Someone posted this on another post so I decided to repost it, because I love some good old propaganda. II’m not surewhether the story is true or not, but I found it pretty entertaining so why not? I love how women trying to sit on the front of a bus are considered activists in this day and age.
The 350 Mehadrin bus[1] from Bnei Brak to Ashdod is normally jammed, but at 3 PM more than half the seats were still vacant. Four young women in slacks, obviously not from the Haredi[2] or religious neighborhoods along the route, boarded the bus at the stop adjacent to the Coca Cola factory in Bnei Brak. Rather than moving to the rear of the bus, they sat down demonstratively in the front two rows seats on the right side of the bus. Some of the male passengers were baffled; two others decided to get off the bus. A Breslever Chassid, sitting across the young ladies on the left side of the bus, simply closed his eyes and smiled. This was not a reaction that the headline-seeking heroines were looking for, having so boldly entered the mobile Haredi lion’s den.
No one yelled at the fearless four, women’s-rights or democracy activists in their late twenties. No one even spoke to them. There was nothing to document on their cell-phone videos. What a waste! Well, at least they might be able to take a nice walk on the beach in Ashdod…
If there’s no news, then make the news! One of the young woman got out of her seat (while the three others were poised with their cell-phone video cameras, waiting to pounce on the action they hoped would come) and stood next to the Breslever, whose toothy smile would have done justice to any Crest or Colgate commercial.
“Hey, why can’t you look at me?” the young lady asked abrasively, obviously itching for a conflict.
“Do you want your husband looking at other young women?” the Breslever responded.
“I’m not married,” she said.
“I bless you that you should find your soul-mate this year!”
The activist wasn’t ready for this turn in the conversation. She needed to steer things differently. “What are you so happy about with that imbecilic grin of yours?”
“In Torah 282 of Likutei Moharan, Rebbe Nachman teaches us to appreciate our good points and to be happy with every little mitzvah we do; and in Torah 17, first part, Rebbe Nachman says that the slightest good deed that a person does makes a tremendous impression in the upper spiritual realms…”
The activist was getting more and more impatient. This was not the action she was looking for, wasting half a day on a bus ride going someplace where she didn’t need to go. “So what,” she snapped.
“You asked me why I’m smiling. I’m answering you. I never thought that riding a Mehadrin bus was a big deal; I mean, it didn’t seem to be such a great mitzvah. But if the Yetzer Hara[3] is going to such lengths to bother me on this bus ride, then it must be really significant in shamayim that men and women don’t mix. This morning, when I was learning Tosefot on Baba Kama, the Yetzer wasn’t bothering me as much as he is now. Thank You, Hashem, for giving the mitzva of riding this bus.” With eyes shut, he turned at the activist and added, “and thank you, cherished sister, for adding to my rewards in the World to Come.”
The young lady’s antagonism was melting into frustration. She was obviously the ring-leader, and her three sisters-in-arms were eagerly awaiting to see how she’d react. Their game plan (or battle plan) to wave the flag of women’s rights on the Mehadrin bus didn’t anticipate a frontal confrontation with a Breslever…
“What do you people smoke that gets you so spaced out?” she chided.
“I’ll admit that I’m high, dearest sister, but that comes from tallit, tefillin, Torah, and an hour of talking to Hashem every day.”
“What’s with this ‘dearest’ and ‘cherished sister’ garbage?”
“You see,” explained the Breslever, “your soul and mine both are a tiny part of Godliness. We have the same Father; you don’t need a PhD in genealogy from Hebrew University to know that we’re brother and sister. Besides, the Torah says so explicitly…”
“Are you the real deal or are you just putting on a good show?”
“If I invite you and your girlfriends for Shabbat…,” meanwhile removing his kosher cellphone from his shirt pocket, about to dial his wife’s number, “will you come? When you taste Shabbat and my wife’s cooking, you’ll understand how much Hashem loves you, and so do we.”
Squirming and completely off guard, the activist snarled, “You’re wife is probably an illiterate cook and bottle washer pregnant with her twelfth – what would she and I have in common?”
