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Edited on Mon Feb-12-07 09:59 PM by calzone
...."all fundie religions everywhere do it" to "It's just an extreme minority, all men."
Neither is accurate. The issue deserves closer attention. Not all fundamentalist religions segregate sexes and think it's OK to enforce the segregation by public beatings.
"Though not defined by Egged as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom."
The participants in the segregation and the beating weren't a "few nutcases", it was the majority of the riders on the bus.
"At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me.
Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a "stupid American with no sechel People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong."
Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in the back."
So this wasn't a few isolated crazies, this was an entire segment of society, who apparently also harbor anti-American hate.
Also, it looks like the Heredi, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, aren't some small, marginalized cult...
"From a small group of just four members in the 1977 Knesset, they gradually increased the number of seats they hold to 22 (out of 120) in 1999. In effect, they controlled the balance of power between the country's two major parties.
Known as the "status quo," it granted political authority (such as control over public institutions, the army, etc.) to the Zionists and religious authority (such as control over marriage, divorce, conversions, etc.) to the Orthodox. A compromise worked out by Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson even before statehood ensured that public institutions accommodate the Orthodox by observing the Sabbath and providing kosher food.
In recent years, there has been a process of reconciliation and a merging of Haredi Jews with Israeli society. While not compromising on religious issues and their strict code of life, Haredi Jews have become more open to the secular Israeli culture. Haredi Jews, such as satirist Kobi Arieli, publicist Sehara Blau and politician Israel Eichler write regularly to leading Israeli newspapers. Another important factor in the reconciliation process has been the activity of ZAKA - a voluntary rescue organization which provides emergency first response medical attention at suicide bombing scenes and rescues human remains found there to provide proper burial. Another important Haredi insititution of charity is Yad Sara, established by Uri Lupolianski (mayor of Jerusalem from 2003) in 1977. Yad Sara, the only Israeli institution of its kind, provides patients and the handicapped with medical equipment (such as wheelchairs) on loan for free, and it is open to all Israelis. Religious Zionists, mainly from the National Religious Party and publicly-involved Haredi Jews are trying to bridge the gaps between secular Jews and Haredi Jews."
{Wiki)
So this is a group that's part of the government and the society as a whole. It's pervasive.
They even have great power over public life.
"About 30 Egged (the leading public transport in Israel) buses are designated as mehadrin (ultra kosher), mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate this."
Imagine this in the U.S.. Seventh Day Adventists or Pentecostal Christians running public transport and making women sit in the back (and assaulting them when they balk), sitting in Congress making legislation...a stark sign of at least a semi-theocracy rather than a democracy.
We have a separation of church and state in the U.S..
In most Arab countries, women have all the rights that men do. You can cherry pick exceptions such as S.A. where women aren't yet allowed to drive, or the Taliban, a landless sect and an aberration among Muslim countries, not well thought of or legal outside their limited sphere of influence, but the fact remains that I've never heard of women being forced to sit in the back of a public bus in Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Pre-invasion Iraq, Iran, America, etc..
I think this incident is more revealing than some would admit.
At least it's going to the courts, and I've read the Israeli supreme court aren't sympathetic to the Orthodox Jews.
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