Volume 53 Number 39
Produced: Tue Dec 26 7:09:33 EST 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Bus Conflict
[David Curwin]
Bussing
[Yisrael Medad]
Segregated Buses (6)
[Avi Feldblum, Orrin Tilevitz, Ed Greenberg, Janice Gelb, Bill
Coleman, Abbi Adest]
Women, Men on Buses
[Leah Sarah Reingold Gordon]
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From: David Curwin <tobyndave@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:57:57 +0200
Subject: Bus Conflict
While the abusive behavior towards the bus passenger has been framed
here in terms of gender conflict/ abuse, I think there is a bigger issue
here. There seems to me to be a very dangerous approach in much of the
Charedi world in Israel - that there are simply no external rules. For
centuries, we've had the principles of "pray for the welfare of the
government" and "the law of the land is the law". And now, ironically
and sadly, in our own land there are those who claim to follow the Torah
and yet say that these principles don't apply here. And in fact, if
someone does follow them, they are looked down upon. This danger of this
vacuum was seen by our Sages who said this would lead to people "eating
each other alive".
The RAN went so far to say that civil law can and should uproot Torah
concepts like two witnesses. (I discussed this point here:
http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v50/mj_v50i72.html#CQX )
But it seems here that the opposite is true - once civil law ( derech
eretz?) is ignored, then it isn't too far for Torah law to be ignored as
well, as was clearly done on the bus.
The truth is that I was concerned that the Religious Zionist community
was heading in the same direction after the withdrawal from Gush Katif.
People stopped saying the prayer for the State, said that the laws of a
country that would do this didn't apply, etc. But I think we saw that
during the war last summer that the education toward respect of the laws
of the state over the course of 50 years had paid off - there were very
few soldiers or those in the reserves who didn't answer their call to
duty.
David Curwin
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From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:34:22 +0200
Subject: Bussing
Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
made a Freudian slip there in writing: Subject: Bussing Women
To buss, is to kiss in a very passionate fashion.
See:
Kissing and bussing differ both in this,
We busse our wantons, but our wives we kisse.
Robert Herrick, "Hesperides," 1648
Yisrael Medad
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From: Avi Feldblum <feldblum@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006
Subject: Segregated Buses
A few points and a request for additional information. There is clearly
some mis-information on this topic, so I would like to state what I
understand to be the background for some of this discussion. The Egged
bus system has some number of buses where there is gender separation on
the bus. They are commenly refered to as "Mehadrin" lines. The first
Mehadrin line was started about 4 years ago, and there are currently
at least 24 such lines. Egged also states that the bus drivers are not
responsible for inforcing / implementing the gender segregation. This
information is fairly easily available on line.
The bus under discussion was NOT a mehadrin line, although there had
been petitions to make it a mehadrin line. A formal complaint to Egged
has been filed by the woman who was assaulted, along with a request that
mehadrin status be denied for that line as the privilage of mehadrin has
been nullified by the actions and inactions of the men on the line.
The woman was back on the bus at her makom kavuah (regular seat) the
following Sunday and the five men involved in the incident were all
absent. No one asked her to move to the back of the bus.
I think it is clear that the rules in Israel are different than what I
think would be allowed in the US. There are "mehadrin" lines which are
part of Eggad, as opposed to totally private lines, which exist in both
the US and Israel as segregated bus lines. There is a clear petition
process, as I understand it, to show that the majority request the line
be made mehadrin, and then it needs to be approved by Eggad. As this has
been true for over four years, does anyone know what the legal status of
this is. I would suspect that it would not be allowed in the US, but
that does not mean that it is in any violation of Israeli law. Anyone on
the list with additional information?
