(no subject)
Feb. 23rd, 2007 11:31 amI understand that the following incident (from November 2006) has been well-publicized in the Jewish blogosphere since December, but I only discovered it this morning at Apikorsus Online. A large proportion of my friendslist does not read Jewish blogs, so I feel justified in reposting here.
An Orthodox Jewish woman was beaten for refusing to sit at the back of the bus to the Kotel (the holiest site for Jews in Israel). Also, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has reported on the case.
I am sick to my stomach thinking about this. Miriam Shear got up before 4 AM to go and pray. She took a bus that was officially unsegregated (and apparently there are gender-segregated public buses in Israel, much to my horror) and sat in the front, near chareidi* men. A man spat on her. Shear, being a brave woman, spat back, at which point the man and four others started physically attacking her. (Please note that, given their observance level, these men should not have been touching a woman who was not married to them at all!) Shear fought back, but no one else came to her defense. Most bystanders seem to have said things on the order of "She had it coming." There was an eyewitness willing to speak, who will testify in Shear's upcoming suit.
What kind of Jewish country is it when a Jew going to pray can be attacked by other Jews who are also going to pray? What does it mean for there to be a Jewish people at all? What kind of civilized nation thinks segregation is remotely acceptable? I simply don't understand. I don't.
One more note: Since seeing Elf's links and the Ha'aretz article, I've looked around other blogs to see what they had to say. I am not going to link to the last blog I read, nor am I going to try to engage with the virulent idiocy of some of the comments there, but I do want to say that I am literally crying and pounding the sofa with rage and disgust. God help us all.
*The word is usually translated "ultra-Orthodox", but the English term is fairly useless as description goes.
An Orthodox Jewish woman was beaten for refusing to sit at the back of the bus to the Kotel (the holiest site for Jews in Israel). Also, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has reported on the case.
I am sick to my stomach thinking about this. Miriam Shear got up before 4 AM to go and pray. She took a bus that was officially unsegregated (and apparently there are gender-segregated public buses in Israel, much to my horror) and sat in the front, near chareidi* men. A man spat on her. Shear, being a brave woman, spat back, at which point the man and four others started physically attacking her. (Please note that, given their observance level, these men should not have been touching a woman who was not married to them at all!) Shear fought back, but no one else came to her defense. Most bystanders seem to have said things on the order of "She had it coming." There was an eyewitness willing to speak, who will testify in Shear's upcoming suit.
What kind of Jewish country is it when a Jew going to pray can be attacked by other Jews who are also going to pray? What does it mean for there to be a Jewish people at all? What kind of civilized nation thinks segregation is remotely acceptable? I simply don't understand. I don't.
One more note: Since seeing Elf's links and the Ha'aretz article, I've looked around other blogs to see what they had to say. I am not going to link to the last blog I read, nor am I going to try to engage with the virulent idiocy of some of the comments there, but I do want to say that I am literally crying and pounding the sofa with rage and disgust. God help us all.
*The word is usually translated "ultra-Orthodox", but the English term is fairly useless as description goes.