The scenes in several ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods around Israel on the Jewish Sabbath, May 21, seemed taken out of a horror movie. In Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh and Ashdod, frightened worshipers barricaded themselves inside synagogues while angry mobs tried to break down the doors. Those who dared go out were beaten and their prayer shawls grabbed and desecrated, forcing them to flee back inside, wounded and bloodied.

The violence was not limited to synagogues. Some members of the Gur sect, one of Judaism’s largest dynastic courts, were attacked and beaten while walking on the street. They were extricated from the mob by passersby and taken to hospitals.

In other related incidents on Saturday, cars were vandalized, as were ultra-Orthodox synagogues in the cities of Jerusalem and Ashdod. 

The warring sides were members of the same group, wearing the same traditional clothing, indistinguishable to an outsider. But the difference between them is deep, bitter and bloody, a power struggle pitting the 160-year-old religious group against those who split off to form a new community in 2019.