A few weeks ago the ABC's Middle East correspondent Anne Barker was caught up in a violent protest involving ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Jerusalem.

As Anne tried to record the protest, against the opening of a municipal carpark on the Jewish Sabbath, the mob spat on her repeatedly.

She says if she had been a man it might have been less traumatic, but being a woman and being spat on by so many men was a very distressing experience.

The ultra-Orthodox Jews' protests, staged every weekend, have become a tourist attraction of sorts, and a form of entertainment for the rest of Jerusalem's population.

Their issue: the secular mayor's determination to open extra parking to cater for the increasing numbers of tourists and locals visiting the old city on weekends.

Even opening a car park is a violation of Shabbat - or the Jewish Sabbath - because observant Jews are forbidden from doing anything that equates to work, which can include driving, using any kind of machine, or even turning on a light switch.

Tourists come in increasing numbers to watch the spectacle of the protesters - with their curly sidelocks, long coats, and round box-like fur hats - clashing with police.

Often the protesters will throw themselves against cars, or even under them, to stop people from driving.

Some weeks they throw stones or rocks at police or anyone they perceive to be desecrating Shabbat - or Shabbes - as they call it in Yiddish.

At other times, they have thrown dirty nappies and rotting vegetables, and often they take to spitting.

It even pays to take an umbrella, as Anne learnt the hard way.

As she took out her radio recorder to capture the sound, the mob suddenly turned on her, screamed in her face, and spat repeatedly - in her face, hair, all over.

Men 'felt threatened'

Anne, along with The Australian newspaper's correspondent in Jerusalem, John Lyons, invited two men from the ultra-Orthodox community to explain the protesters' actions.

Did they spit at her because she was a woman, or a journalist, or not Jewish, or not dressed modestly enough?

Yoel Weber, a rabbinical student, told her the ultra-Orthodox community feels a deep animosity towards any media it perceives does not understand it.

"The minute people feel that the media comes in and tries to cover our gatherings and they don't know who we are and basically they cover us as some kind of interesting species, we feel very annoyed," he said.

"We feel very endangered, very, very, very, very uncomfortable, with that situation."

Mr Weber told Anne a woman does not belong in a group of men.

"So when we have a demonstration, we see a woman just frolicking, walking around, the normal reaction would be 'lady, can you please, there's the men, the ladies' side, please walk on the other side' - that's the normal reaction," he said.

He says had it been a man reporting, things might have been very different.

"It will be easier because a lady automatically says 'you know what, I belong to these kind of people that we have no problem of the sexes - we can be a man covering the men issues, and men covering ladies' issues even'," Mr Weber said.

"That's against our teachings and all our way of thinking."

Anne says while she was helped to clarify the attitudes of the ultra-Orthodox community, she is still troubled.

How, she asks, in a democratic, largely secular and supposedly egalitarian Israel, where ultra-Orthodox Jews are in the minority, can the rest of the community be expected to live and work by their rules?

'Shouldn't have happened'

Mr Weber says the spitting incident should not have occurred.

"Spitting is a very, very uneducated, unhuman way of reacting to a certain thing, so spitting is a very primitive and very nonsense way of reacting to a certain situation," he said.

Rabbi Shmuel Pappenheim says whatever the views in the ultra-Orthodox community, he believes spitting is wrong.

"It's very embarrassing - it's not right," he said.

"These people go to the demonstrations from rage, from anger. There's fear of police, fear of collaborators, and people do things that are undesired - that are not wanted.

"It doesn't reflect their education to respect individuals."

Rabbi Pappenheim offered Anne an apology on behalf of the community.

"In the name of our rabbis, I apologise, and I very much hope that this will not influence your experiences here and your coverage," he said.

A struggle for Jerusalem

Anne says since she arrived in Jerusalem only a few months ago, she has been told many times that if you take two Jews, you will find at least three opinions.

Even within the ultra-Orthodox community there are disparities - not just on whether it's right or wrong to spit on a woman, but even the more fundamental questions of Zionism, the creation of Israel and how to treat the Palestinians.

If this extreme end of Judaism is so diverse, it is no wonder there is a widening gulf between the city's ultra-Orthodox community and secular Jews.

The protest over a carpark might seem incredibly parochial, but it is emblematic of a wider struggle over Jerusalem itself.