The Breslever chuckled, “No, my wife is only pregnant with our eighth. But you’ll like her – she has a MBA in Finance from the University of Tel Aviv. Besides, she was a sergeant in the Artillery Corps of the IDF, an army medic and a training-base instructor in first aid. She even served in Lebanon for two months…”
“What?! Don’t tell me you were in the army too?”
“Yeh, I admit it. I was a tank commander. Then I did a degree in Communication from UTA. That’s where my wife and I met…”
All the stereotypes were crumbling. The four activists were disarmed. No fight, no arguments, no protests – only an invitation for Shabbat…
The activist tried one last effort. She sat down next to the Breslever. This will surely get his goat and make him lose his cool, she thought.
He still smiled, but a tear trickled down his cheek.
“Why are you crying?” she asked, jolted by this additional surprise. Her compassion was a sign of the Jewish soul that shined from deep within her.
“I’m not really the prude that you think. But I love my wife and want her face to be the only female image in my brain. You, dear sister, are a Bat Yisroel, a Jewish daughter. Every Bat Yisroel is beautiful. Please, I wouldn’t embarrass you by getting up. But I’m not a holy man – I wish I were. You’re really testing me. You are a moral young lady; would you steal something from a pregnant woman with seven children? By making me look at you, you’d be stealing some of my affection for my wife. I’m sure that’s not your intention.”
Gently, as if walking on eggs, the young lady stood up. “I’m so sorry,” she said, showing her true delicate and considerate inner self. “I never thought of it that way. Besides, if all the Haredim were like you, things would be different. Tell me, are you the ones that go to Uman every Rosh Hashana?”
“Yes, I’m one of them.”
“Are all of you this nice? I mean, you don’t try to act like Hashem’s cop.” She surprised herself by saying “Hashem”. Since when do such words come out of an ultra-liberal libertarian feminist’s mouth?
“I only try to police myself.” The bus arrived at the Breslever’s station in Ashdod’s Rova Gimel. The Breslever got up but added, “Let us know if you’re coming for Shabbat…”
Don’t encourage it Heshy. It’s the internet version of those little paper booklets.
“Actually it?s worse, because they are trying to make a kiddush hashem out of something that is a chillul hashem to begin with.”
Agree 100%. It’s perverted.
Don’t encourage it Heshy. It’s the internet version of those little paper booklets.
Actually it’s worse, because they are trying to make a kiddush hashem out of something that is a chillul hashem to begin with. The fact that these girls had to be “activists” to sit in any seat they wanted on a public bus in the year 2012 in a fully developed country is really a terrible thing and I just don’t understand how more people cannot see such things. Instead, these fucking assholes (I rarely use the F word on this blog) are still talking about the secular media over-blowing the Haredi assault on women and children in the supposed name of tznius.
Furthermore, you have everyone saying that gedolim are standing against violence, but what about standing against perversion of the Torah and Halacha by doing stupidity in the name of it.
Couldn’t have said it better.
“Actually it’s worse, because they are trying to make a kiddush hashem out of something that is a chillul hashem to begin with.”
Agree 100%. It’s perverted.
I love breast-lover chassidim.
I appreciate them too.
But yes, they are perverted.
What’s with the ethnic dating ads that show up here?
Wouldn’t there first reaction be “WTF is Likutey Mohoran?”
their
Yeah this is propaganda, however if I can imagine any chareidi behaving this way it would certainly be a Breslover…
The propaganda is a bit over the top, but still I nice story with good morals. If only it were true…
Well, that was delightfully stupid.
I’ve sometimes considered sitting in the front of a mehadrin bus (I have family in both Boro Park and Williamsburg, so I have, on two occasions so far, used a mehadrin bus to legitimately get from place to place), and if I were to do it and nobody bothered me, I would consider that a major victory.
I’ve considered it too, because I live in Boro Park. Additionally, I was in a car accident, and until recently needed a knee brace to get around (disabled passengers are supposed to get first dibs on front seats.)