Avi Feldblum
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From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:53:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Segregated Buses
Daniel Wells writes:
<Simply put, in an halachik environment (an for that matter in any
judicial system), no person has an absolute right to freedom of action
or speech.>
First, a point of information. According to a random article I pulled up
on Google, at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/17/wkosh17.xml
"Egged, the national bus company, has recently begun to segregate buses
by gender on certain routes so as not to offend the strict sensibilities
of the religious community" to predictable reaction from the Reform
community. But my information is that this is nothing new; there were
segregated buses in the charedi neighborhoods of Jerusalem over 20 years
ago; my wife tells me that she walked to avoid them.
Second, Israel is not a "halachik environment". Except in areas of
personal status, e.g., marriage, its governing law is statutory, as
enacted by the Knesset (or, for that matter, English and Turkish laws
that remain on the books). I do not know what legal power Egged has to
enforce sex segregation--or any rules, for that matter--but whatever it
is, it is not because of halacha.
Third, Daniel has somewhat of a point; in no legal system is there an
inherent right to freedom of speech--or any freedom for that matter,
including the freedom to live. In Germany during the Second World War,
Jews had no such right under law. What gives us these freedoms in the
U.S. is our Constitution. I believe Israel has no constitution, but it
does have laws. While the Knesset could, I would guess, mandate--or
permit--sex segregation on buses, I don't believe it has done so. The
question in Israeli court--and according to some blogs I found, that's
where this issue is going--would be whether Egged's actions are legal.
I would be shocked if the Israeli supreme court held that they
were--wholly aside from how I feel about the propriety of the actions..
Fourth, Daniel says that "women are requested to sit at the back out of
concerns for modesty". Even if that is the reason, if there must be sex
segregation, why not side-by-side, or why not have some buses with women
in the front? If women are continued to be shunted to the back of the
bus and the state does not intervene to stop it, it would certainly look
like Jimmy Carter has a point of sorts: a portion of Israel is an
apartheid society--between men and women. And even if there is some
halachic argument for segregated seating, it is a legitimate question
whether charedim ought to be pushing this particular issue given how bad
such a thing looks, and given that Israel is already walking around with
a big bullseye on its forehead in European public opinion. One would
hope that gedolim would be focusing on just this sort of issue.
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From: Ed Greenberg <edg@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 13:33:14 -0800
Subject: Re: Segregated Buses
> The case of Mary Parks as a black, being forced to sit at the back of
> the bus was racially motivated unlike todays modern religious women who
> are requested to sit at the back out of concerns for modesty
Perhaps that those who want to limit their exposure to outside
influences should sit in the back of the bus?
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From: Janice Gelb <j_gelb@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 13:22:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Segregated Buses
Daniel Wells <wells@...> wrote:
> 'public seat' means a seat available for a person who abides by the
> rules of the carrier. It does not mean that carrier has to transport a
> person who say is drunk. And if the carrier, or the community, makes a
> particular rule such as separate seating on a particular route, then you
> don't have a right to sit where you want.
>
> Simply put, in an halachik environment (an for that matter in any
> judicial system), no person has an absolute right to freedom of action
> or speech.
>
> The case of Mary Parks as a black, being forced to sit at the back of
> the bus was racially motivated unlike todays modern religious women who
> are requested to sit at the back out of concerns for modesty
If the buses in question are publicly funded by the taxes of all
citizens, then they should be equally accessible to all citizens. The
reason behind segregated seating -- whether racism or tzniut -- is not
relevant. The result is the same: some patrons imposing their view of
the world on other patrons even though both sets of patrons have equal
"ownership" rights in the service.
If the charedi community wants separate seating on buses, they should
fund a private set of buses for their community. Then and only then
would they be the "carrier" with a legitimate right to impose rules of
carriage on their customers.
-- Janice
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From: Bill Coleman <wbcoleman@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 12:07:18 -0500
Subject: Re: Segregated Buses
The bus in question was not a mehadrin bus. Egged had no rule for
separate seating on this bus. The passengers acted on their own, unlike
the case of Rosa Parks in which the bus driver enforced a policy of
racial segregation.
