Israel – Back-of-the-bus seating for women on public transport in Israel will be outlawed soon, its justice minister said on Thursday, pledging sweeping legislation to stop Jewish religious zealots trying to enforce gender segregation in many spheres of life.
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The issue is at the heart of a long and emotional struggle between Israel’s secular majority and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority over lifestyle in the Jewish state.
“Today, I instructed the Justice Ministry to draft legislation … that will make any segregation of women and their humiliation in a public space a criminal offence,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said on her Facebook page.
She made the announcement a day after Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein recommended outlawing any behavior that stops women from receiving “public services with equal conditions”.
The separation of women and men on bus lines through religious neighborhoods, and incidents in which Jewish zealots have spat at schoolgirls they deemed to be dressed immodestly, have raised public pressure on the government to act.
Now, with the power of ultra-Orthodox politicians diminished by their exclusion from Israel’s governing coalition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration could find it easier to win support for an anti-segregation law.
“Women in Israel won’t sit at the back of the bus. Women in Israel will participate in state ceremonies and their voices will be heard on radio stations and in the army,” Livni said.
She was referring to events at which religious politicians and soldiers, adhering to a traditional edict to avoid temptation, have walked out rather than watch women singing or dancing, and to an ultra-Orthodox radio station’s refusal to employ female announcers.
“The new law will be formulated in the coming weeks and help the struggle against the shameful and violent phenomena of cursing and spitting at women,” Livni wrote. “It will be another step toward equality between men and women in Israel in 2013.”
But the legislation could also heighten militancy in an ultra-Orthodox community whose state welfare benefits and military service exemptions are under threat by the new government Netanyahu formed in March.
Fears of vandalism by religious modesty squads have led advertisers in Jerusalem, a holy city with a large Jewish religious community, to avoid posting images of women on buses and billboards, or at least toning down their clothing.
Women who insist on sitting in the front of buses in Jerusalem have been subjected at times to verbal and sometimes physical assault.
Jerusalem’s Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, and a bastion of ultra-Orthodox ritual practice, has also been at the forefront of a challenge championed by women.
“Women of the Wall” – Jewish activists seeking equal rights at the holy place where men and women pray in separate sections – have gathered there monthly for worship sessions, donning prayer shawls in defiance of Orthodox tradition.
Israeli police have detained the women in the past for wearing the “talit”. But police say they will not intervene at the next gathering, on Friday, after a judge ruled the women were breaking no law.
It’s about time! If they want to buy private buses and staff them with clowns and serve kishke while the women are put in the luggage compartment, that’s their choice, but this cannot happen on public buses!
There was an idea posted here about a year or two ago after another incident where some women were harrassed on an Eged bus and asked to give up their seat to some Black hat and move to the rear. The suggestion was to install used ejection seats from older model IAF fighter planes on Eged buses so when some chareidi thug seeks to coerce women to move to the back of the bus, he would be given the “kiseh hakovod” in the front of the bus and the driver would activate the ejection seat while the rest of the passengers said she’hecheyanu. Otherwise, just let him sit up front an push him out the door when the bus approaches the next big puddle. Seeing a few of these thugs sloshing around in the mud would send a clear message to show respect to every baas yisroel who gets on the bus.
The headline is misleading. The state cannot prevent men and women from choosing of their own free will to separate. However, when the separation is brought about by force, by coercion and insults, then the state has a legitimate interest to intervene.
Satmar rabba z”l was so right already 50 years ago that the Israel government is just here to destroy Judaism & go against hashem. mrs’ livni you can move to india & nobody will bother you, why you must live in a jewish neighborhood & enforce your ugly goyish stuff? Anyway waste of time it will not gone change
Livni has my support in this. For an non-orthodox woman to be told where to sit is very insulting. Most of them conform only because they are scared.
We, the Chareidim, must be sensitive of their feelings.
Very soon Moshiach will be here and then no one will have a choice because at that time the law of Torah will prevail.
Why not move the ladies to the front and men to the back. Put up a mechitza so you are not looking at the back of an isha and probelm solved. The ladies don’t feel degraded while adhering to tznuis?
I was recently in Israel – really – 99.9% of all bus travelers are mannered and smiley and have derech eretz for one another. Don’t be misled – I have seen mothers with strollers getting of a bus and random people in the street stop to help her, some are Hareidi, some are not, just a like real family would do. So, yes there are some problems, but be real. It’s the extremes that make the news.
As far as I am concerned, the men can walk! If you want to take a pub;lic bus you OBEY the rules of the bus line not that of the Rebbe! Please try and remember the way Aseres Hadibrot were divided == 5 between adam and Hashem and 5 adam L’Chaveiro!! It seems that you have forgotten the last 5. Maybe your Rebbe shoulld remind you on Shavous!!
do any of you guys live in israel? Did you see the picture? Did you see the caption? PROPAGANDA! Sheker!
Bus drivers usually don’t let women on the front with strollers, and they make them move to the back! Bus drivers! non religious bus drivers!
1. they make the women with strollers enter from the middle/ back door of the bus, because that is where the big, open area is to put the strollers!
2. when they try to enter from the front with strollers, the BUS DRIVERS complain!
3. Women can only enter from the back? LIES! all passengers that enter from the back, the driver screams at them, many times getting out of his seat to scream at them, and then forces them to re enter through the front, men and women alike!
4. I live here! I have not once seen women being forced to enter from the back, like I said, on the contrary they are FORCED to enter from the front, and they usually enter from the front to start!
It is all nonsense, lies, total narishkeit…
I have not seen any of this claimed garbage occur, even once.
How do any of you give into this and believe this?
Im in yerushalayim…. ask anyone here….its not true.
lots of luck
Most of this “segregation” is self imposed! Ask any hareidi woman if she wants to sit right next to a man and she’ll say no! So, if its a public route used mostly by hareidim then we act whatever is in their best self interest. “Public” refers to the “public” the people! And if the people want segregation then let them have it. Livni can un-segregate the buses all day long the majority of hareidi women will still choose to go sit in the back.
and theres a freakin guy in the doorway of this horrible (sob) segregated bus…. a man ….
p.s.s the women sit in the front. i have never been on a bus, ever that there weren’t women in the front. i have never ever seen a segregated egged bus
The only reason Livni betrayed her party and joined the government is that now she can sit in the front of the Knesset and not in back…..
I was on a public bus last night. A woman (she was frum) sat in the first seat of a bus that is separated (I think voluntarily) and no one told her a word. However the bus was – as usual – overcrowded. Because of her lounging on the seat, no one else used the space. Other women sat at the back and men did not sit in her row. I counted 12 men standing.
If this is not a lack of basic decency on her part, I do not know what is. You may personally believe that men and women ought to sit together, but please realize that you are inconveniencing others who hold by stricter rules. If you can sit elsewhere, why not accommodate your fellow Jews???