UPDATE: High Court Bans Barriers Set Up By Haredim To Keep Women Out Of Mea Shearim

A group of female activists and elected officials has petitioned the court against Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco for not removing the barriers that were put up by haredim to keep women out of Mea Shearim during Sukkot. The petition charged that Mea She’arim has become “extraterritorial” for the police, and that officers are not fulfilling their duty to enforce the law there.

Plese see update below.

High Court to discuss barriers set up to keep women out of Mea She’arim
In previous years, men and women alike flocked to Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood during the Sukkot holiday. This year, extremists forced a change
By Yair Ettinger • Ha’aretz

Mea She’arim, a Haredi ‏(ultra-Orthodox‏) neighborhood of Jerusalem, saw far fewer female visitors this Sukkot than in previous years, and apparently fewer visitors overall, after a growing number of Hasidic groups gave in to extremists and celebrated the mid-Sukkot festival of Simhat Beit Hashoeva more modestly than in the past.

But both the extremism that was forced on Mea She’arim residents and the tolerance police have ostensibly shown toward it have now reached the High Court of Justice: A group of female activists and elected officials has petitioned the court against Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco for not removing the barriers that were put up to keep women out during Sukkot.

The petition charged that Mea She’arim has become “extraterritorial” for the police, and that officers are not fulfilling their duty to enforce the law there.

The court is to hear the petition this morning, along with another petition, filed by the Jerusalem branch of the Meretz party and a group of women students who want to hold a march down Mea She’arim’s main street to protest gender separation in the quarter.

Every year during Sukkot, Mea She’arim’s main street is blocked to traffic in the evening as pedestrians flock to its synagogues and study houses to celebrate Simhat Beit Hashoeva, an ancient festival dating back to Temple times.

But this year, a barrier at the junction of Mea She’arim and Shivtei Yisrael streets, set up to prevent women from entering the area near the Toldot Aharon yeshiva, reminded people that not everyone was invited.

Compared to the previous three years, when dozens of security guards stood at numerous checkpoints to make sure that men and women remained separated for almost the whole length of the street, the current arrangement could be considered liberal. But this year, the issue heated up, because extremists tried to impose new and even more stringent rules of modesty that infuriated Haredim and non-Haredim alike.

Modesty patrols

One demand was to close the street hermetically to all women pedestrians. But following a meeting with police, a group calling itself “the committee for the purity of the camp” ‏(also known as the “modesty patrols”‏) was forced to publish a statement promising that “all streets will be open to women, too.”

Synagogues and study houses, however, were open only to women who belonged to the community affiliated with each institution.

The petition was submitted by Jerusalem city councilwomen Rachael Azariya of the Yerushalmim faction and Laura Wharton ‏(Meretz‏), along with other Jerusalem activists. It asked the court to order the police to enforce the law in Mea She’arim and prevent “the placement of fences separating men and women in public spaces, which gravely impairs human dignity, liberty, equality, property rights and freedom of movement.”

The petition cited incidents that show the neighborhood’s growing extremism, including physical attacks on public officials who visited it, such as Interior Minister Eli Yishai ‏(Shas‏), MK Yaakov Katz ‏(National Union‏) and MK Moshe Gafni ‏(United Torah Judaism‏), as well as attacks on water company employees and Egged buses.

“Most of those hurt by this violence are neighborhood residents, virtually all law-abiding people who want to live their lives peacefully,” the petition said.
The petition also noted that the neighborhood has long hosted events that attract large crowds, but “until very recently, no one dared close the streets, place private guards at the entrances and sort pedestrians according to gender: women to the narrow sidewalks, well hidden by heavy cloth fences, and men in the middle of the street.”

But Yoel Krois, a representative of the extremists, told Haaretz, “The police won’t remove the barriers. Today there are barriers everywhere. The Toldot Aharon Hasids have the right to set up barriers.”

