JERUSALEM (AP) — Police are preventing hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews from blocking a main street in protest against a Jerusalem municipal parking lot that is open on the Jewish Sabbath.
Ultra-Orthodox activists have repeatedly staged protests since the parking lot opened two years ago. They say operating it on a Saturday is a descretation of the Sabbath, Judaism’s biblically mandated day of rest.
On Saturday, protesters gathered at a main junction, screamed at police officers and pelted them with water bags. Police stopped them from blocking traffic.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up a third of Jerusalem’s more than 700,000 residents.
Most work places in Jerusalem’s Jewish neighborhoods shut down for the Sabbath, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
