are being made to restrict how women soldiers will be expected to not be treated as equals.

The Gaza War Advanced Israeli Women's Role in Combat. The Haredi Draft Threatens It
https://archive.is/YbaLQ

Not posted to necessarily say it is a great achievement for women to be part of any armed force, but just to reflect in relation to the OP how women are expected to change their behaviour to concur with a set of religious rules that they aren't part of or signed up to.

And that those is charge think how men think should be put first.

What makes you think that these fundamentalists do not chase male soldiers? Their antagonism to the army that defends them and protects their right to practice their form of Judaism extends to all IDF soldiers, regardless of their sex and regardless of their religious practice. Which is why the police provide support to military personnel entering that area.

Yes, the Haredim are sexist. Yes, the female soldiers tried to pre-emptively defuse the situation by deferring to the sexist Haredi religious beliefs regarding women wearing trousers. Yes, as part of getting Haredi men into the army, there will not be women in their units. But the IDF already has decades of experience accommodating various levels of religious observance among its personnel.

Integrating young Haredi men into the IDF may, if done well, encourage them to integrate further into Israeli society. Exposure to other ways of life may moderate their extremism. A huge proportion of instructors in the IDF are female, so if Haredi soldiers want to advance or do anything more interesting than be a basic squaddie, they may have to open their minds to learning from women.

I've already posted about that.

I was commenting on this specific occassion.

As this is a feminist forum it seems obvious to note and take account of violence against women in whatever circumstance.

And although I have been following the news from Israel about the attempts to get conscription of Haredi put into place, it is clear that this episode was an expression of misogyny.

More importantly the women concerned clearly felt so. So isn't for an outsider to tell them how you experienced what happened is wrong!

Let along posting pie in the sky notions that entering the IDF Haredi males will give up their sexism. And again totally denying what women themselves are saying. Did you bother to read the article I linked to from Haaretz or do you just not accept what women who are experiencing male bias shouldn't be listened to.

Violence Committed By Ultra-Orthodox Jews During A Hashmonaim Brigade Conference In Bnei Brak - i24NEWS
https://share.google/3QFc1e8uzGRfheS63
January 12, 2026 at 09:36 AM
latest revision January 12, 2026 at 10:57 AM

Violent incidents broke out on Sunday evening in Bnei Brak, on the sidelines of a conference organized by the Hashmonaim Ultra-Orthodox Brigade of the IDF in honor of the parents of recruits. Around a hundred Haredi extremists attempted to force their way into the event, prompting police intervention.

According to the authorities, protesters stormed the room where dozens of soldiers’ fathers were present, disrupting the conference and physically assaulting soldiers as well as brigade officers. A rabbi responsible for teaching Torah to Ultra-Orthodox soldiers was violently attacked: beaten, struck on the back, and partially undressed, he lost consciousness and had to receive medical care. Several soldiers were also examined by medical teams.

The Haradi Jews are obviously an extremist orthodox sect and are acting with violence towards the IDF in general. Their views on women are a separate issue.
If you wanted to discuss attitudes to women among the Haredi community, just maybe you could have been clear in your initial post.

My reading of that article is clearly different to yours.

The Haredim got to this position because they do not give a damn about politics and democracy, and will give their vote to anyone who will give them the concessions they want. They are trying the same tactics over conscription. Of course their leaders are pushing for women to be kept away from their boys - they are afraid of exactly the integration possibilities that I mentioned.

I maintain that this is a sexism issue purely because it is a fundamentalism issue.

Men dont need to be fundamentalists to be violent.

Although many fundamentalist versions of different religions all have the concept of men as the superior, and women as the subserviant.

So just because these group of men have a "relgious justification" for being misogynystic, is no different than incels claiming their set of beliefs is jstification for their sexism.

Men all over the world as a sex class oppress and denigrate women as a sex class.

The sets of beliefs are just an expression of their sense of superiority. But having a coherent(!) "theory" about why they are naturally superior doesn't actually make them any different from other men.

Some men chase women in the street after getting drunk.