Update 9:55 am CDT [Hat Tip: Seymour.] ––

High Court: No sidewalk gender segregation
Judges forbid separation between men, women in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim, allows women to march in haredi neighborhood in protest of discrimination. Ruling 'step in struggle to ensure public space open to all,' petitioner says
Kobi Nahshoni • Ynet

The High Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled against separation between men and women on the sidewalks of Jerusalem's haredi Mea Shearim neighborhood. The court also disallowed the positioning of "modesty guards" from the neighborhood committee to enforce the separation.

In addition, the court ruled, women will be allowed to hold a protest march in the neighborhood on Wednesday in protest of the discrimination between men and women. The Jerusalem Police was ordered to allow and guard the procession.

The court was asked to address the issue after extremists in the area tried to illegally enforce separation between men and women during Sukkot.

About a fortnight ago, the Eda Haredit faction proposed blocking Mea Shearim's Mordechai Street to women to prevent men from being near them, but following protest from women's organizations and police demands, the leaders of the community said the road would not be blocked to women.

On Monday, two City Council members petitioned the High Court on the issue. Their representative, Attorney Aviad Hacohen, said that despite assurances from the Eda Haredit, screens to separate men from women had been set up and "guards" positioned to enforce the separation.
 
The State, in its response Tuesday morning, said there was no place for "pirate" separation in public spaces such as streets, and promised it would prevent this and forbid "guards" from operating in the area. The court accepted the State's announcement, which supports the petitioners.
 
'Men get entire street'

Jerusalem City Council member Rachel Azaria (Tnuat Yerushalmim) said the court's ruling meant there should be no separation in any public space in the State of Israel. "Any such separation is illegal," she said, "which means that all sorts of unspoken agreements made with the haredi community will not happen again. This is another stage in the struggle to ensure that public space in Israel is open to men and women alike, just like the struggle against separation on buses."

The petition was submitted by ELLA-Israeli Feminist Group, Azaria and Laura Wharton (Meretz), who is also a Jerusalem City Council member. They demanded the police stop the separation immediately throughout Jerusalem and especially in Mea Shearim, protesting police lethargy in acting against it.

The two petitioners related their own experience when they tried to pass the road in a mixed group. "The women were asked to go to a narrow sidewalk, which hardly had space to pass," they said. "The men were given the center, with the entire width of the road."

When they refused, they said, they were physically and verbally assaulted until they left. At the time, they said, police were present but did nothing.

Ronen Medzini contributed to this report.

Comments

[Mr. Apikoros]

I don't see how cases like this make it to the Israeli supreme court, or any court for that matter.

The right for anyone to walk on a public street is settled law. The cops should be out there, beating the living crap out of anyone who tries to impede these women. Instead, they're arresting Anat Hoffman. What a bunch of fascist pigs!

[harold]

High Court To Discuss Barriers Set Up By Haredim To Keep Women Out Of Mea Shearim

I also hope they also address those barriers that get put up in many shuls keeping women away from the main sanctuary and from the aron hakodesh.

[Maskil]

I also hope they address those barriers put up in many neighborhoods to keep out the Arabs, and the barriers in other beighborhoods to keep out the Jews. Or is it okay as long as uniformed officers guard and/or patrol the barriers?

[Abe]

Harold,

Why depend on the police to enforce chareidi idiocy? The chareidim shouldn't promote treife medina State sovereignty by relying on secular law enforcement. If they really want to eliminate all female intrusion into male dominated affairs, they should just entirely eliminate ladies' bathrooms in the chareidi shuls. That will definitely disuade the repulsive female riff-raff from enticing the chasid-shtotim with their purient presence.

[seymour]

To harold

two different things one is a private property the shul

the streets are public.

A fundamental difference

To Maskil

again a difference, once the arab shows they are not a security risk they can go wherever man or woman

[seymour]

the only way to fight this lunatics is to totally piss them off and say more will come if you do not stop.

Announcing the first of many

Annual Mea She’arim beauty contest

Date- Shimcha Torah night
Main Event-Bikini contest right after mariv

all are invited and mixed seating

[Barry]

Had Auschwitz not been gender segregated then I am sure that “the committee for the purity of the camp” ‏would have recommended that no one go there.