Sarah: Why don’t you tell us exactly why you’d like to purposely bother people who are minding their own business on their own blazing bus, and trying to follow their religion as they understand it?
(Don’t feed me BS about public bussing; the williamsburg bus was created by them, for them- it only existed for that purpose.)
If you want to make a feminist statement, go have an abortion.
Funny clip on feminism, gets even funnier around the 2 minute mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oftOCN1jkNo
If you want separate seating, put the separation down the middle, like the Monsey Trails bus. Back of the bus has degrading connotations (think Alabama, circa 1955). Besides, disabled and pregnant women should not have to walk to the back of the bus.
Back of the bus only has degrading connotations in the American experience. Israelis did not have the American experience, and you can bet your friday night cholent that most of the chassidim in williamsburg don’t know Rosa Parks from Marilyn Monroe.
The South African courts have said that they do not draw precedent from the United State’s equal protection cases, because they don’t have the same experiences they are addressing. It is true, and it makes sense.
Please don’t tell me that your problem with this is that the front of the bus is better for pregnant women or something- we both know that is not why you are bothered by it. We can talk about the real issue.
If anything, the men should sit on the back of the bus, why the women – men are stronger and usually more able bodied than women who in the Charedi cases may often be pregnant or with infants. Do they make the male toddlers sit in the front of the bus.
the navi calls manoach (shimshon’s father) an “am haaretz” because he walked behind his wife.
Besides, the chareidi women are stronger. The men sit and learn all day and never exercise and smoke. The women work and take run after the kids and carry around kids in their arms and stomach and take care of the house and carry groceries….
Dan,
Men aren’t supposed to walk behind women. Nothing mentioned about sitting behind women in a bus.
I think the reasoning behind that rule has something to do with the guy checking out her curves as she’s doing the wiggling tush thing and getting him getting ideas, but don’t quote me on it.
Absolutely nothing against sitting on a mixed bus. Gender seperation is in effect during davening, due to men losing concentration, and during simchot, we’re it would be untznius for women to dance around in front of men.
If they are really worried about sitting next to each other, the can make one side for men and one for women, but I’m quite sure the liberal feminists would bitch about that as well.
1. manoach was walking behind his own wife. the issue there was not tznius.
2. I dunno about you, but if I’m sitting next to a good looking girl on a bus, I’m thinking about her the whole way. And I know that is totally assur. And you can bet your wife wouldn’t want you doing it neither.
Dan,
1) So if tznius wasn’t Manoachs issue, what was? Maras ayin maybe?
2) It wouldn’t change much if you were sitting on a bus and this bombshell babe walks by you to the back of the bus. You’d probably be looking in the driver’s rearview for the rest of the ride.
If anything, the women should ride up front. That way, you’ll probably have a bunch of hairy shtreimels blocking your view, and these f*ckin feminists will find something better to whine about.
1) I don’t think it was maris ayin either. I think it is because men are more chashuv than women inasmuch as they have the dominant role in the world. G-d created adom, and created chava to assist him. The reason for the world is adom- the reason for chava is “lo tov heyos haodom l’vado.
There I said it. And I haven’t been hiding it either- it is true. And that’s what my religion believes in. If you don’t like it- don’t be frum. But leave me–and my wife–the blazes alone.
And I don’t really understand it completely either. Deal with it.
2. Sounds good. Doesn’t really need to be a bombshell. I’ll look at the most attractive girl I can see, but it has to be pretty bad before I’ll look at the chassid next to me instead.
Maybe you should control YOURSELF and your own thoughts, instead of controlling other people.
Whose controlling other people?
We aren’t talking about the beit shemesh lunatics.
We’re talking about regular chareidim who would like to have a separate seating option for buses in their neighborhoods. So they negotiated with egged to provide some buses that would be separate seating.
Both them men and the women on those buses want to sit separately. The women also don’t want their husbands thinking about someone else while they’re fat and pregnant.
