result #112247 - MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ASSAULTED FOR NOT RIDING AT THE BACK OF PUBLIC BUSES

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result #112247 - MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ASSAULTED FOR NOT RIDING AT THE BACK OF PUBLIC BUSES

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MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ASSAULTED FOR NOT RIDING AT THE BACK OF PUBLIC BUSES

[+] serious ballot by cranky
ACTIVE Feb 13,2007 - Sun Nov 08, 09

A group of Israeli women are fighting back against what one called "Taliban-like" Jewish fundamentalists who order women to sit in the back of the bus and to abstain from wearing "immodest" clothing on public bus lines. The women have filed a lawsuit in Israel's high court aimed at reforming bus lines used primarily by ultra-Orthodox Jews. Some of the women see the bus dispute as part of a larger struggle against the growing influence and radicalization of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel.

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.'"

The lawsuit before Israel's high court alleges that several women have been harassed, humiliated, taunted and even physically assaulted on the buses. In December, a Canadian Orthodox Jew was on a non-Haredi bus line en route to the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, when she was assaulted by an ultra-Orthodox man for refusing to move to the back of the bus. She has signed on to the lawsuit.

"She was physically hurt; she was beaten very hard," said Orly Erez-Likhowski, an attorney with the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, who is leading the legal fight against the Ministry of Transportation and the Egged bus company, a quasi-private line heavily subsidized by the state.

* * * * * * * *

Is it appropriate for Westerners to be critical of Middle Easterners assaulting women for the "crime" of not riding at the back of public transportation, or because it is a different culture, is it innapropriate for us criticize?

Assaulting women and making them sit at the back of the bus is wrong.	7
It's a different culture, so we can't criticize	3

Ballot #112247: has 10 total votes.
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COMMENTS:
Voted : It's a different culture, so we can't criticize
Let's see how soon the "media" picks up on this story.

by _Beelzebubba on Tue Feb 13, 07 9:53am [+]

i did a ballot just like this ballot #110591

by Kev24 on Tue Feb 13, 07 10:30am [+]

sorry, that should be ballot #110519

by Kev24 on Tue Feb 13, 07 10:32am [+]

Ooops. Sorry about that, Kev. I forgot.

redface

by cranky on Tue Feb 13, 07 11:02am [+]

Voted : Assaulting women and making them sit at the back of the bus is wrong.
Yep but what is the point of you're ballot cranky that radical Jews/Israelis are as chauvinist as radical Islamist?

by Corrupt on Tue Feb 13, 07 3:02pm [+]

Voted : Assaulting women and making them sit at the back of the bus is wrong.
What would Rosa Parks think of this?

by skylab on Tue Feb 13, 07 6:22pm [+]

Voted : Assaulting women and making them sit at the back of the bus is wrong.
Is that attitude the norm or mainstream way of thinking in that country? If so, it is an inferior culture.

by xxxxxxxx on Tue Feb 13, 07 8:39pm [+]

Corrupt:

Yes, that's my point.

by cranky on Wed Feb 14, 07 7:29am [+]

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