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JERUSALEM — The country's mass-circulation dailies were dominated on Sunday by stories about snow forecasts and car accidents, and warnings of terror attacks. The haredi (ultra-religious) press, however, had a much different angle.

On the front page, the haredi press dealt extensively with something largely ignored by the general press: secular violence against haredim, the ultra-religious Jews who are customarily seen with long beards and dark black suits.

"A wave of anti-haredi thuggery in light of the growing incitement," read a headline in Yated Ne'eman. This was followed by three articles reporting three separate acts of violence against haredim over the weekend.

The general public in Israel is used to reading about secular-haredi strife but usually in the form of haredi throwing rocks at Shabbat drivers on Jerusalem's Bar-Ilan Street, or haredi throwing chairs at women trying to read from the Torah at the Western Wall, or haredi splattering ink on immodestly dressed women in Mea She'arim, the most religious neighborhood in Jerusalem.

But, haredi politicians and activists often point out, the opposite also occurs. And they say it is occurring with growing frequency.

United Torah Judaism Knesset member Moshe Gafni took the Knesset microphone last week and read a list of recent anti-haredi incidents.

They included the stabbing of a religious school student in Bnei Brak on Shabbat by a 13-year-old when he ran after a group of kids who threw rocks at him, the ransacking of a Jerusalem yeshiva and the harassment of its students on Friday night, and the beating of a Bnei Brak man who was walking home from Beilinson Hospital.

"There is a growing phenomenon of physical violence against people with a haredi appearance," Gafni said, maintaining that the number of incidents are not random acts of hooliganism but indicate a trend.

Gafni attributed the violence to what he described as a poisonous atmosphere generated by anti-haredi rhetoric from politicians and various public figures during the recent budget debate, with the media providing them with a forum and an ever-ready microphone.

The police were unable to provide any hard figures on attacks against haredim and Gafni said complaints to the police tend to be returned with a laconic "the attacker could not be traced." Yet Gafni's claims were given added credence when Meretz MK Ran Cohen joined him in setting up a "parliamentary bureau" in the Knesset to handle complaints of violence against minorities.

"Whenever you have an incitement campaign against haredim accompanied by words like bloodsuckers and parasites," said Gafni, "you are creating an atmosphere where violent acts are sure to follow."

These terms, and others such as "extortionists" and "robbers," were used freely during the public debate on the budget and the funds that went to various haredi causes. And a survey last week that indicated that 60 percent of haredim do not work only added fuel to the fire.

"When people are consistently spreading hate against haredim, there will always be those who will translate that into action," Gafni said.

But Avinoam Ben-Ze'ev, a lecturer in philosophy at Oranim College in Haifa and editor of a recently published and well-received Hebrew book on the nature of hate called "Sina (Hatred)," said "the problem of hatred toward haredim is widespread, but not necessarily linked to haredi political acts."

Referring to a study done earlier this decade among secular elementary school children, who described haredim as people who smell and have bugs in their beards, Ben-Ze'ev said these physical descriptions are classic manifestations of hatred, of lessening the value of the "other."

"These children were flooded with stereotypes they received from their parents," he said. "These descriptions were not linked to any political or budgetary questions."

Hatred, Ben-Ze'ev said, is a two-way street. "Hatred is also a legitimate part of the haredi world; it is an accepted dynamic there."

Manifestations of this hatred, according to Ben-Ze'ev, are seen in wall posters in haredi neighborhoods, as well as in the haredi press, where terms like impure, defiled, contaminated and much worse can be found referring to the secular community, secular culture or secular politicians.

The different physical appearance of the haredim awakens xenophobic feelings, Ben-Ze'ev said, giving many people a sense of the haredim as the "other." It matters little that this "other" is part of the same people; they are viewed as different, strange, foreign.

"In the summer, in the middle of a hot spell, it is impossible to look at haredim in their black garb and say they are one of us. They seem completely different," he said.

This, Ben-Ze'ev said, awakens negative feelings of anger and fear, but not necessarily hatred. The hatred comes, he said, when the "other," the out-group, tries to exert control over the in-group.

"We need to understand that for a majority of Israelis there is a recoiling from the haredim, a view of them as a foreign element. That is a basic stand.

"When they go to Mea She'arim, they look at it almost as a foreign country. They are on some kind of anthropological expedition to see how the out-group behaves."

The "silent majority" who view the haredim as foreign are silent most of the time, said Ben-Ze'ev. But certain issues, like the budget debate, can cause a greater intensity in their reactions and move them from silence to speaking out, at times even to violence.

"Violence characterizes certain groups, and you can't say that all secular Israelis are violent," he said. "But for people on the fringes who are already violent, issues like the budget can serve as a trigger."