Wait a second… wouldn’t you prefer to sit next to women, then? You’d get to stare at them more.
Yes, I would.
But, back in the days when I used to try to keep halacha, I preferred not to. In fact, I have come across not one person on the internet who has said that he does try to keep halacha, and still does not understand why they would have separate seating.
Dan,
There you go again, making it sound as if separate bus sitting is actually halacha.
Since you claim to have smicha, I would love to see a VALID, ACCEPTABLE source for this so called halacha.
I don’t think I am misrepresenting, but I will make it explicit:
I am not aware that sitting separately is halacha. It is a chumrah.
However, not looking at women who are prohibited to you for sxual gratification is halacha.
Not thinking about women who are prohibited to you for sxual gratification is halacha.
Know what, Dan? You’re kind and tempered words have so inspired me to become even more religious. So much so, that I’ve decided to start practicing the mitzvah of tefillin every morning!! And think, it’s all because of you!
You’re responding to the abortion line? Yeah, it was a good one.
You think I care to inspire anyone to be more religious? Blazes, if I could be happy not religious, I’d be there in a New York second.
I don’t post here to make people more religious. I post here to make fun of all you bigots and closed minded ignoramouses. I know what I’m being cynical about, and what I can’t make fun of- but the posters I make fun of are just ignorant and bigoted.
I read the forum, because I like the cynicism. I don’t like the recent “failed messiah” type posts, but I’ll survive. I survived 10 years in yeshiva, I can survive this too.
Oh, haha! I just realized, I missed your whole joke. You said you’d start wearing tefillin 🙂 I love it!
I’m thinking of painting them pink too…
There is a girl where I daven who wears a tallis and teffilin.
So the first time I noticed, I had this question:
I get the teffilin, she wants to show she is equal to me. But why the tallis? She isn’t married! I don’t wear a tallis!
Dan,
Time for you to get married, maybe you’ll come to realize that sitting on a bus isn’t that er*tic after all 😉
Heh heh 🙂
If they want it to be there own bus, they can pay for it, and not have the government pay for it. Also, sometimes other perople DO use it, such as myself and AztecQueen.
By the way, I would not sit directly next to one of them, I would leave a spacious, and I would be dressed tznius. They do not have to look at me. Know why? Because they are men, not animals, and should be controlling their own sexual desires. It is not my responsibility.
Heshy, do you know anything about Women of the Wall?
Sarah,
You may want to search some of the older blog posts…
Just another example of women exercising their religious freedom and everyone making a shitstorm for nothing.
Sure. They’re not doing it to make a statement at all. Why would you misrepresent it like that?
Say you agree with their statement, but don’t pretend they just went to do their own thing and were surprised to find that it bothered someone.
So worshipping as if they were human beings is “making a statement”. Dressing up like a Jew-hating Polack aristocrat isnt’.
I see Toireh does nothing to stop hypocrisy.
Of course the chassidishe dress is making a statement. Whoever said it wasn’t.
Also, you are ignorant. There was a “jewish dress” which was worn by jews for at least hundreds of years. The goyim banned it. The litvaks agreed to stop wearing it, but the chassidim would not stop. They eventually compromised by switching to the nobleman’s dress which was similar.
So, the canard that they are just wearing the polish noblemen’s dress is completely false.
I had thought you at least knew history.
Bahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhaha
I know a lot more about that then you, obviously. There wasn’t “a Jewish dress”. There were many regional styles of Jewish dress. Some were banned in some places. Even in Eastern Europe. some were not. The various Chassidic cult uniforms evolved in imitation of the dress of nobles from a bit away from home. It skirted the sumptuary laws and let the Chassids feel like nobility.
Most Jews didn’t dress like that. Most in most times dressed a lot like their neighbors except where anti- Semitic restrictions such as those of certain Italian ghettos forced them to dress differently. For the self-important insular pseudo-mystics nothing would do but to cosplay aristocrats.
