The Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada held a protest Wednesday in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City (800 Second Avenue) where hundreds of Orthodox Jews took to the streets to protest brutality at the hands of the Israeli Police in Jerusalem.

After the Jerusalem Mayor decided to violate the status-quo of relations between secular and religious Jews in Jerusalem by opening a parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath just right outside the old city walls, members of the Orthodox Jewish community went out to peacefully protest this desecration of the Jewish holy day in Jerusalem.

The Mayor knowingly proceeded with his plan to open the parking lot, after he was warned repeatedly that his actions would incite the religious community and that his actions would be met with peaceful protests. Orthodox Jewish protesters were time and time again met with brutal force at the hands of the Israeli police. Violent police tactics against peaceful protesters included, merciless police beatings, the firing of tear gas into crowds and the firing of live ammunition into the air.

The police escalated the conflict this past Sunday night when members of the Orthodox Jewish community were protesting an autopsy request by the police after the stabbing of a Jew, in violation of Jewish law, the police knowingly drove over protesters, putting a protester in serious condition and who still remains hospitalized.

Rabbi Issac Greenfeld said, "The Orthodox Jewish community in America will not tolerate or stand for the cruel and brutal police tactics of the Israeli police. We will continue to protest and demonstrate until the police are reigned in and the Israeli government stops denigrating Jewish law in Judaism's holiest city. If the police and the Israeli government continue to stomp on the rights of the Orthodox community in Jerusalem, one hundred thousand of us will greet Prime Minister Netanyahu not with flowers but with shouts for Justice on his upcoming trip to New York."

An additional traffic rally of hundreds of vehicles was planed for today around the United Nations and the Israeli Consulate in New York.