Calm is expected to return to the streets of Jerusalem today after a court decision attempted to defuse clashes between police and ultra-Orthodox protesters. Violent riots racked the city this week as thousands of ultra-Orthodox – or "Haredi" – residents protested against the arrest of a woman accused of nearly starving her three-year-old son to death.

Yesterday Jerusalem courts released the woman to house arrest.

The violence escalated this week, with 50 arrests and 18 police injuries on Thursday night as protesters threw bottles and rocks at police, who responded with water-cannons.

Extreme sections of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community were angered by police intervention in the case of a Haredi woman suspected of starving her son over a period of two years. The toddler was hospitalised last week, weighing 7kg. His mother is thought to be suffering from the psychiatric condition Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, whereby individuals attempt to draw attention to themselves by deliberately making someone else ill, typically a child.

But rumours over religious persecution have reportedly raged through Haredi neighbourhoods and one rabbi described the case as a blood libel.

According to a Jerusalem Post editorial last week, such rumours include claims that the emaciated toddler had cancer, and that doctors were conducting experiments on the child. The article slates these as the "conspiracy theories" of extremists and religious fanatics and reports that the doctor treating the child confirms that he does not have cancer and has gained weight in hospital

The woman, who is five months pregnant and has two other children, will now undergo psychiatric evaluation by a professional approved by social services and the Haredi community.

David Zilbershlag, media representative for the accused, said: "The best outcome of the court's decision is that it has restored some faith in the system amongst the Orthodox community."

Members of this community say the Haredi mother's imprisonment shattered the trust and good relations that had developed with social services, previously viewed with hatred and suspicion by a deeply insular, ultra-conservative sector with rigid codes of conduct.

The Haredi custom of raising large families and abstaining from work on religious grounds results in high levels of poverty, and regularly attracts stigmatisation and accusations of child neglect. Last summer, Israeli media reported that a four-year-old Haredi child was abandoned at Ben Gurion airport while her eight-member family boarded a flight to Paris.

Some commentators have observed that the incident points to a deep malaise in the community. "The stress is immense in those families where there is no money, no work and lots of children," says Professor Tamar El-Or, who lectures in sociology and anthropology at Jerusalem's Hebrew university. "Fragile people, like this woman, can collapse. But in this immense effort to protect the community and its ideological beliefs, a story is created about children being kidnapped … and the religious leadership does not take any responsibility for thinking of solutions."

Before the Jerusalem court hearing, about 2,000 police were on standby in the city, fearing that protests over the Haredi mother might spill over into ongoing clashes about a car park. The new municipal parking lot near the Old City is open on Saturdays, which the ultra-religious view as a desecration of the Sabbath.

This issue has been a regular flashpoint in the city over the past month, with several arrests and charges of police assault.