If I may present a slightly different POV…perhaps this isn’t propaganda at all, in the sense that the writer is trying to spin the current issues in favor of the Charedim, but rather a presentation of how things should play out when these issues occur. Tolerance works both ways: I am MO, and wouldn’t want to be called a shiksa or worse by a Charedi man. But nor will I begrudge them their standards of modesty. When one tours Vatican City, they are advised to dress a certain way. Is it really so horrible to sit separately from men out of respect for another culture? In an ideal world, people will stop seeking out confrontations, and anyone who calls themselves Orthodox will behave as the man in the story above. The piece may be fiction, but it holds truth in that tolerance, patience, and calm go much further than anger and violence.
The problem is that some of these buses run through non-religious areas, where the residents may not appreciate the separate seating. The other problem is that separation can be achieved through other means, such as putting men on one side, and women on the other, rather than front to back.
Oh, are there not enough regular buses? Are these buses not clearly marked?
Most people would rather be able to take the first bus going in their direction, without having to worry about a “mehadrin” label.
And I would like all the checkout lines to not be “10 items or less.” Sometimes you cater to your customers, even if some other customers would like it the other way.
I don’t like when there are christmas decorations in Macy’s, but the christians apparently are a large enough customer base that macy’s does it. I have no problem with a customer base convincing a vendor to do things a certain way.
Even if the vendor is a public supplier of services. They are still customers, and still can ask for what they like. It doesn’t make them bad people to ask for they type of services they like.
Apparently, egged would rather have them as customers and perhaps lose a couple of customers who don’t like it. Especially since if they stopped taking the buses egged would have to cut down on those routes anyway.
I didn’t realize this was a private bus company. Somehow everything I had read before Dan’s comment was incorrectly saying it was a public bus.
Which one?
The Israeli buses are egged.
The williamsburg bus is run under some sort of charter, but is privately owned.
I don’t really see why it makes a difference if it is public or not. As long as you are not enforcing anything without permission from whoever owns it.
In the US, under federal precedent it might make a difference, but I don’t draw my morality from the US supreme court or constitution. (Except the 2nd amendment, obviously- that has the force of religion.)
If it’s a public bus, everyone’s tax dollars (except those who don’t pay taxes but instead learn all day) are going to pay for it. The equivalent of “catering to their customers,” as you put it, means catering to every taxpayer.
What if some Israelis in Tel Aviv don’t believe they should be on a bus with men whose heads are covered? Should men have to remove their black hats and yarmulkes in order to ride the public bus? What if some Israeli Jews decide that they can’t be seen with Muslims, and so the Muslims have to sit in the back of the bus?
I don’t draw my morality from domestic laws either. I draw it from Torah. I realize that other people draw their morality from different places, and I don’t try to impose my own morality on them via the government, and I appreciate when they refrain from doing the same to me.
This really is indefensible.
And then there’s always Heshy’s point that this isn’t really halakha.
Egged agreed to it. That was never the issue.
I don’t really get your argument that a publicly owned company should never accommodate anyone except by vote. If the moslems want to have minarets on the buses in East Jerusalem, I’m ok with that. (If they would ever let an egged bus service them.)
You draw your morality from the torah? Where do you draw your torah from?
Why don’t you ask whoever that is whether it is immoral for men and women to sit separately on a bus? Ask him whether that is Jim Crow segregation, or maybe just a chumrah that he happens not to hold of. Or you never know, maybe he holds of it.
I am a rabbi- I have smicha Yoreh Yadin; you can ask me. It is a chumrah that I am not sure I would hold of, but is not relevant what I hold because they aren’t asking me.
I only eat kosher food. I don’t ask the government to pay for my kosher food. I don’t ask the government to fund any of my religious practice in fact. Once that happens for one group, it either must happen for all (which is financially impractical) or you have a government that discriminates.
So you think egged shouldn’t have negotiated the deal with them. Because you are imagining that it is spending more tax money than otherwise.