[seymour]

the real stupid people are not the heridiem it is the secular Israelis who give in to them.

maybe they feel bad for the crazy relatives

[harold]

To harold

two different things one is a private property the shul

the streets are public.

A fundamental difference

These are LEGAL differences not conceptual ones. The question should be why "this" place and "this" time. Take rape for example, is there a difference between the crime being performed in a public location or a private one?

If one thinks what the problem here is you will realize that what we have here is a great crunch of humanity. If men and women are squeezed together then there is a problem of tznius, men for example being forced to have their bodies pressed against women's breasts and all other permutations that I leave to your imagination. So to minimize this problem they are trying to separate the sexes.

Don't give me this bullshit "everyone has a right to go where and when they want. What about a man entering a "public" ladies bathroom or stores having seperate men and women dressing rooms. What we have here is nothing more than an extension of this policy done selectively. I would have a problem if it were done permanently if it results that a person cannot go from public location “A” to public location “B”, but if I must take a slightly different road to get there then I have no issues.

[effie]

seymour: Yep, I don't understand why they tolerate this. OTOH, it is the politicians who are selling out in order to maintain their own power. I really do not like the parliamentary system of government.

[seymour]

Don't give me this bullshit "everyone has a right to go where and when they want. What about a man entering a "public" ladies bathroom or stores having seperate men and women dressing rooms. What we have here is nothing more than an extension of this policy done selectively. I would have a problem if it were done permanently if it results that a person cannot go from public location “A” to public location “B”, but if I must take a slightly different road to get there then I have no issues.

Posted by: harold | September 28, 2010 at 09:20 AM

---------------------------------------
ok let the woman go in the center and the men walk behind the curtain

[Shmarya]

Don't give me this bullshit "everyone has a right to go where and when they want. What about a man entering a "public" ladies bathroom or stores having seperate men and women dressing rooms.

The streets are paid for, maintained and guarded by Israel.

Israel does not allow public gender segregation on these streets.

Your 'examples' are irrational.

Stores are PRIVATE. But these stores could have unisex changing rooms or even shared changing rooms if they wanted – and you and your friends would be screaming the stores should be forced to stop doing that.

As for public bathrooms (the few that exist), they are built with the expectation of separation because people TAKE OF SOME OR, SOMETIMES ALL, OF THEIR CLOTHES AND PERFORM BODILY FUNCTIONS NOT DONE PUBLICLY.

Besides the fact that you and your friends would scream if public bathrooms suddenly became unisex, there is an actual legitimate public health reason for separate bathrooms by gender – it's called rape and sexual abuse.

What would Israel do? Place a guard in every bathroom? Have security cameras complete with sound in every stall? Eliminate stalls altogether?

Hasidim want special consideration that allows them to discriminate against women based solely on their sex.

There are no public health or public safety concerns, and women are not being fairly accommodated – they are being barred entirely.

Process that.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

How will my Jewish brother's be able to smuggle prostitutes, whores and skanks into
Mea She’arim for sex, gang banging and fornicating under the moonlight to the tunes of Donna Summer sans sheets but of course.

Not everyone can afford trips to Uman.

[Monsey Hocker]

MM3, you took the words right out of my mouth! Zol zein der abishter tzigebentched du mitt alleh nachas fun de kinder un mazal un broche un groise titzen fun alles!!! UUMein!!!

I knew that they would start banning women from their houses and streets. This way they can justify their assraping of their hairless youth as ones rachmana patrei. It's a shame that this is the case but let us pray they have the common decency to you astroglide. I doubt it though.

[Yochanan Lavie]

The Meah Shearim Orgy Song
Apologies to Donna Summer

Mixed dance
Last chance, for lust
Yes, it's my last chance, for black hats, tonight

I need you, rabbi,
Beside me, to guide me,
To use me, to schmooze me,
'Cause when I'm bad
I'm so' so bad

So let's dance, the mixed dance
Let's dance, the mixed dance
Let's dance, this mixed dance tonight

[Barry]

Harold, you cannot believe what you are saying!

