In mid-May, Hanin Radi, a runner and a mother of four from the Arab Israeli town of Tira, had her lifelong dream of holding a coed marathon in her town shattered. The race was called off after unidentified persons fired shots at her car, conveying a clear message to her and the group of runners she had organized: Women running in shorts through the streets of an Arab town are crossing the line for the conservative religious population.

It exposed the chasm in Arab Israeli society. While there is a process of liberalization, mainly among young Arab adults who express an ardent desire to live their life as they would in any other Western country or a liberal Arab state, there's also a growing traditional religiosity among large segments of the Arab community.

“I’ve participated in many marathons in Israel and abroad, and I have yet to see an Arab woman who truly participates in a run, other than short distances,” Radi said. “I proposed to women to run together. I started with my daughter’s girlfriends. I also went to other schools. Before long the group numbered some 80 women from all age groups. There were many others who wanted to sign up, but there was no more room. We would go into the soccer pitch to run, yet people didn’t accept it. They always used something against me. They sent a letter to the mayor saying I wasn’t a professional trainer. So I went to Tel Aviv University to study physical education so that they would have nothing to say. We started competing in [the Jewish Israeli cities of] Tel Aviv, Tiberias and Kfar Sava. Then I decided to hold our first marathon in Tira, for both men and women. Two days before the race, I got a call from the deputy mayor who told me that the race couldn’t take place. I asked him why, and he said that some of the clergymen were complaining that we were going to let girls run in tights and shirts and that it was a coed run. They suggested that only men could race. I turned it down. Then they suggested that the women run in long-sleeve shirts, and I said absolutely not.”

Radi said it is against this backdrop of tension that the police asked her to postpone the marathon to allow the force to prepare. “I tried setting a new date, but I saw that the municipality was being evasive,” she said. “And then one day, in the middle of the negotiations, at 1 a.m., unidentified persons fired shots at my car. I was scared. First I said to myself, ‘Hanin, you need to go on with the girls. You can’t let them down.’ But then I saw how my own kids were scared. I can’t sleep at night. It’s hard. My dream was to train a group of women across the Arab sector. Now I’m working out in Kfar Sava, where I see coed groups — men and women running, smiling, talking. That’s the way it should be.”