1. Who says these lines are not profitable? I assume they are.
2. Who says they added any extra buses? Likely they just made some of the existing ones mehadrin.
3. Your complaint is against egged- not against the chareidim. They can ask for what they want.
4. I disagree with your system of government. I think the state should provide people what they need- not decide for them what is a need and what is not.
Besides, its the MO who go to the army who use up much more state resources with their demand for kosher food in the army. Why don’t they just pack lunch?
Dan,
I think it should make all the difference. Why should a public transit company put up with ridiculous chumras that aren’t even based in halacha?
I say, if these folk want gender seperated buses, let them run their own bus line, kind of like Monsey tours, etc.
Egged agreed to it. I don’t understand what you are asking.
Dan,
What I’m trying to say, is that I’m surprised that Egged would be stupid enough to accomodate a ridiculous request such as segregating Jews on buses for absolutely no valid reason.
If anything, they should be forbidding arabs from using the buses, after all, they have a pretty shitty track record blowing buses up.
Then again, they are an Israeli company, and Israel is notorious when it comes to bending over backwards for it’s enemies while crapping all over our own people. The Gaza pullout is a prime example.
Really? Why shouldn’t they accommodate their customers?
All the “mehadrin” buses were on chareidi routes, and they were marked.
I would accommodate the moslems if they wanted minarets on the buses in their neighborhoods. Or if they wanted some of the buses to be burqa only. I’m not a bigot- I’m willing to let the moslems practice their religion.
Also, I am still surprised that you cannot imagine there is a valid reason. You are a man, no?
You like girls, no?
You like to look at them, and imagine yourself touching them, no?
You agree all that is assur, no?
So why is it “ridiculous” and for “no valid reason”?
Dan,
A public bus that’s funded in parts by taxpayer dollars should not segregate it’s riders without a valid reason. They are paying into the system, as well as paying the bus fare.
Halacha doesn’t demand seperate seating on bus, otherwise frum Jews wouldn’t use public transit in the US or anywhere else. That is why I say “no valid reason”.
Don’t try to be frummer than halacha. According to the midrash, people that are appear frummer than halacha are typically the ones trying to hide something worse (Meam Loez brings a few examples). I know a few such people, and unfortunately, I know people that have been badly burned by them.
As for arabs that are a threat to Jews, why should they be allowed on the buses, much less to runs muslims only buses on Jewish taxpayers dollars?
Fine. So that is where we disagree.
We agree it is a chumrah, and that is why we are doing it.
We agree that we can understand someone who tries to keep halacha would want it.
You say that we shouldn’t do chumrahs and should only do what the halacha states.
I say I understand if people want to do chumros, even if I don’t do them.
Dan,
I have no problem with someone deciding to follow any chumra they want to.
I do have a problem with them effectively putting those chumros on others, especially if it involves the general public and it’s (publicly) tax funded transit system.
Imagine a secular Jewess, pregnant it the swealtering Israeli summer heat, barely dressed. She probably won’t want to get on the mehadrin bus, and be forced to wait for the next bus, which in theory, could be another mehadrin bus.
Not an ideal situation for her, nor her unborn baby, but brought about by a baseless chumra that has effectively been forced on her. So now she’s forced into dehydrating because some perv on the bus may not have the self control to keep his mind from wandering.
I see. So your objection is that perhaps some non-chareidi will be inconvenienced by having to wait for the next one, and maybe very inconvenienced.
Ok, I hear the objection. I will note that this objection is not related to men subjugating or denigrating women. It is a just a convenience objection.
I don’t think that is the objection anyone else has- they are all focusing on the issue of women’s rights. You are focusing on the issue of other community’s rights.
2. Why do you call them “pervs”? You haven’t denied that you look at women and think about them sxually- they do the same thing. No straight man would deny it. The only difference between you and them is that they follow halacha which requires you to not look at women sxually.
I am not just nitpicking you on the perv commment. This is very much the issue- that you are not willing to grant any legitimacy to their position just because you ultimately disagree with it.
I don’t know that I agree with their position either- but I can separate my objections from what I don’t object to, and understand their position.
