NPR has a story about the writer Naomi Regev riding public transportation in Jerusalem:
Writer Naomi Ragen says she did not want to start a revolution from her bus seat or become the Jewish Rosa Parks. She just wanted to get home. An observant, Orthodox Jew, Ragen was on the No. 40 bus line, headed to her house near Jerusalem, when an ultra-Orthodox — or Haredi — man told her to move to the back.
“I was astonished,” Ragen recalled. “And I said ‘I’m not bothering anyone. You don’t have to look at me, sit next to me — but as long as this is a public bus, I will sit where I please, thank you very much.’”
Ragen says the harassment grew worse at every stop. Soon an even more aggressive, bearded ultra-Orthodox man got on and commanded her to move. He weighed about 300 pounds and hovered over her like a sumo wrestler, she says, his long, black frock and wide hat in her face.
“And he started screaming and yelling,” she said, telling her to “move to the back of the bus — or else.”
“My reaction to that was I looked him in the eye and said ‘Look, you show me in the code of Jewish law where it’s written that I’m not allowed to sit in this seat and I’ll move,’” Ragen said. “‘Until then, get out of my face!’”
Ragen may have been the Haredi’s worst target: The feisty 57-year-old New York-born novelist and feminist has signed on to a new legal challenge to the de facto gender-segregation on more than 30 public bus lines in Israel, and the restrictions randomly enforced by men and self-styled “modesty patrols.”
“I call this the Taliban lines,” Ragen said. “They can call it whatever they want. But that, to me, is what they are. They’re the Taliban lines and there’s no reason we should have them in Israel. I think it’s important that women have taken a stand and gone to the Supreme Court with this and said, ‘We’re angry and we’re not going to take it anymore.’”
Ten years ago, as part of a pilot project, two bus lines dedicated to the ultra-Orthodox community were launched.
Today — unofficially — there are more than 30 gender-segregated Haredi bus routes. In many cases these buses are half the price and the only lines running between some cities and neighborhoods. They look like every other public bus: There are no signs telegraphing that they’re aimed at the ultra Orthodox.
The full story is at NPR. The story illustrates the tensions, apparently increasing, between Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews and non-Haredi, even modern Orthodox, Jews within the State of Israel.
