The protesters called Israeli policemen Nazis, wore yellow Star of David patches with the word “Jude’’ - German for Jew - dressed their children in striped black-and-white uniforms associated with Nazi concentration camps and transported them in the back of a truck.
Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center denounced the use of Nazi imagery as “disgraceful,’’ and several survivors’ groups and politicians condemned the acts.
“We must leave the Holocaust and its symbols outside the arguments in Israeli society,’’ said Moshe Zanbar, chairman of the main umbrella group for Holocaust survivors in Israel. “This harms the memory of the Holocaust.’’
Six million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. About 200,000 survivors of the Holocaust live in Israel.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 10 percent of Israel’s population. In the past, they have generally confined their strict lifestyle to their own neighborhoods. But they have become increasingly aggressive in trying to impose their ways on others, as their population has grown.
Extremist sects within the ultra-Orthodox community have been under fire of late for their attempts to ban mixing of the sexes on buses, sidewalks, and other public spaces.
In one city, extremists have jeered and spit at girls walking to school, saying they were dressed immodestly. They’ve also battled with police over street signs calling for segregation and attacked journalists who have covered their neighborhoods.
These practices, albeit by a fringe sect, have unleashed a backlash against the ultra-Orthodox in general, the climax of which came last week in a large demonstration where protesters held signs reading, “Free Israel from religious coercion’’ and “Stop Israel from becoming Iran.’’