I can understand your position also. You are afraid that what is really going on is that they are subjugating women. Maybe you care about their women, and maybe you don’t, but you are afraid it will spread to your women.
You are afraid that beit shemesh was really not a discrete minority, but had more general support. You are afraid that beit shemesh will come to your neighborhood.
You are bothered that they insinuate that your judaism is somehow flawed, when you are actually following halachas as best you can.
You are afraid that they will outnumber you soon in Israel, and impose their standards by force on everyone, like they do to some extent with marriage, divorce, and conversion.
I get it.
Have I ever tried to present something as what it was not? I’m not pulling a PR move here on you- I don’t live there, I’m not part of their community. As far as how I practice, I could not care less what you or anyone think of it.
Why am I hocking about it? This is what we talk about on this forum- on other forums I bicker about other stuff which is not relevant to me. It keeps me amused.
Dan,
I don’t live in Israel either, so I couldn’t care less if Egged wants to have Mehadrin buses. After all, it’s not my tax dollars that are paying, and I would have no trouble boarding one of those buses.
The reason I refer to these characters as pervs, is not because they are simply human and may have trouble controlling their thoughts.
The are perverting the halacha coming up with ridiculous chumros that are baseless. Gedolim & poskim have been travelling on mixed buses, trains and airplaines for the past 100 years, apparently not having any of these issues, or at least, not deeming them significant enough to warrant mechitzas on buses.
So if these characters have trouble controlling themselves while sitting on buses, I wonder what’s next.
Let me pre-empt these pervs with a new solution: All shtreimels wearing chassidim need to add opaque glasses to their “costumes”. That way, when they walk down the street, they won’t see any immodestly dressed women or billboards. All they need is a walking stick, and perhaps one of those dogs trained to lead blind people.
Maybe they can add little holograms of their wives on the inside of the lenses, to constantly remind them of who they should be thinking of, and when they come home / take off the shades, they’ll be ready to perform the first mitzvah in the Torah.
One very important point about the segregated buses in Israel has been overlooked. Originally the chareidim wanted to set up there own private bus lines for those that preferred gender separated buses that would transport them to and in chareidi areas.Egged got wind of this proposed idea and seeing that much revenue could be generated by this proposal persuaded the chareidi community to allow Egged to supply this service and of course this part of the alleged fight for Woman’s lib in Israel has been very conveniently been overlooked by the secular press Israel.
Why should a public company enforce anyone’s superstitions and primitive tabus?
A lot of Aryans aren’t comfortable sitting near filthy shylocks who reek of herring and subhuman nigra savages. We need White Only buses. Surely there are enough regular ones for the muds.
This comment is precisely the point. You should be able to and willing to understand, that that is not what is going on here.
I don’t think I am the closed minded one in this discussion.
In other news, have you all seen Dov Linzer’s Op-ed? I’m writing a letter to the editor, and going to totally make him look like a fool, which he is. Let’s see if it gets published.
Just wondering if these buses are standard city buses or if they are under some kind of special jurisdiction. I can’t imagine NYC transit buses allowing any for of segregation or gender separation, I’m guessing the Williamsburg buses belong to a private company. Is it the same in Israel?
The williamsburg buses were a private company, run under some sort of charter which allows you to run route like that. They were not MTA buses.
And they were shut down, since US law doesn’t allow any sort of discrimination in any public service that might have the possibility of impacting interstate commerce in any way- including that a person is less likely to travel to another state for business if he might have a hard time finding a hotel.
And they were not shut down. I rode one last week.
They were told they were not allowed to enforce their rule. I meant the rule was shut down.
Probably, it is still practiced by the passengers, if I had to guess.
Wish I’d encountered this guy, instead of the black-hatter who went out of his way to lower a shoulder and body-check me off the sidewalk in the Old City (while I was dressed absolutely in accordance with the standards of tznius).