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From: Abbi Adest <abbi.adest@...>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:10:14 +0200
Subject: Re: Segregated Buses
I have to disagree strongly with Daniel Wells. Though Egged is a private
company, the state allows the company to hold the transport monopoly in
many cities as long as they serve the public (i.e . majority)
good. Since far from 100% of the women or men of Jerusalem hold by
chareidi norms of modesty, your point that bus segregation in Jerusalem
differs from the segregated South holds little to no water.
If the charedim want to start their own private transport company to
serve their modesty needs, they are certainly welcome to do so and make
as many rules as they like. Until then, it's simply illegal and
discriminatory to "request" others to sit at the bus for modesty or any
other purposes. It's just a matter of time before someone brings the
matter before the Supreme Court and I hope it's sooner rather than
later.
"Simply put, in an halachik environment (an for that matter in any
judicial system), no person has an absolute right to freedom of action
or speech."
Last time I checked, neither the state of Israel nor the Egged bus
company are halachik environments.
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From: <leah@...> (Leah Sarah Reingold Gordon)
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 09:59:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Women, Men on Buses
In answer to two recent posts on the charedi men who beat up a woman for
sitting in the "wrong" bus seat:
> From: Russell Jay Hendel <rjhendel@...>
>.....
> Perhaps a similar approach to lack of modesty would be for Charedi people
> to carry around packages of long black scarfs. They could then place the
> scarfs over the exposed parts of any woman provoking them OR they could
> use the scarfs to veil the faces of people sitting in the wrong sections
> of busses. There is no prohibition of giving people gifts (The recipient
> has the right to reject the gift). By doing this they would be
> "responding in kind" to provocations of their beliefs. While my proposal
> might sound "amusing" to some, at the very least, there would be no
> descecration of Gods name. (My point in bringing in the bread crumb story
> was to show the efficacy of "responding in kind")
Are you joking? The only appropriate use of such scarfs would be over
the eyes of these men. If any man (or woman) dared to give me a garment
to cover some "offensive" part of my body, they would have another think
coming, along the lines of Mr. Silbermann's usual comments. It would be
a form of physical assault to "place the scarfs over the exposed parts
of any woman provoking them" let alone "veil the faces"....
> From: Daniel Wells <wells@...>
>...
> 'public seat' means a seat available for a person who abides by the
> rules of the carrier. It does not mean that carrier has to transport a
> person who say is drunk. And if the carrier, or the community, makes a
> particular rule such as separate seating on a particular route, then you
> don't have a right to sit where you want.
This is not relevant, since the owner-company and the municipal
governing authorities had not restricted the passenger's right to sit
where she chose. A fellow passenger certainly does not have the right
to make such a restriction, even if that fellow passenger has a Y
chromosome and a black hat, or the backing of his friends.
> Simply put, in an halachik environment (an for that matter in any
> judicial system), no person has an absolute right to freedom of action
> or speech.
>
> The case of Mary Parks as a black, being forced to sit at the back of
> the bus was racially motivated unlike todays modern religious women who
> are requested to sit at the back out of concerns for modesty
I'm not sure if you mean "Rosa" Parks or if there is another case with
which I am unfamiliar. But in any case, this is a mind-boggling
statement. "Concerns for modesty"?? If they are so concerned, take a
darned taxicab. And don't think that the "sit at the back" racist laws
weren't defended with all kinds of "appropriate" or "modesty" defenses.
I find it appalling that you would defend anyone's being "requested to
sit at the back" of a public conveyance based on the type of person that
one is born to be. Whether based on race, sex, or any other
characteristic.
If a person is going to be so sensitive to seeing normal humans in the
course of their day (e.g. women or men dressed in everyday clothing on
the public bus, and for that matter, people of all colors, ages, shapes,
and sizes) then it is that overly-sensitive person who bears the onus of
finding an alternative. Like reading a book. Or wearing dark
sunglasses. Or not taking the bus.
--Leah Sarah Reingold Gordon
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End of Volume 53 Issue 39
