Jerusalem, Israel – 17th of March, 2014: Jerusalemites get drunk and dance at a street party in the Nachlaot neighborhood, during the holiday of Purim, which celebrates how the Jews of Persia were saved from an evil plot to destroy them.
Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem – 16th of March, 2014: Palestinian youth show their skills on the walls of the Old City as thousands gather to form a book-reading human chain all around the walls, during an event meant to encourage people to read more and support public libraries. Notwithstanding the efforts of the organizers to not let it turn into a demonstration, some youth begun chanting political slogans and eventually clashed with the police.
Ras al-Amud, East Jerusalem – 14th of March, 2014: Palestinian men hold their friday prayers on the street pavement in front of a line of police preventing them from accessing the Old City and the al-Aqsa mosques. As it often happens, Israeli authorities restricted access to Old City in order to prevent disturbances after a series of incidents which saw half a dozen Palestinians killed from Gaza to the Jordanian border.
Jerusalem, Israel – 8th of March, 2014: A sticker on a light pole by the road which marks the border between east and west Jerusalem admonishes readers to “not even think about a Jewish woman”. Aiming to dissuade Arab men from approaching Jewish women, the sticker is widely visible across mixed cities in Israel and comes from Lehava, a Jewish organization dedicated to “preventing assimilation in the Holy Land”, mostly by opposing mixed marriages both in theory and in practice. Alongside the stern warning, the sticker bears the organization’s hotline to which one can “report” cases of assimilation.
Jerusalem, Israel – 2nd of March, 2014: Hundreds of thousands of religious Jews took part in a massive prayer rally at the entrance to the city, protesting against a proposed law that would punish religious communities that fail to meet their quotas for recruitment in the IDF. Members of countless haredi sects and groups prayed together, allegedly managing to bring to the same spot 600,000 Jews. This number was not accidental, for it was that many Jews who stood on mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and it is said that when as many Jews gather in one place, a …