Men who wish to maintain separation from women for sincere religious reasons have my sympathy and support… right up until they start insisting that therefore women must change their behavior, dress, which side of the street they walk on, etc. A man who is truly devoting his attention to controlling his own thoughts and emotions will not be swayed from that by the presence, dress, or actions of anyone else.
Agreed.
Except that I think you should also respect the women of their communities, who also want these standards.
And you should also respect their communities right to have whatever communal standards they want within their community, with anyone free to leave it if they wish, or not visit it.
I’m sorry you got body checked in the old city. Maybe it was his way of flirting. 🙂
The problem is that separation exists in the first place, fostering the idea that this is in some way halachic and making people think that those who do not abide by these made up rules are not religious enough and deserve to spat on, harassed and have rocks thrown at them. If you want to be holier than thou, don’t let it rain on other people who do not want to be. This is the chief argument against the religious right of America or anywhere else they want to enact religious based laws that offend or put down one part of the population. If you have a grocery store in mea shearim that wants to discriminate against women – that’s fine, because it’s a private establishment (in America there would be a boycott and the invisible hand will take care of them if it were in a neighborhood where non-religious people shopped there) In Israel, the streets belong to everyone, you can’t dictate how people walk through your town and saying something like “they incited them by dressing immodestly” is the same as saying a beautiful women incited someone to rape her.
Hesh, you don’t understand something about the article (by Rav Lazer Brody). He may be complaining about anti-charedi media there, but he HAS spoken out against the Bet Shemesh zealots, as have other people on the same website (breslev.co.il). Here’s Rav Brody speaking out against the violence:
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2011/12/time-for-the-99-to-be-heard.html
Also, Rav Brody later clarified (see the comments) that this is a composite of three stories, not one story. The point of the story is that he’s advocating being kind and friendly to secular people, not telling them what to do but just explaining their beliefs to them and smiling and being nice. Yes, he doesn’t believe in looking at other women. But he’s never advocated forcing that on the general public (as the zealots would).
In fact, in general Rav Brody is actually a great example of a moderate, non-extremist Charedi person. He collaborates a lot with modern Orthodox people (promoting programs at Bat Ayin, for example, and some Modern orthodox musicians), he always says nice things about Chabad and other Orthodox groups, his yeshivah (chut shel chessed) has many lectures where both men and women can attend, and the rosh yeshivah (Rav Shalom Arush) goes against the grain by telling all men they have to work and to let their wives have control over the finances. In fact, Rav Brody has gotten in trouble with some Orthodox groups for speaking at non-Orthodox shuls when he tours the U.S. See here:
http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/society/jewish_world/color_blind.aspx?id=20977&language=english
Also, you might like this — he encourages everyone to spend an hour in nature every day. And he doesn’t think one should spend all of one’s time with his head in a Gemara — he’s actually produced two albums of his own flute melodies.
You realize that Rabbi Brody is a BT? It’s not like he’s some guy from Mea She’arim who’s never met a Chiloni.
It’s also BS propaganda designed to push a hidden agenda.
99% of people wanting this are not educated BTs who have made a personal decision to increase their own holiness or whatever. They are a community living in the democratic State of Israel trying to bully their chumras through outside of the law.
And I know it’s not one side at fault and there’s a lot of the same sh*t going on from the non-religious side, but let’s call a spade a spade. This story is a lie and propaganda.
The purpose of the article is not to promote segregated buses, but to promote a more friendly and positive way of relating to the secular. Rav Brody (who wrote the article above in Heshy’s post, original link below) is not trying to impose anything on anybody — that’s not his approach. Even for the issue of women singing to religious IDF soldiers, his advice was just to ignore it, not to walk out and make a big deal about it.
http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/breslev/customs_and_thought/hashems_cop.aspx?id=21201&language=english
I highly recommend the op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times a couple of days ago entitled “Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud,” written by R. Dov Linzer, dean of YCT. Says everything I’ve wanted to say on this topic, but better and from an unimpeachably knowledgeable position.
It is the woman’s fault if she gets raped.
Awesome blog.Really thank you! Want more.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Heshy! It shows what religion can and should be.
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