Some men chase women in the street because they think "she is asking for it".

Some men chase women and dont think or pretend they need a theory or belief to justify why they do it.

They know, as the other in their heart of hearts know, they do it because they can because they are men.

It appears the women weren't chased because they were women but because it had been wrongly reported they were delivering conscription orders. How the women 'felt' the motive was isn't necessarily the motivation.

"The attack occurred after a resident called a telephone hotline run by the Jerusalem Faction, a hardline anti-conscription group, to wrongly claim that the soldiers were attempting to deliver conscription orders.

At 1:43 p.m., a hotline set up by the group sent its subscribers an email claiming that “Military Police soldiers are now roaming around Bnei Brak handing out conscription orders” and that there were “riots in several locations.”

Later, a spokesman for the Jerusalem Faction denied any connection with the incident, stating that the riots were “not something organized.”

“I don’t know what caused it. I have no idea. I don’t know what it was about,” he told The Times of Israel. “I have no idea what happened there, but I can only understand that today people in military uniforms are coming into Bnei Brak… It could raise everyone’s eyebrows, the fear that they might be coming to arrest yeshiva boys.”

After being shown screenshots of the emails, the spokesman shared an audio clip circulating on an ultra-Orthodox WhatsApp group in which a man was heard saying that he called the hotline after the two soldiers knocked on his door in order to present him with an enlistment order."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-female-soldiers-chased-by-rioting-haredi-mob-in-bnei-brak-rescued-by-police/

Agree.

I think that's stating the obvious.

'According to Sargaroff, the two soldiers found refuge with a law-abiding resident who hid them in a “secure place,” while police rushed to the scene and eventually extracted them from the city.'
From the article in OP's post.

The soldiers weren't hurt.
Let's acknowledge those who risk their own safety and protect others.

It is just bizarre that so many on a feminist forum want to somehow diminish these women's experience.

Even allowing for the political situation between the Government and some Orthodox Jews, women have not only their own history but the shared history of male violence.

And just to repeat, the women themselves asked not to go, and took the decision to wear skirts. Have any of you going nothing to see hear bothered to think why that was.

So much for standing up for women.

This article clearly explains that women in the army are having their rights to be considered to be equal within the army is being undermined by the army allowing some men's religious beliefs deny them that equality. is this incident didn't happen in a vaccuum.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-troops-are-under-assault-and-not-just-in-bnei-brak/

Having read that do you really feel it is okay for women from another country who haven't experienced this social pressure not just from those with Orthodox views, but other "liberal" men who think supporting male fundamentalism is more important than supporting their female army comrades.

.

Not helped when a senior Israeli Minister says this:

Finance Minister Smotrich says he won't educate his daughter to enlist in the IDF
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-886878

I'm not diminishing these women's experience.It was a horrible situation. I just wonder why you are quite so appalled when in the UK women police officers are attacked with a sledgehammer from behind. Also the vicious attack at Manchester Airport injuring 2 women police officers.
Serious question do you think women should be allowed in the army or police force?

“We must, simply must, pass a draft law that will truly lead to the enlistment of our Haredi brothers and their integration into bearing the burden of security and national existence.”

But not too much integration. Not the degree of integration that recognises women as equals, and not too pluralistic, either.

Like I said, the sexism here is an expression of fundamentalism.

I am appalled. I do not understand how a man can attack anybody from behind with a sledgehammer, causing life-changing injuries, and not be found guilty of deliberately carrying out GBH (or whatever the legal term). I do not understand how he got away with it.

Female IDF soldiers barred from entering base on religious grounds - report

The soldiers, some seven officers and reservists, all in uniform, were met by commanders from the ultra-Orthodox Netzach Yehuda battalion who forbade them from entering.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-889799

Female Soldiers Required Long Pants in Marathon Heat, Men Wore Shorts
Article in https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-04-19/ty-article/.premium/female-soldiers-told-to-wear-long-pants-in-marathon-men-exempt/0000019d-a23e-d138-a7fd-f7bfd5550000

Can be read at https://archive.is/RX6V7