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Secular, Religious Israeli Activists Flock to Lod

Tensions are rising in the ethnically mixed Israeli city of Lod between progressive and religiously motivated Israeli activists over the city's demographic future.
Women walk past a Hebrew graffiti that reads "Love" in the "Train" neighbourhood in Lod May 15, 2012. The backstreets of Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city just 20 minutes from the tree-lined boulevards of Tel Aviv, reveal a seamy underside of Israel that few visitors get to see, tucked away behind Ben Gurion airport off the main highway to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Picture taken May 15, 2012. To match Feature ISRAEL-ARABS/CRIME        REUTERS/Nir Elias  (ISRAEL - Tags: SOCIETY) - RTR32TYI
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LOD, Israel — In the summer of 2011, at the height of the social-justice protest that shook Israeli society, Avital Blonder sent a personal email to hundreds of her friends. At the time, she wondered how she could contribute her share toward correcting the social wrongs that inspired hundreds of thousands of young people to take to the streets in protest.

Avital, a university graduate in her 30s from a well-heeled family, was looking for different path from the demonstrations and the tent pitching on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. An article recounting the endless woes of Lod had caught her eye and gave her an idea. She would go there, she thought, on the social mission she was so desperately looking for. 

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