Society as a whole decides by law, what where and when certain actions are allowable. That decision is made by women as well as men. The minority must abide by the will of the majority when it comes to the law. Women are not stupid. They know that so called Tznius can be used oppressively to prevent their independence. They know that if they ride bicycles, men will look at their ankles, however they feel that is a price worth paying to be able to go what they want to.
Likewise they regard the price of being kept off the roads as setting a dangerous precedent even if that means that some minor pervert may press against some woman's breasts.
Harold, you can not force your views of tzinus on women. A woman has the same rights in Mea Shearim as in Tel Aviv.

Women (and men) are bound by the general law of tzinus which they as a whole accept (like seperate bathrooms in US and Israel, but not in some parts of Europe)

[IH]

I suppose Harold also thinks that the government in the US forbidding discrimination against Jews (e.g. real estate covenants, or hotels with signs stating "No Jews, Blacks or Dogs" is also -- as he puts it -- "Bullshit". Or, perhaps, conceptionally it is bad, but on Christmas it's okay.

[harold]

Harold, you can not force your views of tzinus on women. A woman has the same rights in Mea Shearim as in Tel Aviv.

All I was trying to do is explain why they were setting up the barriers. It is not because of hatred of women or to inconvenience the "outside" world who wants to go to Mea Shearim. It is because of internal issues among themselves and the way they practice their religion.

A while ago when the issue was brought up on sex segregated buses a poster brought up the point that in Japan they have women only trains for exactly the same reasons, a crush of humanity and modesty issues. So it is not unheard of.

[IH]

Actually, Harold, the issue in Japan was to combat sex crimes, not "modesty issues".

[Gevalt!]

All hell will break lose tomorrow at this rallie/march/parade - on Hoshana Raba no less...The Eida will organize everyone to protest...

Doesnt sound like zman simchasenu to me at all...Hashem Y'rachaim..

[harold]

I sure hope that the police have the foresight to make sure that all garbage bins are secure. Anything less shows a complete lack of preparation and planning. Also, right before yom tov they should have a trash pickup lest it be strewn on the street.

Sine MOST people who will be walking the streets of Mea Shearim are local haredi residents who view the tznius problem as a problem. Is it illegal for people to "suggest" that given an intersection that men take one route and women take another if there is no coercion if one does not follow the suggestion? Maybe all that is required are flyers that say for the purpose of tznius, the suggested paths for the holiday crunch times goes as follows …

[harold]

Actually, Harold, the issue in Japan was to combat sex crimes, not "modesty issues".

Well according to FailedMessianites, all haredim are sexual perverts so it is imperative that protection be in order, in fact Mr Rosenberg would probably be in favor of having special roads that only boys use to prevent the male pedophilia population from groping them. So I propose three routes

(1) Adult males
(2) Boys
(3) Women

[IH]

Have you thought about standup?

[Jeff]

I also hope they also address those barriers that get put up in many shuls keeping women away from the main sanctuary and from the aron hakodesh.

You stupid, fucking piece of shit troll. You'll say anything to stir up a hornet's nest, won't you? How much is Chabad paying you to disrupt this blog? At least Chaim is an honest moron - you're a lying sack of pig manure. I don't think you even believe half the garbage you post here.

I'll say it again - my fervent prayer is that you live long enough for your children to see you for who you really are, and despise you for it.

[mkarpas]

A different perspective on the same story
subtitled "Tempest in Talpiot" or Making a Mountain out of Meah Shearim

From Today's JPOST
Haredi leaders acquiesce to state's request to remove barriers; High Court approves women's march in the neighborhood.



Following a petition to the High Court of Justice, representatives of the Eda Haredit removed on Tuesday morning barriers set to separate between men and women in the capital's Mea She'arim neighborhood, and called off the ushers deployed to enforce this gender segregation.

