Established 1919
ENGLISH EDITION
Sunday, January 22, 2023 | Tevet 29, 5783. Vol 104/31578
130,000 demonstrate across Israel,
joined by Lapid, Gantz and Ya’alon
Josh Breiner, Bar Peleg,
Yael Freidson,
Adi Hashmonai,
Nati Yefet and Judy Maltz
More than 130,000 dem-
onstrators came out Satur-
day to protest the new gov-
ernment’s plans to weaken
Israel’s court system. The
vast majority of the pro-
testers, 120,000, were in
Tel Aviv, while thousands of
others participated in pro-
tests in Jerusalem, Haifa
and Be’er Sheva.
Some 110,000 protesters
participated in the main pro-
test, centered on Tel Aviv’s
Kaplan Street, while another
10,000 protesters attended
Slogans versus
protesters
Analysis, Page 3
a parallel event at nearby
Habima Square. There were
4,000 at the protest in Jeru-
salem and 6,000 protesters in
Haifa. Several hundred also
protested in Be’er Sheva.
Opposition leader Yair
Lapid spoke at the protest
on Kaplan Street.
“This is a protest intended
to defend the country. People
who love the country came
today to defends its democ-
racy and its courts, to defend
the idea of common life and
common good,” Lapid said.
He had not attended the pro-
test the previous Saturday,
apparently because politi-
cians were not permitted to
make speeches.
“Lovers of Israel came
to protest for a Jewish and
Dery fooled court, but only once Analysis Page 2
Accusations fly between ministers
as IDF evicts illegal outpost
Hagar Shezaf
Bezalel Smotrich on Fri-
day ordered a stop to the evic-
tion of an illegal West Bank
outpost that was established
overnight on privately-held
Palestinian land by Israeli
settlers – after his demand
was ignored by Defense
Minister Yoav Gallant, who
ordered the eviction “in con-
tradiction to the coalition
deals that form the basis for
the government’s existence.”
Smotrich, who is both the
finance minister and a min-
ister in the defense ministry
Unconventional weapon: Women’s choir
joins battle for pluralism at the Kotel
Judy Maltz
Once a month, a group of
women convenes at Jerusa-
lem’s Western Wall to raise
their voices together in
prayer. And once a month,
almost without fail, they
find themselves surrounded
by less-than-tolerant fellow
Jews trying to shut them up.
“Before we even elicit a
sound, the ritual begins,”
says Yochi Rappeport,
the executive director of
the feminist prayer group
Women of the Wall. “On one
side are the young Orthodox
seminary girls who shout
and curse at us non-stop. In
front are the older women
blowing their whistles so
loud it hurts our ears, and
to our left are the loudspeak-
ers blaring prayers from
the men’s section. To hear
our own voices over this ca-
cophony, we have to sing so
loudly we inevitably end up
leaving the place hoarse.”
The rabbi in charge of the
Western Wall only allows
loudspeakers to be used at
An aerial shot of protesters on Kaplan Street at the junction with Menachem Begin Street in Tel Aviv.
democratic country. We
won’t give up until we win,”
he said.
Former Defense Minis-
ter Benny Gantz, who was
also at the protest, stated
in an interview with public
broadcaster Kan 11: “We
are not ready to compromise
on Israeli democracy in its
in charge of the coordinat-
ing government operations
in the West Bank, requested
that the eviction not be car-
ried out until a discussion,
in which he will participate,
can be held about it next
week. He accused Gallant
of giving the order despite
his directive and without
consulting with him.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s office stated
that “the government sup-
ports settlement only when it
is done lawfully and in coor-
dination with the prime min-
ister and the security forces,
Women of the Wall at the Western Wall in 2021.
the site on rare occasions,
but this is one of them.
For more than 30 years,
Women of the Wall have
been holding a morning
service at the Jewish holy
site on the first day of the
new Jewish month. To push
back against the deafening
noise that greets them there,
the multi-denominational
prayer group is making use
of an unconventional weap-
on: an entire choir of its own.
deepest sense. The fact that
we are ready to reach agree-
ments does not mean that we
are ready to give up.”
