Protesters hit the streets of Jerusalem on Friday to voice their anger over a new movie theater screening films during Shabbat, Judaism’s day of rest.
Thousands of Orthodox men demonstrated in two of the city’s most religious neighborhoods over YES Planet multiplex’s film showings, with police stepping in to intervene, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel’s Channel 2 reports that arrests were made when some protesters attacked journalists who were there to cover the incidents. Police said that no protests took place at the theater itself.
Posters had been hung in Jerusalem’s religious neighborhoods, urging people to “stop this plague with all everything in our power.”
Israeli law does not permit retail businesses to open on Shabbat, and those that do are subject to a fine. But developers of the theater, which opened earlier this month, maintain that the multiplex should not be held to this restriction because it is privately owned and located on private property.