If the ultra-orthodox residents would not have complied with the agreement they reached with representatives of the State Attorney's Office on Monday night, Jerusalem police would have been tasked with enforcing the law that prohibits gender separation in the Israeli public realm.

City councillor Rachel Azaria and others had on Monday filed a petition against Jerusalem police for not enforcing the law that enables equal freedom of movement for both men and women, in the wake of religiously extreme elements in the ultra-orthodox Mea She'arim neighborhood allocating different sidewalks for the different genders, enforced by paid ushers. The haredi neighborhood and the ongoing festivities in its abundant synagogues attract many visitors during Succot.

In her answer to the court, the State Attorney's Office representative Osnat Mandel stated that the separation in the neighborhood was being enforced only over a strip of 15 meters of sidewalk, and only during the late hours of the night, when thousands seek entry to the nearby Toldot Aharon yeshiva. But even such a limited gender separation is illegal, Mandel said, and the “relevant haredi leadership” agreed to accordingly remove all barriers and were doing so on Tuesday.

Following Mandel's response, attorney Dr. Aviad Hacohen, representing Azaria, agreed to withdraw the petition.

In related news, the High Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that police must enable a women's march in the same Mea She'arim on Wednesday, protesting gender-based discrimination of women in the neighborhood. The petition was filed by the city's Meretz faction, and others, after it seemed as though extreme factors in the neighborhood were planning on barring women from its boundaries. Though the claim was publicly refuted by the neighborhood's leadership, and its falsity was reiterated with street notices (pashkevils), the initial plan to conduct the demonstration was not averted.

[IH]

Harold is not evil, just glib. Think of his commentary next year when we say:

ועל חטא שחטאנו לפניך בטפשות פה

[Shmarya]

Posted by: mkarpas | September 28, 2010 at 11:44 AM

The Post conveniently leaves out the role of the sikkarim in all this and their threats of violence against anyone who disobeys the enforced gender segregation.

It also fails to mention Edah Charedit's long history of promising to abide by court rulings but then breaking them, and its long history of outright lies.

But you really don't care about the truth, now do you?

[Shmarya]

I should also add that the eyewitness testimony of what actually took place the first few days of Sukkot is missing from the Jerusalem Post report, as well, perhaps because that testimony makes the Post – and you – look ridiculous.

[Mr. Apikoros]

I'm glad at least some of the justices on the Israeli supreme court finally grew a pair. It's about time.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

Mr. Roseneberg @ 12:02PM

Not true.

It's not that he doesn't care about the truth.

He "Can't Handle The Truth."
-Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

[Monsey Hocker]

Judaism really is a great religion. It's the Jews that screw it up. And it all boils down to the holier than thou bullshys. Oh, I wear a white shirt so I'm better than you. I drink cholov yisroel so I'm better than you. Cholov yisroel was invented in America so otherwise pathetic morons who could never get a real job can actually moneygrub other Jews out of their hard earned dollars by making sure the USDA milk doesn't get pigs milk in it. Yeah right. In America in 2010 there's a better likelihood of the Lubavitcher rebbe zal successfully completing hagba - chabad style - this simchas torah than there is of pig's milk showing up in you Cumberland Farms or Tuscan. Such udder (get it?) nonsense. But when you are so empty inside and bereft of any meaning in your life you have to invent this crap. Like esrogim - what jagnut pays three grand? Yeah right, because he is so oisek in hidur mitzva? My ass. He wants to show off period. The same guy who shows off his esrog forget's to wash the hands he bentches lulav with after he bangs the asian heweer on McDonald and 38th Street. Fanatic ayeholes each and every one.

[harold]

You stupid, fucking piece of shit troll. You'll say anything to stir up a hornet's nest, won't you? How much is Chabad paying you to disrupt this blog? At least Chaim is an honest moron - you're a lying sack of pig manure. I don't think you even believe half the garbage you post here

Come on, you really don't think anyone cares about what we say here. This is a fringe blog, one driven by anger and hatred. Stories are posted only if it puts down the orthodox and chabad in particular. Posters are routinely called idiot, jerk, cretin and moron. Most of us have problems and issues and need help. I am obviously a glutton for punishment so I lurk here.