Moshe Ya’alon, another
former defense minister
and former Israel Defense
Forces chief of staff, also
spoke at the protest: “A
country where the prime
PM shows U.S.
he’s serious
Analysis, Page 4
which was not done in this
case.” Netanyahu will hold a
discussion on the issue at the
beginning of the week.
The Defense Minister’s
office stated that Gallant
spoke with the Israel Defense
Forces Chief of Staff Herzl
Halevi “and fully backed the
IDF and the security forces,”
Emil Salman
“Our goal has always been
to make women’s voices
heard in prayer,” says Rap-
paport. “This amazing sing-
ing group is our response
to all those who have been
trying for to drown us out.”
The all-women choir
was established just a few
months ago, and still has
no official name. It has al-
ready joined Women of the
Wall for two Rosh Chodesh
prayer services, and this
Israel’s Leading Daily Newspaper
minister appoints all the
judges and is responsible
for promoting and fir-
ing them has a name. It’s
called a dictatorship. When
this prime minster is also a
defendant whom the State
of Israel is accusing of se-
rious crimes, it has a name.
It’s called a dictatorship of
Hayut to resign if laws pass News Page 3
adding that “every action in
the field should be done ac-
cording to the law, in full co-
ordination, and subject to the
assessment of the security
situation.”
Officials at the Defense
Ministry said that Smotrich’s
request to stop the eviction
was made independently of
the defense minister. Sources
close to Gallant claimed that
Smotrich’s actions are not
motivated by pragmatic fac-
tors but rather by his desire
to advance politically.
See OUTPOST, Page 2
coming Monday will be its
third.
The project could not
have taken off without the
financial support of anoth-
er Jewish women’s organi-
zation, this one thousands
of miles away: the Women
Cantors’ Network in the
United States.
Deborah Katchko-Gray,
a fourth-generation can-
tor and the founder of the
40-year-old network, credits
a fateful cup of coffee with
inspiring this initiative.
“A couple of years ago,
I saw a photograph of Anat
Hoffman wearing a prayer
shawl that had been stained
when a cup of coffee was
thrown at her,” says Katch-
ko-Gray, referring to the
longstanding chairwoman
of Women of the Wall. “I
found it unbelievably dis-
turbing that a woman pray-
ing would be assaulted with
hot coffee. I reached out to
her and offered to send her a
coffee-colored prayer shawl
See CHOIR, Page 2
 Hadas Parush
criminals.” tion with a black flag flying
Ya’alon was referring to over it,” adding, “Legislation
the ongoing criminal trials that turns Israel into a dic-
in which Prime Minister tatorship where a criminal
Benjamin Netanyahu is a defendant appoints judges is
defendant. patently illegal legislation.”
Referring to Justice Min- Ya’alon continued, “The
ister Yariv Levin’s plan Jewish people paid a heavy
to weaken the judiciary,
Ya’alon said, “This is legisla- See PROTEST, Page 2
A Zionist protest Opinion Page 5
Online now
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Israel’s Jewish
fundamentalists
are in power
A researcher holding one of the finds.
Archaeologists find exotic
imported fabrics in trash pile
Ruth Schuster
The Silk Road isn’t a road
per se, it’s a sprawling net-
work of trade routes in use
for over 1,500 years, con-
necting East and West and
branching into Africa. Its
main artery stretched from
Xi’an, China, to Palmyra in
Syria and Constantinople,
 Mohamed Al Hammadi/Uae Preside today Istanbul.
Now Israeli and German
Egypt is on archaeologists excavating
the Nahal Omer site in the
the edge Israeli desert report an ex-
traordinary find of silks im-
And Netanyahu ported from Asia and cotton
could push it fabrics apparently from
past that point India. They were found in
the garbage of an Islamic-
period estate dated to the
eighth and ninth century
No realistic – or rather pieces of the ex-
otic fabrics were found.
plan to cope This is by far the largest-
ever find of textiles from
Egypt and Jordan that period, says Prof. Guy
face fallout from Bar-Oz of the University of
the war in Ukraine Haifa, the leader of the exca-
vation. It’s part of a project
with Prof. Berit Hildebrandt
of the University of Göttin-
haaretz.com gen in Germany and Dr. Orit
www.haaretz.com
Dery to attend cabinet
meeting despite High
Court disqualification
Michael Hauser Tov
Arye Dery is expected to
participate in the govern-
ment’s weekly cabinet meet-
ing on Sunday, despite the
Supreme Court ruling nix-
ing his appointment as inte-
rior and health minister and
the attorney general’s call
for Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to replace him.
