Posted on 12/18/2006 7:53:38 PM PST by US admirer
A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses. Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers. In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women...
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
They're so macho with their Santa Claus beards and funny hats. No wonder they want the ladies in the back.
If you read the story, there's quite a lot of provocation on both sides, and it's not really clear who was at fault. This woman knew what the local custom was, because she had repeatedly been informed of it, but she deliberately violated it, apparently for a period of weeks.
Finally, she got into a fight with someone over it. Who started the fight, and who was most responsible for it turning physical, seems to me to be a matter of "he said, she said." I don't find this woman's account necessarily trustworthy. She seems to be the kind of person who does whatever she wants, and the hell with anyone else.
She admits to cursing and spitting at the man, although she accuses him of spitting at her first, which may or may not be true. She admits to kicking one of the men in his privates. Also, according to the story, many of the people on the bus thought that she was crazy, which may explain why a group of people tried to restrain her from hitting and kicking them.
Sorry, but I don't think this account justifies the kind of insults I see here toward anyone who wears traditional Jewish costume.
....so sue already!...It's a jewish tradition!
The above is an article talking about the Natorei Karta, the clowns that appeared at the Holocaust Conference in Iran. These Natorei Karta are Haredi extremists. Haredi at most have a reluctant acceptance of Zionism and Natorei Karta have none at all. The Haredi accept the benefits and protection of the society without adding to it much in the IDF. I hope the authorities land on these Haredi thugs with both feet.
And you think a local custom that tells women where to sit on a public bus is OK?
It's not a question of women being inferior, I don't believe. It's a matter of modesty, men and women not sitting next to strangers in public. Certainly women seem to play a stronger role in traditional Judaism than in most other traditional world religions.
I would assume that if a man sat in the woman's section, he would also be asked to move. Yes, it sounds like Jim Crow, sitting in the back of the bus, but Jim Crow involved clear discrimination against blacks, and that isn't the intention here.
I gather from the story that this bus takes religious visitors to one of Judaism's holy places for prayers, so it seems appropriate enough to honor the religious customs of the people who make daily use of it.
If I went into a mosque for some reason (I never have, and probably never will), I would recognize the need to remove my shoes, even though I don't think Allah is really God. In the case of religious Jews, I would respect their beliefs and customs as well, and in their case I think they worship the same God I do.
Don't worry about it.
The Jew haters will be here in a second, or less ...
Men attacking a woman.....their mothers must be proud.
A public bus is not the same thing as a mosque or a synogogue.
Lovely. With infidels like this, who needs muzzies?
Maybe the Haredi should buy some buses and run their own private Haredi bus line. They'd have every right to run those buses the way they wanted.
Disdain of women seems to be a commonality with backwards culture. Mid East, Ancient (and some times modern Japan), Meso-American culture, and now the extremist Jews.
Yeah, and it's just a woman here- no worries.
"They're so macho with their Santa Claus beards and funny hats"
Christians have all kind of traditions that I find extremely strange, including: vows of chastity, belief in a virgin birth, eating the flesh of their god and drinking his blood. How would you feel if I mocked those traditions?
And what do you consider macho? Getting drunk at the weekend or perhaps engaging in a little Jew-baiting?
"...so sue already!...It's a jewish tradition!"
Whilst mocking Jews and killing them is a very ancient Christian tradition.
You people have learned nothing from history. However much Jews contribute to the United States, many millions of individuals still do not see them as real Americans. No different in fact to how they were treated in many countries in Europe. And this kind of prejudice is rampant during a period of unparalleled prosperity. God alone knows how bad it would get during a very severe economic recession.
Thank you for reminding me just how important Israel is to the Jewish people.
Great Jewish traditions: being responsible for 40% of all large gifts to charity in the U.S, winning a large percentage of Nobel Prizes, building many of America's greatest businesses, providing many of America's greatest lawyers, doctors, writers, teachers and scientists.
"Disdain of women seems to be a commonality with backwards culture"
And extremist Christians are the salt of the earth?
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