Remember the woman who was beaten on an Egged bus by haredim because she refused to move to the rear? A good update on the story from yesterday's Globe and Mail:
…"There's a concept in Jewish law which is that silence is acquiescence. And when the rabbinical leaders hear about a store being burned down . . . when people are being sprayed with bleach on the street because their clothes are not considered modest enough, when women are being beaten on buses, when these things are going on and the rabbinical leaders say nothing, there is an appearance that it is condoned," Ms. Shear said in a telephone interview from her home in Canada, emphasizing that she respects Haredi values but regards the violence as a tragedy that cannot be ignored. "I've come under a lot of heat for publicizing this. But I've stood my ground."…
"It's more relaxing, because the males are in the front and they leave me alone," said Rachel Orlowick, a Toronto-born religious Israeli on the mehadrin No. 36 bus in Jerusalem this week. Yet even as she speaks, the heavily pregnant Ms. Orlowick grabs at a handrail as she casts around for a seat in the crowded rear, though there are several places open at the front.
But secular passengers have reported being harassed or kicked off for what other passengers deem inappropriate dress, and even modestly dressed women have been verbally abused for refusing to board through a rear entrance and sit at the back.
The prominent Israeli-American author Naomi Ragen, an Orthodox Jew and women's rights activist, says she, too, has been verbally abused and physically threatened for refusing to relinquish a front seat, and is now petitioning the Supreme Court along with four other women for a review of the practice. At the least, they are asking that segregated buses be well marked and run only in parallel with regular buses.…
I believe Mrs. Orlowick is the wife of an Aish HaTorah rabbi. Women to the rear – something Aish most certainly does not tell new recruits.