Yes, it is true that there are things that I do not believe in but still see the other side and respect their right to conduct their life as they see fit as long as they do not trample over mine. Case in point, although I don’t believe in the male/female roads in Mea Shearim I understand their reasons for it. Hey, who are the ones that will be mostly inconvenienced by this – the locals! So why all the ruffled feathers?

Anyway, this is fun and a form of entertainment. I can’t believe that you take this seriously, get a life!

[harold]

The Eida will organize everyone to protest

As they should. The "protesters" are, I am sure, outsiders, who don't live in the neighborhood.

Should be fun! I wonder if they learned the fine art of egg throwing. Cheap, relatively harmless, messy and registers your protest. It should not be thrown hard and straight, more of a gentle lob. There is a problem of bal tashchis so a rabbi must be consulted. As a disclaimer I do not condone such actions. I prefer to hoot and howl and mull around talking on cell phones – the usual haredi protest technique if there are no garbage bins around.

[jay]

Of course there are also stones, dirty diapers, cinder blocks and other malevolent methods of assault and vandalism that they employ.

[harold]

Of course there are also stones, dirty diapers, cinder blocks and other malevolent methods of assault and vandalism that they employ.

The dirty diapers sound cool, but is unstable aerodynamically. The other ones I don't care for.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney didn't live in the neighborhood, either, Harold.

[jay]

I'm sure that the diapers are effective at very short range, assuming there isn't a strong air current. I'm also sure that if one landed at your feet and splattered you with its contents you wouldn't be too thrilled about it

[harold]

I'm sure that the diapers are effective at very short range, assuming there isn't a strong air current. I'm also sure that if one landed at your feet and splattered you with its contents you wouldn't be too thrilled about it

I guess I viewed it differently. If taped shut it may make an effective projectile, but the "warhead" might not be deployed on contact. In the non-taped mode while it would be effective on contact its trajectory is not well defined and it has limited range, sort of like the Kassam rocket. An egg is the perfect weapon, it is aerodynamically effective, easy to conceal, easy to procure, light on the budget, and almost always guaranteed to deliver its payload. It is hard to classify it as a lethal weapon and with careful deployment technique hard to get caught. I would suggest crouch down within a crowd, place egg in hand with hand almost on ground level and lob it in the general direction of the invaders then get up facing the opposite direction. Since there was no direct line of sight view of the launch it is hard to get charged with its deployment. Simply say you dropped your cell phone and you bent down to pick it up.

[IH]

Given the extended discussion of warfare, I vote for the return volley to be used condoms.

But it seems the opponents are more civilized than the allegedly "religious".

[harold]

Given the extended discussion of warfare, I vote for the return volley to be used condoms.

Used condoms from the FEMALE activists? Boy have they been active!

[IH]

Men. The boys are the domain of your buddies.

[Maskil]

harold,

I wonder if they learned the fine art of egg throwing. Cheap, relatively harmless, messy and registers your protest. It should not be thrown hard and straight, more of a gentle lob. There is a problem of bal tashchis so a rabbi must be consulted.

There is no prohibition of bal tashhit if the food item you are destroying is less than the size of a ke-zayit. If you knew the least bit about shi'urim you'd know that no egg from the average supermarket or grocery comes close to the size of the olive used to define the shi'ur of a ke-zayit (let alone the size of a ke-betza, which is thrice the size of a ke-zayit, presumably twice the size of a large ostrich egg). There is no need to consult a halachic authority if the eggs are thrown one by one.

[harold]

Dozens of women and men marched in an ultra-Orthodox area in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, in protest of the discrimination between men and women on the streets of the Mea Shearim neighborhood during the Sukkot holiday

Protest is over and it was anti-climactic with only a few dozen protesters coming. B"H no garbage bins were harmed, no violence. The haredi protested with their usual technique which I usually describe as "hooting and hollering" as the article describes as follows

Loud arguments were heard between the protestors and local haredi residents.

