Israeli women fight the �modesty buses�

A group of five Israeli women have filed a lawsuit in Israel�s high court in an effort to reform bus lines primarily used by ultra-orthodox jews. Women who use these public bus lines must sit in the rear of the bus (while only males can sit in the front) and are abstained from wearing �immodest� clothing on public bus lines. The lawsuit alleges that these women were � harassed, humiliated, taunted and even physically assaulted on the buses.� One of the women who filed suit is Naomi Ragen, a �feisty New York-born novelist and feminist...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.�

Last month, in a major decision, a committee of leading ultra-orthodox rabbis ruled that Haredi women should no longer be allowed to get academic degrees beyond high school. That is potentially devastating in the Haredi culture, because women are the main family breadwinner while the men study the Torah full time.

According to supporters, the legal challenge is �part of a wider religious and cultural struggle against what some see as the growing radicalism and political clout of the ultra Orthodox.�

According to the opponents, they call the lawsuit �an attack on Haredi religious values and culture.� Shira Leibowitz-Schmidt, an Israeli educator and writer of the Haredi Collee for Women says, �the gender segregation is a natural attempt by the ultra Orthodox to combat what they see as secular Israel�s growing permissiveness and the eroticization of public places.�

The legal challenge to the gender-segregated Haredi bus lines is scheduled to go before Israel's High Court later this year.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6584661.stm

Originally posted by Serge L Tantum potuit religio suadere malorum

Amen!

Originally posted by morticia A group of five Israeli women have filed a lawsuit in Israel�s high court in an effort to reform bus lines primarily used by ultra-orthodox jews. Women who use these public bus lines must sit in the rear of the bus (while only males can sit in the front) and are abstained from wearing �immodest� clothing on public bus lines.