The Haredi population believe in big families and reject TVs, computers, and Zionism

The headlines declared it a holy war, an almighty stand-off between the city’s religious and secular residents. For weeks West Jerusalem has been rocked by fierce street battles as ultra-religious Jewish protesters have clashed with police, resulting in countless injuries, dozens of arrests and thousands of pounds damage.

Protests first erupted over the opening of a municipal car park on Saturdays, seen as a desecration of the Sabbath. Then riots flared again at the arrest of an ultra-religious woman accused of starving her toddler son, which protesters viewed as heavy-handed police interference. These furious protests have been reported as the actions of a tiny minority, supporters of a violent and backward religious fundamentalism. The ultra-Orthodox counter that they have been cast as monsters, as usual – victims of religious intolerance.

“They lie to make us seem small and extreme,” says Yoel Kraus, one of the demonstrators. “We are a quarter of the Jewish population here – and you can’t fight that.” Kraus, 37, is from Eda Haredit, an anti-state grouping within the ultra-Orthodox sector, which organised many of the recent protests in the city. In total, the ultra-orthodox sector – known as “Haredi” or “God-fearing” – forms around half of the Jewish population in Jerusalem. The recent clashes have taken place against the background of a rapidly expanding, low-income Haredi population perceived to be taking over the city.

The past decade or so has seen a steady exodus of secular residents who feel that they have been squeezed out of an increasingly religious city, while the ultra-Orthodox population has spread to previously non-religious neighbourhoods, so that more of West Jerusalem feels religiously observant.

Kraus, 37, lives with his wife Rachel, 36, and their 11 children in Mea Shearim, a Haredi neighbourhood of Jerusalem dating back to the 19th century. Insular and devout, the area is home to predominantly European-origin residents, and resembles an old shtetl (traditional 19th century Jewish town in eastern Europe). Winding stone streets bear signs reminding visitors to dress modestly, act respectfully, and don’t come in big groups. Placards mark Israel’s 61st anniversary as a holocaust for the Jewish people. For some groups, including Eda Haredit, the creation of the Jewish state goes against God’s will.

As a secular ideology, Zionism is considered heretic and is accused of pretending to end Jewish exile which the ultra-Orthodox believe can only cease with the messiah’s arrival.

The Kraus family’s 150-year-old stone building is a renovator’s dream project, but inside it is plain and peeling – a modest, two-room home with an extra room for the elder boys in the cellar. The furniture is basic: a simple dining table, a second-hand fridge, two large sofabeds that roll out for the older children; single beds for the parents and cots for the younger kids. The books are holy, and the walls are bare except for a few framed religious texts and an old pendulum clock, which has stopped.

“The purpose of life is to serve God, to fulfil religious obligations – not to live in modern luxury,” says Yoel Kraus, a religious student who works part-time at a slaughterhouse. “Every day we see the world getting worse, more aggressive. We see the dangers and are trying to preserve a few things.”

As is typical within this community, the Klaus family do not own a TV, or computer, or read newspapers, seen as time-wasting, brain-destroying activities. Yoel now owns a “kosher” mobile phone, which doesn’t text or dial certain numbers. The family rarely ventures beyond the neighbourhood and do not have dealings with what Yoel calls the “Zionist state” – no national insurance or healthcare or education services. Many Haredi families do take welfare benefits and stipends for religious study, to the annoyance of sections of secular society. But Yoel says: “We don’t want one shekel from the state, and because of that I can fight them more freely.”

The couple’s six sons and five daughters range in age from 14 to a one-year old girl, a typically large Haredi family. “A Jewish mother has a purpose in life, to educate the next generation of Jewish people,” says Rachel. “She has a role, responsibility, she has to be an example and to focus on what she is doing – she prays a lot for guidance.”

Because of this custom of big families and the material poverty in which they live, the ultra-Orthodox often face accusations of negligence. “We don’t have this empty hole that secular people do, of always wanting more,” says Rachel. “Secular children are like that too: the more you give them, the more they want. We fill that hole in childhood with something spiritual and permanent, so they do not feel they are lacking.”

The children attend religious schools and do not have summer holidays: schools break according to the religious calendar. From the age of six boys are at school all day, while girls finish at lunchtime. The Klaus family communicates in Yiddish – none of the children learns Hebrew at school, as its everyday usage is deemed another Zionist abomination. Exposed to Hebrew in the neighbourhood, the parents and some of the elder children do now speak the language. But Rachel says: “Yiddish is our way of preventing assimilation. It’s our wall.”

They are well aware of how the outside world sees them. “If you don’t live it, this life looks impossible,” says Rachel. “But we don’t do it out of force, or with any difficulty. We feel the closeness of God and we are content, because we have fulfilment.”

Some commentators have seen the current protests as a show of ultra-religious power, a flexing of muscles to counter a recently elected secular mayor of Jerusalem who seems determined to reverse the secular brain drain from this poverty-stricken city. Elected in November 2008, when he ousted an ultra-religious mayor, Eli Barkat says he wants to attract tourists and day-trippers to Jerusalem. But that would involve what the ultra-Orthodox view as more Sabbath desecrations, as more shops and restaurants would open on Saturdays to accommodate the influx.

The protests in Jerusalem have consumed the Israeli media, but the Haredi community have a wider perspective, seeing it all as a historic battle between self-styled defenders of the Jewish faith and a secular state seeking to destroy it.

For the Kraus family, there is no way to relate to the non-religious world, or its concerns. “A secular person will never understand me, and I will never understand him,” says Yoel. “I see him stressed and angry all day long … and I think I have a better life than most. What am I lacking?”