Get your butt in the back of the bus

[Charlie P]

Last year an American women was assaulted by Ultra Orthodox Jews because she refused to move.


Every time Israeli student Iris Yoffe takes the bus to Jerusalem, she has to be ready for abuse from ultra-Orthodox Jews who say she should be kept off because she's wearing trousers.
Assuming she makes it onto the bus at all -- on several occasions groups of Orthodox men have tried to block the door -- Yoffe, 24, heads for the "women's section" at the back of the bus, keeps her head down and tries to ignore the insults.
"I end up feeling helpless and humiliated, like an outsider," said Yoffe, whose public bus from her home in northern Israel to Jerusalem has separate male and female seating because it runs through an ultra-Orthodox community.
A row over Israel's buses underscores the schism between its ultra-Orthodox minority -- who believe women should don long skirts and stay away from men in public -- and those who want to keep the country, and its public transport system, secular.
The controversy started several years ago when, in order to compete with private firms, Israel's publicly funded bus companies introduced separate seating on some routes through Orthodox areas. Women who board these buses sit at the back.
In theory, wearing a skirt and sitting in the women's section is voluntary, but several secular women including a well-known author have reported being abused and even attacked for not doing so.


RULING THIS WEEK
Israel's High Court is expected to rule this week on a petition by a group of women who want the government and public bus companies either to stop the "mehadrin" lines or to provide alternative buses on those routes.
"The partition between men and women is being taken from the synagogue into public spaces," said Anat Hoffman, head of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the advocacy arm of the Reform Judaism movement, which helped bring the lawsuit.
Hoffman is worried that "partition" could make further inroads into public life, saying one post office in an Orthodox neighbourhood has separate waiting lines for men and women.
A transport ministry spokesman said the bus seating system was voluntary and it was up to the public companies to address any violence the rules provoked.
A spokesman for Israel's biggest bus company, Egged -- which has previously said it runs about 30 public mehadrin lines -- could not be reached on Monday.
The Orthodox Jewish Media Resources group said separate seating helped men resist the temptation to ogle women but acknowledged that mehadrin lines should only run on routes where the vast majority of passengers are religious.
"Without exception, the rules should not be enforced by individual passengers," said Jonathan Rosenblum, who is also a commentator and acts as a spokesman for the Orthodox community.
U.S.-born novelist Naomi Ragen, one of the women behind the High Court petition, said she was insulted and physically threatened when she accidentally boarded a mehadrin bus and refused to move to the back. Another woman was reported to have been spat at and beaten for refusing to move.
Ragen, herself an Orthodox Jew, described the incidents on her website as "bullying women in the name of God".

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[burniegoeasily]

They live by Mosaic law which is as bad as Muslim law, or any law that is dated back to the B.C.s. It is up to them to bring change. Looks like they are in the process.

[Canuck_Buck]

if they cannot control themselves around women then they are a sorry a$$ lot...

[burniegoeasily]

ORIGINAL: Canuck_Buck

if they cannot control themselves around women then they are a sorry a$$ lot...

\
You just summed up the whole Middle East with that statement.

[Charlie P]

Looks like they are in the process.

how do you see that? It looks like they want everyone to do as the command.

[Lanse couche couche]

The conservative folks there can be harsh at times. But, if the Israelis were as bad as some of their muslim neighbors, there would be no Syria or Lebanon, justthousands ofmiles of empty desert and mass graves.

[huntingirl89]

ORIGINAL: burniegoeasily

You just summed up the whole Middle East with that statement.

Then men can't control themselves and the women continue to deal with it. The women continue to hide out and take care of their men in Iraq and Afghanistan while the men use their own homes to shoot American forces and their own children to hide behind. If the women really wanted change, (they have nothing to lose, either their husbands kill them or we do when we attack the home with bradleys), they'd rise up and start shooting their husbands with their own weapons cache.

In Israel, where they claim to be lightyears ahead of the rest of the Middle East and "civilized," they seem no better in some places. We went through our own civil rights difficulties. If they want it, they'll fight for it. If they don't, then they'll just complain about it.

[burniegoeasily]

ORIGINAL: Charlie P

how do you see that? It looks like they want everyone to do as the command.

RULING THIS WEEK
Israel's High Court is expected to rule this week on a petition by a group of women who want the government and public bus companies either to stop the "mehadrin" lines or to provide alternative buses on those routes.

This is what I was speaking of. The women are speaking out and even got the High Court to listen. What will come from it, who knows, but at least the process of change is getting started. And some where it was started, because the article states that the system was voluntary, meaning they have gone one step away from Mosaic law.

[burniegoeasily]

ORIGINAL: huntingirl89

Then men can't control themselves and the women continue to deal with it. The women continue to hide out and take care of their men in Iraq and Afghanistan while the men use their own homes to shoot American forces and their own children to hide behind. If the women really wanted change, (they have nothing to lose, either their husbands kill them or we do when we attack the home with bradleys), they'd rise up and start shooting their husbands with their own weapons cache.

In Israel, where they claim to be lightyears ahead of the rest of the Middle East and "civilized," they seem no better in some places. We went through our own civil rights difficulties. If they want it, they'll fight for it. If they don't, then they'll just complain about it.

The women are damned if you do, damned if you dont; i agree. But the Jewish womens life is protected. Muslim law states that a man can kill his wife for simply getting sick of her or any of the many reasonsMohammad states. Muslims look up on a women as nothing more than chattle and a baby making machine.A women doenst even have the right to discipline a male child.Not quite the same as what the Jews are doing. But I will not denie that American Womenare much more liberated and have way more rights than any women in the MiddleEast.

[burniegoeasily]

ORIGINAL: Lanse couche couche

The conservative folks there can be harsh at times. But, if the Israelis were as bad as some of their muslim neighbors, there would be no Syria or Lebanon, justthousands ofmiles of empty desert and mass graves.

Great point.