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Israel

Landmark Women's Prayers At Jerusalem Western Wall Marred By Violent Protests, Arrests

HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST (Israel)

Worldcrunch

JERUSALEM – Police on Friday arrested five ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who tried to disrupt prayers by female Jewish activists at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem District Court recently ruled women were allowed to wear prayer shawls during their monthly service, reports Haaretz.

The Women of the Wall activists had been asking form more than 20 years to be allowed to pray at the site while wearing prayers shawls and reading from Torah scrolls.

Their prayer service was disturbed by at least a thousand Haredi ultra-Orthodox protesters on Friday morning.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Haredi protesters spat on the three daughters of Rabbi Susan Silverman – sister of comedian Sarah Silverman – as water bottles, eggs and rocks were thrown onto the praying activists.

Rabbi Silverman told reporters that Haredi protesters represented “a fundamentalism and a belief in a single and very narrow view of god that I believe is idolatrous.”

Women of the Wall prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall

Two police officers suffered minor injuries in the hustle.

Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister for Religious Affairs Naftali Bennet to find a fair compromise between the religious groups: “I ask everyone: please leave the Western Wall out of any dispute,” he said, reports Haaretz.

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Ideas

Yeah, Whatever: In Defense Of The Passive Aggressive

Passive aggression gets a bad rap. It was once even classified as a personality disorder. But in today's world, it can serve a distinct purpose.

Image of someone looking at an eye rolling emoji on an ipad.

A user on the platform Reddit said that he found it passive-aggressive when someone used a thumbs-up emoji in a text conversation.

Peter Praschl

BERLIN — Passive aggression is the disease of our times — even if it hasn't been listed as a personality disorder for quite some time. You can recognize passive aggressive behavior from patterns, ways of speaking, gestures and even emojis. But a mild case is no cause for concern. In fact, quite the opposite.

It’s one of those debates that seem to break out every so often on social media. A user on the platform Reddit said that he found it passive-aggressive when someone used a thumbs-up emoji in a text conversation. He received a flood of responses agreeing with him, saying it was a habit among older people who simply didn’t understand that, for millennials, a thumbs-up could be just as hurtful as a condescending “yeah whatever”.

Many media outlets immediately seized on this as proof of a lack of resilience among the younger generation. Journalists are always ready to comment on this kind of situation, especially when it allows them to write articles that pit the generations against each other while pretending to be objective.

Great — thumbs up.

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