Israel's High Court To Hear Arguments About Gender-Separated Buses Today

The Israel Religious Action Center and five female petitioners called on the High Court of Justice on Monday to immediately endorse the recommendations of a committee established to examine the legality of the haredi gender-separated public buses.

Hearing on haredi gender-separated buses continues
Court orders bus companies to leave segregation up to the passengers.
By DAN IZENBERG • Jerusalem Post

The Israel Religious Action Center and five female petitioners called on the High Court of Justice on Monday to immediately endorse the recommendations of a committee established to examine the legality of the haredi gender-separated public buses.

On Tuesday, the court is due to hold another hearing on the petition, which was filed in 2007 and has been pending for more than three years. The petitioners, including author Naomi Ragen, have called on the court to wait no longer to abolish the current arrangement, whereby 23 intercity and seven urban bus routes run by the Egged and Dan bus companies operate gender-separated bus lines, allegedly imposed on women by force and lacking any fixed rules and regulations.

The state, on the other hand, asked the court in its latest brief not to make any final decision on the petition until it completed a pilot program proposed by the committee, allowing for segregated seating on a purely voluntary basis on all 30 routes.

The committee, appointed by the transportation minister on February 20, 2008, following a recommendation by the High Court, concluded that there must be no hint of an arrangement on public buses imposing or encouraging separate seating for men and women. In the report, which was published in October 2009, the committee recommended that the bus companies promise “not to impose any practice of separation or discrimination against passengers and do everything possible to prevent incidents of force or violence.”

The committee also recommended that the 30 bus lines remove the signs they have displayed until now indicating that they are special buses in which men and women are encouraged to sit separately.

After the committee released its report, the court issued an interim injunction ordering the bus companies to operate the existing gender-separated bus lines according to the committee’s recommendations. It also ordered the Transportation Ministry to monitor the operation of the buses to see that passengers were not imposing the arrangement by force. Such monitoring had not been done since the first of these bus lines began to operate in 1998.

In addition, the court ordered the companies to instruct bus drivers not to impose the segregated arrangement, but to leave it up to the passengers to act according to their own free will. The drivers were to be told to intervene if passengers tried to use force to impose the arrangement.

In the state’s brief, prepared in advance of Tuesday’s hearing, it informed the court that it had completed stage one of the pilot and that it had begun stage two earlier in July.

It asked the court to allow it to complete the second stage and prepare a final report on its findings, which would then be brought before the transportation minister, who would determine the ministry’s final position on the petition.

Meanwhile, in the response to the court, the state presented some of the data from the first stage finding. It told the court, for example, that on 14 occasions, it had sent supervisors incognito to see what happened when they sat on the “wrong” side of the bus.

The state’s representative, attorney Ada Wiss, said that in no instance had there been any violence. On two occasions, passengers argued with the supervisor, in one case quietly and in the other more vociferously.

Comments

[Critical minyan]

Israeli government scared shitless of charedim. This is a spineless compromise.

[David]

Charedim should not use buses and just walk. They are fat and unfit and need the exercise anyway.

[Yochanan Lavie]

The charedidim should not use motor vehicles, like the Amish don't. Because "chadash assur min haTorah."

[Jeff]

On two occasions, passengers argued with the supervisor, in one case quietly and in the other more vociferously.

Even that shouldn't have been allowed.

I can't wait to hear how Harold is going to spin this one.

[Mr. Apikoros]

If I ever return to Israel (I haven't been there in almost 30 years), my wife and I will sit together on one of these "gender-segregated" buses. If anyone objects, I'll tell them to go to hell. If they try to get physical, I will retaliate with everything I've got.

[A E ANDERSON]

High Court of Justice
State of Israel
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Justices:

I object to the Israel Religious Action Centre's petition to desegregate autobuses carrying both Haredim and normal people. In fact, I think it is only fit, proper and hygienic that haredim be relegated to the back of the bus and preferably confined to separately ventilated, sealed compartments.

As you are probably aware, haredim bathe infrequently. When they do bathe, they tend to immerse themselves in fetid pools of green, scummy water called mikvahs. They also tend not to change their garments with any degree of frequency.

I understand the haredim's own wish to segregate their women, who probably reek to a greater degree than the men owing to discharges and other feminine issues. Nonetheless, I think the court should extend the segregation to include all haredim, so that those public bus patrons who on a daily basis bathe with soap, brush their teeth, and change their clothes needn't be sickened and subject to the germ-carrying haredim who evidently practice a lower form of human hygiene.