Political sources believe
Netanyahu will likely fire
Dery early next week, and
that he will continue to hold
his cabinet positions until
replacements are found.
Several candidates are be-
ing considered, including
former Health Ministry
director general Moshe
Bar Siman Tov (who over-
saw the ministry’s initial
response to the coronavi-
Protesters fear
irreversible slide
into illiberalism
Nettanel Slyomovics  130,000 people, this was not
Demonstrators at Satur-
day’s mass protest against
the government’s plans to
weaken the judiciary said
they felt Israel was on the
verge of a potentially ir-
reversible decline in de-
mocracy.
Iris Almagor, a 55-year-
old woman who had never
attended a protest before,
said she came to the mass
demonstration in Tel Aviv
because she was concerned.
“I’m afraid of crowds
of people, but he insisted,”
she said, referring to her
15-year-old son, Yonatan.
For them, as with many oth-
Shamir of the Israel Antiq-
uities Authority. They’ve
been working in collabora-
tion with Dr. Roi Galili of
Ben-Gurion University and
Nofar Shamir of the Univer-
sity of Haifa, with funding
provided by the German
state of Lower Saxony.
“From the entire first
millennium C.E., perhaps a
few hundred pieces of tex-
tile have been found,” Bar-
Oz says. At Nahal Omer
the researchers have found
about 800 or 900 fabric
pieces, radiocarbon-dated
to the seventh and eighth
centuries. The richness of
evidence leads them to be-
lieve that this was a way
station along a branch off
the traditional Silk Route
north of Israel.
The story of this archae-
ological enlightenment be-
gins with a researcher in
the 1980s squatting at Na-
hal Omer and pulling up a
fragment of cloth, accord-
ing to Bar-Oz.
Originating in the sixth
century, the late Byzantine
period, Nahal Omer may
rus pandemic) for health
minister and former cabi-
net minister Ariel Atias of
Dery’s Shas party for inte-
rior minister.
Two Shas members cur-
rently working in the Wel-
fare and Social Affairs
Ministry, Yaakov Margi
and Yoav Bentzur, are also
being considered Dery.
His allies are also con-
sidering appointing a close
associate of his or someone
from his immediate family.
Such a move could face le-
gal impediments.
Under different circum-
stances, Netanyahu would
have likely appointed him-
self to the role, as he did
during previous premier-
ships. Because he faces
criminal charges, he cannot
serve as a cabinet minister.
ers in the crowd of well over
a regular protest. A prevail-
ing sense in the throngs of
people was that if the gov-
ernment implements its
plans, there would be no
turning back.
“They’re trying to use
democratic means to legis-
late antidemocratic laws,”
Yonatan said.
“I feel like the ground is
shaking under our feet. It
starts with the fact that we
have a prime minister who
is a criminal defendant,”
his mother, referring to the
ongoing corruption trial
See SLIDE, Page 2
Guy Bar-Oz et al.
have been an estate, or at
most a small village, Bar-Oz
says. The researchers found
the ruins of a few homes
and an open mosque, dating
from its heyday in the Early
Islamic period, the eighth
and ninth centuries.
In 2018, archaeologists
headed by Bar-Oz began ex-
cavating the site, and after
just scratching the surface,
when they realized what
they had, they stopped right
there. They needed to raise
money so they could explore
the site properly, he says.
Newly funded, they began
digging again. “Our exper-
tise is trash middens [refuse
heaps]. We excavated 5 cubic
meters, like a Suzuki Alto in
volume,” Bar-Oz says. “The
sheer density and diversity
of the finds was insane. Cot-
ton, flax and silk; leather
made into sandals; shoes
and bags. We found hygiene
products: ancient Q-tips and
bandages.” They also found
belts and buckles, as well as
mats and basketry made of
See TRASH, Page 4