We can go on now and enjoy the yom tov!

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961877,00.html

[Shmarya]

Protest is over and it was anti-climactic with only a few dozen protesters coming. B"H no garbage bins were harmed, no violence. The haredi protested with their usual technique which I usually describe as "hooting and hollering" as the article describes

Moron.

What the article says is that police stopped the marchers before they got to Shabbat Square.

That means they did not enter Mea Shearim proper.

The article also said most haredi males were in shul because it's Hoshana Rabbah, and the prayers are exceedingly long.

You think your moronic comments are funny. You enjoy leaving them because they irritate people concerned with haredi crime, violence and self-imposed poverty.

But you aren't funny, 'harold,' and you aren't smart.

You're simply a disgusting person who puts his limited intelligence and his hatred for non-Orthodox (and even Modern Orthodox) Jews on display.

You're ignorant. You're truly a moron. And your kleinerkeit hurts the people you profess to care about.

[Maskil]

What the article says is that police stopped the marchers before they got to Shabbat Square.

It looks like Barkat kept his promise of one law for one people after all and protected the legal residents of Kikar Shabbat from things that offend them just as he protects those legally in use of the Temple Mount plateau from what they claim offends them (people who look Jewish being there). He is indeed fair. Some say too fair, but one has to admit when a guy is consistant and applies the law evenly and indiscriminantly.

The article also reads:

Dozens of women and men marched in an ultra-Orthodox area in central Jerusalem on Wednesday, in protest of the discrimination between men and women...

Although there is no explanation as to what "discrimination between men and women" means (or whether any court of law on earth has ever recognized such a qualification). Who writes for this online publication? Is "ynet" just some dude who lives in his mom's basement?

[IH]

On the subject of shiyurim, check out:
http://www.zootorah.com/essays/TheEvolutionOfTtheOlive.pdf

E.g.
"the halachah is not at all canonized in the way that it is commonly assumed. The primary authorities who are assumed to have ruled that a kezayis is 1/3 of an egg, Rambam and Rabbeinu Tam, in fact did not say any such thing; it is only the upper limit of a kezayis that can be inferred from them."

[Maskil]

I know. I was making fun of the obnoxiously enourmous ke-zayit I grew up with, and the fact that a real life halachic clarification has still not been made available in practice, both le-kula and le-humra (something Haredim ostensibly care about - but don't really...), despite all the vessels found by the Israeli Antiquities Authority from the second temple period (and whose uses are known and proven) and the ridiculousnes of the claim that olives, eggs, hands and heads "could have been much bigger back then." Buncha retards. If the article you cited has not yet been banned by the likes of R' Aharon Leib "What's the Internet" Shteinman, it will be soon enough. You surely know that.

[Monsey Hocker]

When the women marched in kikar shabbos did the chareidi men pop immediate boners at the site of women with hair on their heads, thus rushing to local WCs to relieve themselves of their burden manually?

[IH]

My memory is the ke'zayit shiur nonsense started in the mid-70's. I remember when my younger brother came home from MTA and we all waited patiently while he stuffed himself with the claimed "shiur" for Matza at the seder according to that chumra of the week. My father tried to keep calm, but was alternating between foaming about the shtut, laughing at the sight and trying to be respectful of his son who was taking it all so seriously.

[harold]

You think your moronic comments are funny. You enjoy leaving them because they irritate people concerned with haredi crime, violence and self-imposed poverty.

But you aren't funny, 'harold,' and you aren't smart.

You're simply a disgusting person who puts his limited intelligence and his hatred for non-Orthodox (and even Modern Orthodox) Jews on display.

You're ignorant. You're truly a moron. And your kleinerkeit hurts the people you profess to care about.

Does that mean we can't be friends?

P.S. I liked the "self-imposed poverty" line.