Honored justices, this no less than a matter of public health: just as the lawmakers in their august wisdom have banned cigarette smoking in public places owing to the detrimental effects of second hand smoke, I call on you to ban smelly, germ carrying haredim from places where they are likely to spread their body lice, crabs, e-coli, strep, staph and other noxious germs, not to mention offensive smells.

Although they won't readily 'fess up, the haredim would have to agree that putrid smells are an evil, as evidenced by the prohibition in their own holy books against pronouncing the names of the deity in smelly places or in proximity to feces.

Dear Justices, please help the haredim by giving them their own, hermetically sealed four ells in which they can play out their humrot without offending the host population upon which they depend.

Yours Faithfully,

A E ANDERSON
Coral Gables, Florida

[Teddy]

Ah, my understanding of why immigration of Jews using the cheapest public form of public transport was outlawed in late 18th century Friesland keeps increasing.

[harold]

Israeli government scared shitless of charedim. This is a spineless compromise.

I don’t know, to me it looked like they ended the segregation of buses. They will remove the signs, and one can’t force anyone to sit where they don’t want, so where the “scared shitless”, segregation is is gone! To say a bus is to be segregated if EVERYONE in the bus agrees is to say nothing. If ALL the passengers on a bus going down 5th Ave in Manhattan decide to segregate themselves will the bus driver stop the bus and say NO!

What will happen is that a bus with a high percentage of haredim will request fellow passengers to segregate. Many times the people on the bus will comply and voila, you have a peaceful segregated bus. If someone objects, well since you and the bus driver cannot force that person you won’t. While it sounds logical, what I fear will actually happen is that there will many cases where most people would request the bus to be segregated except for one “ackshen” who will say “f” you and a fight will result.

Tricky situation to get the genii back in the bottle. They never should have started a public segregated line. It should have been a private one with some (small) govt subsidy since it is after all reducing their passenger load.

[chabib]

Will transgenders ride on a double decker
bus, the sort you find in England ?

[OMG]

A E ANDERSON; for sure your depiction of the haredim is kind of entertaining, but let’s not forget, that in Nazi Germany the same graphic depiction was always used to describe every Jew. Not taking away from the facts, that hygienic is not in the forefront of their daily routine, but that shouldn’t be reason enough to relegate haredim to segregation to the back of the bus. I would venture to say, that if someone reeks, then other passengers would automatically move away, like any homeless in the US who uses the transportation system as shelter.

[rabbidw]

I am with Yochanan Lavie. Electricity is Chadash. The internal combustion engine is chadash. Airplanes are chadash. I would pasken that gas stoves are also chadash and they should only cook with woodburning ovens.
No more coddling to these idiots. Let them live in their own world, since they do not contribute to our world.

[Jeff]

I would pasken that gas stoves are also chadash and they should only cook with woodburning ovens.

Rabbi, woodburning stoves are chadash. They should go back to cooking on open fires. Preferably in caves.

[A. Nuran]

Anesthesia, antibiotics, dentistry, synthetic fibers, air conditioning, sod-busting plows, running water, concrete made with Portland cement, steel (as opposed to iron), aluminum, the printing press, sewing machines, double-entry bookkeeping, the brassiere, iron ships, shtreimels and so on are all Chadash, terrible blasphemous innovations. What's worse, almost all of these were invented by goyim. And we are told to keep ourselves far from their customs.

[OMG]

What about toilet paper that is Chadash, we need to go back to our good old days, where the index finger would suffice.

[rabbidw]

They used leaves.

[Dr. Dave]

Actually in the gemara they used shards of broken pottery and stones.

Ouch!

[Dr. Dave]

Israel's High Court To Hear Arguments About Gender-Separated Buses Today

How do you determine a bus's gender.

And why would you want to separate them by gender?

Are you afraid they will breed?
And have little Egeds?

[Responsible Citizen]

@Dr Dave-That gmera is in Tractate Shabbat. My 9 year old son found it hilarious after we learned that piece!

[eitan]

I am for any kind of segregation as long as it is done with private funds. A private haredi bus line would be awesome. There could be daf yomi/ pirkei avos busses and thousands of haredim could be employed as bus drivers and maintenance workers.

[rabbidw]

That is, if you could find chareidim that know how to drive busses safely, and know how to repair and maintain the busses. This information is not found in the talmud.

[Jeff]

Isn't the Talmud chadash?