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Before Rage Flared, a Push to Make Israel’s Mixed Towns More Jewish

An eruption of Arab-Jewish violence inside Israeli cities has focused attention on a movement of religious nationalists seeking to strengthen the Jewish presence in areas with large Arab populations.

Jewish residents of the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Ramot Eshkol in the mixed Israeli city of Lod. Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

By Isabel Kershner

May 23, 2021Updated 6:28 p.m. ET

LOD, Israel — Years before the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod erupted in mob violence, a demographic shift had begun to take root: Hundreds of young Jews who support a religious, nationalist movement started to move into a mostly Arab neighborhood with the express aim of strengthening the Israeli city’s Jewish identity.

A similar change was playing out in other mixed Arab-Jewish cities inside Israel, such as nearby Ramla and Acre in the north — part of a loosely organized nationwide project known as Torah Nucleus. They say that their intention is to lift up poor and neglected areas on the margins of society, particularly in mixed cities, and to enrich Jewish life there. Its supporters have moved into dozens of Israeli cities and towns.

“Perhaps ours is a complex message,” said Avi Rokach, 43, chairman of the Torah Nucleus association in Lod. “Lod is a Jewish city. It is our agenda and our religious duty to look out for whoever lives here, be they Jewish, Muslim or Hindu.”