By: Geoffrey Yonil

While Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always maintained the country’s “liberal, Western, democratic” status, a struggle of Orthodox extremism cropping up in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, among other cities, seeks to end Israel’s liberal roots by implementing antiquated policies of gender separation. While official public policy hasn’t been established in Israel regarding gender suppression and separation, many on the extreme ultra-Orthodox side, like the often violent sect known as the Sicarii, have begun expressing their grievances of gender separation by spitting on young girls who they believe are dressed immodestly. These ultra-Orthodox groups spitting came to a head when they spat on a second-grade 8-year-old, Naama Margolese.

Why spit on an 8-year-old? The Sicarii claim she was dressed inappropriately. According to witnesses, she wore a colorful skirt that went passed her knees and a non-revealing blouse. The interpretation of immodesty by some of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox sects is loosely based on what they perceive as appropriate and inappropriate, which is, in a large part, based on capricious attitudes of their strict conservative ideals. For the past two weeks, women in Israel have been facing countless men spitting on them. And riots have begun because of the infamous saliva targeted towards Naama.

While it may seem silly that old Orthodox men have begun spitting on young girls, which sounds more like a porno than a conservative sect trying to hold onto outdated values, the incident does represent a key sectarian struggle within Israel’s domestic policy: is it still a theocracy based on strict interpretations of no scriptural teachings but rather those of elder Orthodox men, or is Israel a modern country with a modern value system? The question’s answer will define what Israel will look like in the imminent future.

The gender apartheid that many ultra-Orthodox sects have begun promoting in Israel is based simply on their desire to control women, nothing else. Many of the ultra-Orthodox, including women as well, have stated that Western society objectifies women on billboards and television rather than liberating them, and that their rules of segregation are in fact implemented to ensure integrity within women. It sounds absolutely convoluted and a little backwards, but their cause had gained some popularity…that is until old men decided to spit on a little girl. Whatever legitimate grievances the ultra-Orthodox had in Israel, though, seems stale when considering the visual image of what it must have been like for Naama Margolese being brutally spit on by men three-times her size bullying her until she cried.

But at the core of this dispute and the riots that have begun because of it is the question as to whether or not Israel will polarize itself or whether it will find a healthy moderation between the ultra-Orthodox and the modern. If Israel wishes to survive, then it will need to move towards the latter, because if the country continues to draw polarizing lines between factions—as so many political theorists have stated before—it will rip itself into two, or perhaps more.