Gender-separation on Jerusalem buses (Re: Haredim beat woman on bus (Israel))

cindys wrote:
"Eliyahu" <lrooff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1193608997.654700.253000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Oct 28, 9:05 am, "cindys" <cste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"J J Levin" <jjle...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:xO2Vi.192$vI3.151@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"cindys" <cste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
If she were so worried about being attacked, she should have sat in the
women's section or picked one of the non-segregated buses. And she
didn't have any business putting the soldier in the middle of the
situation, but if he had a half a brain, he would have told her to
abide by the rules or get off the bus.
Sure. Now the soldier is at fault. Everyone is at fault in your view
except the haredim.
-------
That's just the point. "The haredim" are not at fault. The perpetrators are
at fault. When a black teenager in the USA beats up an old lady, do you
immediately start insisting that "blacks" are at fault? In the world of
political correctness, it seems that every person is responsible for his own
actions, except when the people involved are religious Jews. All it takes
is a couple of violent thugs in black hats, and suddenly it's not the thugs
who committed the crime but rather "the haredim" who committed the crime, as
if the will of the entire chareidi population of Israel is reflected in the
actions of a couple of teenaged hoodlums who beat up a woman on a bus. I'm
sure you will also agree that the will of the entire black population of the
USA is reflected in black teenagers who commit violent crimes in alleys,
right ?

There's been something in this discussion that just didn't sound right
to me, and I finally realized what it is... When we speak of thugs
here in the US, Europe, and just about everywhere else, we're talking
about people who engage in anti-social behavior for very few reasons.
Usually, it's for personal gain, flaunting their rejection of
society's values, and stuff like that. Here, what we apparently have
are groups of young men who rebel against their religious community by
trying to force people to be more religious or more observant. That
just doesn't make sense to me.

There are bad eggs in every crowd. What my overwhelming objection has been regarding attitudes toward the perpetrators (at least in the Miriam Shear incident) was the insistence by certain members of this newsgroup that they were not acting on their own but rather their behavior was somehow being endorsed or encouraged by their rabbis or the chareidi community.

BTW, how do we know that they're teenagers and not older men?

I believe some of the Israeli posters have stated in the past that the individuals are teenagers or at least young rebellious men. Older men are not going to have the speed or agility to jump off the bus, run through the crowd, evade the police etc. Nor do I envision that an older man would get his jollies from slashing the tires of police cars (at least not in the USA). In Israel, maybe it's different, but I doubt it.

I
didn't see anything in the article that gave their ages. I also
didn't see anything about the woman involved -- her age, background,
reason for riding the bus, etc.. Without any of that info, it looks
like we're making a lot of assumptions about everyone involved.

All I know is like I said before: There is a basic issue here, and the issue IMO is about the legitimacy of the Mehadrin buses themselves. If they are privately chartered and specially designated as gender segregated buses, then a woman does not have any business getting on the bus and sitting in the men's section, and the bus driver should direct her to the women's section or tell her she needs to get off the bus. And this is assuming that no one would hassle her and no violence would ensue. If the charedim are in fact paying for the buses, they are entitled to dictate the seating arrangments. If OTOH, this is really a public bus, then there should never be any gender segregated seating, and measures needed to be taken (such as a police presence if necessary) to ensure that people can sit wherever they want without being harassed.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.

Perhaps one of our Israeli members could find something in the local
news there?

Eliyahu



1) I do believe I did hear one of these young hoodlums (outerly-Hareidi, but idle and innerly anything BUT Hareidi, youth) actually say that his rebbeim (rabbis who are his teachers) directed him to burn garbage dumpsters in protest of one thing or another. I cannot believe that the moron(s?) who set fire to a private vehicle in Kikar HaShabbat in Geula last year did so under any rabbi's direction.

I have so far not heard anything in relation to any such "direction" to beat someone up for sitting in the "inappropriate" section of a "mehadrin" bus. I hope and pray such never will be the case.

2) To the best of my knowledge, "mehadrin" buses are public Egged-owned buses, subsidized to some extent or other by public tax monies. Egged and the Hareidi leaders reached some sort of agreement, economic from Egged's side, to designate certain bus lines as "mehadrin" (to keep the Hareidim from going into competition with them by employing their own buses).

Many other bus lines that pass through Hareidi neighborhoods,
are *almost* gender-segregated in that most men do not want to go out of their way to make Hareidi women uncomfortable by sitting next to them,
and many (though fewer) women feel the same way about deliberately making Hareidi men uncomfortable. When the non-"mehadrin" buses are very crowded, and in those lines that pass through Hareidi neighborhoods they often are, non-Hareidim tend to sit anywhere they wish, and except for the lone Hareidi man or woman (usually girl) who gets up when a member of the opposite sex sits next to them, mostly there is no fuss made by anyone.

Personally, if I'm in hurry and the next bus that will get me to my destination is "mehadrin," I'll get on and sit in the "men's" section, or stand, and not make a fuss about it.

3) As far as media coverage goes, one reads about this only in media that already have an ANTI-Hareidi agenda. The National-Religious press is largely silent on this issue. (I do not read the Hareidi papers at all) One does NOT hear about such incidents on the radio, even though the radio is leftist-leaning if not -controlled.

BTW, it is the National-Religious sector, rather than the Hareidim, who
are most hated by the ruling post-Zionists and their secularist supporters. This is especially true in the twelve years following
the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, apparently by the outerly-religious-appearing Yigal Amir, though we won't be absolutely certain of that unless and until the full medical record is made public.

Hope this helps,

Yaakov K. in Yerushalayim
.

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