Yom Kippur, probably the most solemn and sacred date on the Jewish calendar, is often a day of unity for Jewish Israelis. Highways empty, retailers shut and transport networks shut down, as nonobservant Jews present respect to the religious by avoiding work and driving.

However that social cohesion collapsed this yr. Confrontations broke out on the streets of Tel Aviv as non secular Jews tried to arrange Yom Kippur prayers by which women and men have been inspired to hope individually — angering residents of the primarily secular metropolis.

The clashes shocked Israelis of all backgrounds, and the fallout remains to be reverberating, leaving many braced for comparable standoffs within the coming days, with extra Jewish holidays falling this weekend and subsequent. On Thursday, the Tel Aviv Metropolis Council canceled permission for an additional outside non secular occasion this weekend, citing the opportunity of public dysfunction.

The far proper safety minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, stated he would maintain his personal segregated prayer assembly on the identical spot on Thursday night, earlier than backing down. Critics of Mr. Ben-Gvir went forward with a combined prayer service close by, in what had been meant as a counterprotest.

Yair Lapid, the opposition chief and a secular Tel Aviv resident, stated the non secular activists had “determined to deliver battle to us.” And President Isaac Herzog warned that the social divisions posed “an actual hazard to Israeli society and the safety of the State of Israel.”

The confrontation in Tel Aviv underlined the huge — and widening — rifts between many non secular and secular Israelis, which have been exacerbated by the political turmoil that has gripped the nation for the reason that right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took energy late final yr.

It was the most recent instance of how his authorities’s polarizing marketing campaign to cut back the ability of the Israeli Supreme Courtroom has developed right into a broader and extra existential dispute concerning the function of Judaism within the public lifetime of the Jewish state.

To secular Israelis, the courtroom is a guarantor of their rights. The hassle to weaken it has been partly pushed by non secular coalition lawmakers who’re concurrently making an attempt to advertise higher clerical involvement in society, together with a plan to broaden the function of rabbis at decrease ranges of the judicial system.

That has left secular Israelis feeling more and more weak, and they also have been protesting not simply the modifications on the courtroom but additionally different threats to their life-style and freedoms. There was a rush of stories, for instance, of incidents like ladies being compelled by non secular drivers and passengers to take a seat individually from males on public transport.

The particular set off for the confrontations in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur, which ran from Sunday night till Monday night time, was a prayer ceremony in Dizengoff Sq., a plaza that to many secular Israelis embodies the cosmopolitan coronary heart of the nation’s most secular metropolis.

Non secular Jews have organized mass prayers there in the beginning of each Yom Kippur since 2020. Up to now, the organizers have gently inspired — although not strictly and even efficiently enforced — a separation between women and men, in accordance with Orthodox Jewish customized, and with little objection from secular residents, attendees say.

However with feelings working particularly excessive this yr, the ceremony drew uncommon scrutiny and opposition from secular activists. The Tel Aviv municipality, led by secular politicians, barred the erection of obstacles to divide women and men on the occasion, a call upheld by the Supreme Courtroom.

To work across the ban, the organizers hung a line of Israeli flags from a wire hanging throughout the plaza. It was a symbolic nod towards gender separation, and was permitted by the police as a result of, in observe, it didn’t perform as a barrier.

The organizers stated their objective had not been to drive non secular observe onto secular Jews, however to make Orthodox Jews really feel extra snug about collaborating in a ceremony geared towards a much less observant a part of the inhabitants.

“Nobody in any means was compelled to be separated,” stated Dikla Partoosh, a tv producer who helped arrange the occasion. “The separation was there for the individuals who wished it,” she stated.

However for critics of the occasion, the background of the group that organized it, Rosh Yehudi, aroused suspicion. The group is a part of a rising variety of right-wing actions, many with roots in Israeli settlements within the occupied West Financial institution, whose members have moved en masse to secular cities, or to these with massive Arab minorities, with the acknowledged intention of constructing society extra Jewish.

Tel Aviv, Rosh Yehudi’s chief, Israel Zeira, stated in a broadcast interview, is considered one of a number of cities the place “it’s attainable to revolutionize the individuals of Israel.”

When members meet somebody from the “secular world,” Mr. Zeira stated in a separate video interview, “you should be considering in your head: How you’re altering him? How are you fixing him? How are you making pals with him, not just for the aim of friendship, however for the aim of affect?”

It’s statements like this that led secular Israelis to heckle Rosh Yehudi’s members as they started to collect at sunset on Sunday and, in the end, to halt the prayers.

“Your non secular coercion won’t cross!” shouted one secular lady, in an trade captured on video.

“Why come right here and stick it to us?” shouted a secular man. “You’re a shame to Judaism!”

For the worshipers, the heckling was “extraordinarily painful and heartbreaking,” stated Ms. Partoosh, the organizer. “I by no means imagined that individuals would have the audacity and the acute lack of sensitivity to do such a factor on the holiest day of the Jewish yr,” she stated.

Hila Tov, one of many individuals who obstructed the prayers, stated the protest was a long-overdue intervention towards a creeping takeover of public house.

“They are saying we’re brothers, we should know one another, we should pray collectively, we’re all Jews,” stated Ms. Tov, the proprietor of a left-wing information media firm.

However secular Jews don’t see it as merely a matter of an annual prayer occasion for Yom Kippur.

“We all know their intention was not that — they actually come to occupy our territory,” Ms. Tov stated.

Ms. Tov stated: “We closed our eyes all these years and allow you to do some issues beneath the title of pluralism and democracy. However you performed it in an unsightly means and took it to ugly new locations.”

The clashes made clear the sharp divides in Israeli society. Three separate polls commissioned independently by Israel’s three greatest broadcasters discovered that just about half of Israelis supported the idea of gender separation throughout prayer, with between 34 and 42 % opposing it.

However amongst each camps, there have been many who criticized the actions of their very own facet: Some non secular Jews cautioned towards utilizing prayer as a provocation, and a few secular Jews criticized the confrontational strategy of the secular activists.

Above all, the scenario heightened alarm concerning the cohesion of Israeli society.

“Historians and leaders will have a look at today 50 years from now, on the horrible worth that this rift exacted from us,” President Herzog stated in a speech.

And people historians will ask, Mr. Herzog stated, “How did they not perceive the magnitude of the hazard and the depth of the abyss? In spite of everything, it was proper in entrance of their eyes.”