Haredi businessmen, academics and media professionals have tried to serve as a bridge between the sector and Israeli society. They are now afraid that hostility will stop integration processes that have already begun.
They all recount personal experiences reminiscent of forgotten incidents of persecution from Jewish history. "How can you come and say that we are all, dodgers and looters?" asks Yaakov Halperin, who wears a kippah, 59, and employs thousands of workers from all sectors of society. "What are we waiting for? That one nuclear bomb will unite us? Shall we run together to the shelter, ultra-Orthodox and secular?"