A group of young women dressed in shiny Lycra have just finished singing “Bibi ciao”, resumption in the local sauce of the famous Italian revolutionary song, which another clamor rises from Habima Square, in Tel Aviv, Saturday evening October 10. Plastic Torah in the arms, a group of young boys in knitted kippahs make the masked demonstrators dance. While Israel is theoretically in “Tight confinement”, protests against Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu are mingled with Simhat Torah celebrations, which marks the end of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
For this new Saturday of demonstrations, several thousand people made the trip to this nerve center of Tel Aviv. According to the latest, and controversial, restrictions on gatherings, all are supposed to live within a mile. Across the country, hundreds of local demonstrations took place, mobilizing tens of thousands of protesters. In Tel Aviv, these rallies merged later in the evening to form a procession strolling through the streets, blithely violating instructions and playing off police roadblocks.
A few kilometers away, Bnei Brak, in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv, is plunged into darkness. On this Shabbat night and feast day, the cars are stationary. Only an ambulance passes, siren extinguished as if not to break the surrounding silence. At the entrance of the largest Talmudic school in the “capital of the Haredim”, the ultra-Orthodox, a clamor nevertheless rises. Barely hidden behind a sheet at the windows, a hundred students sing, huddled together, in the refectory. No barrier gestures or division into small groups. In the streets, the wearing of the mask varies according to the districts and the obediences: among Hasidics, the fur hats do not marry with the blue rectangles. Until late at night, in all the religious localities of the country, tens of thousands of devotees thus celebrated Simhat Torah.
Growing impatience
Currently, in Israel, everyone has their reasons for breaking the lockdown. The press evokes a “Civil war”, “anarchy”. Since the summer epidemic rebound, impatience with the chaotic health management of the government is growing. It is added to the movements that have been demanding for months the departure of the Prime Minister indicted for corruption, creating an explosive cocktail.
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