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About 100,000 ultra-orthodox Jews took to the streets of Israel on Thursday to protest a Supreme Court decision sentencing 40 ultra-orthodox parents to prison for contempt of court.

...The Ashkenazi Jews, from the Hasidic sect, one of Judaism’s strictest and most traditional, insisted that their daughters not mix at the school with the Sephardic girls, whom they consider to be from a less-doctrinaire practice.

...High birth rates and highly disciplined voting ranks have given the ultra-orthodox disproportionate and rapidly growing political influence in Israel. That, combined with the fact that many ultra-orthodox refuse to serve in the army, even as they receive hefty state support to devote themselves to torah study has kindled resentment among secular Israelis.

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