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Israeli ‘Rosa Parks’ causes storm by refusing to go to the back of the bus
Rosenblit was the first passenger to board. She sat in the front of the bus so the driver could tell her when she reached her stop. Ultra-Orthodox men who boarded after her were uncomfortable when they saw her. Then one insisted he would not travel unless she moved to the back of the bus.
“He started shouting, ‘This is our bus they’re not welcome here, if they want to come on, they have to respect us,’” said Tanya Rosenblit. “He said, ‘Jewish men don’t sit behind women!’ And that was the statement that made me stay put.”
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17 Comments
kris, and 
Aaron are discussing.
Aaron 6:36 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Here’s something that the article fails to mention: Apparently there are special religious buses where men & women sit separately, and also regular buses with regular seating. This lady seems to have purposely taken a religious bus just to start some shit.
Link: However, what Yediot Acharonot doesn’t tell is that Ms. Rosenblit took one of the haredi Mehadrin buses and NOT an ordinary EGGED bus.
Aaron 6:40 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Also, Rosa Parks broke the actual law and risked being lynched. This woman broke no laws and was never nor is she now in any danger. So let’s not go calling just anyone who acts up on a bus “Rosa Parks”
kris 7:31 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
I’m torn about stuff like this. In theory I think we should respect other religions, but why should I or any other woman respect a religion that doesn’t have any respect for me?
kris 7:41 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
I’ve grown up to get that you shouldn’t deliberately antagonize people though either. Although, that’s what Rosa Parks did, so maybe this comparison isn’t that far off.
Aaron 7:42 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Shhh.
kris 7:44 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
What? So I can’t talk in Church? Done and done.
Aaron 7:49 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
But the thing isn’t (on the face anyway) about disrespecting women. The tradition is that men and women should not sit together. If a man sat in the back of bus, he’d be asked to move too. Yeah, that’s not a very good argument, I know. And of course women get screwed over by always getting stuck in the back of the bus. That’s what happens when you base your state on religious documents written thousands of years ago.
kris 7:56 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
The whole idea behind the separation and the “modest” dress required of women is that women are a temptation to men and therefore we need to remove the temptation. So the whole concept is based on reducing women into nothing more than objects of male lust.
And then, in practice, it’s about men controlling women.
Aaron 8:00 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
So don’t immigrate to Israel. And if you do, don’t ride this special bus which is set aside for people who wish to adhere to the old ways.
kris 8:04 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Yeah, so maybe I’m an asshole if I protested something like this there – but I’d support any woman born into the culture with the guts to stand up to these people.
Aaron 8:12 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
This woman seems to be an immigrant herself. And she doesn’t even live in that section of town – she chose to enter it & knowingly ride the wrong bus just to get a media story out of it.
It sounds like these special buses aren’t even codified in law. I know very little, but from what I can gather there are special marked buses for these religious zealots that everyone just agrees to follow certain customs. In a country as rife with tension as Israel, it sounds more like “being a good neighbor & respecting others,” not some crazy law.
Aaron 8:20 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
It sounds like it’s even worse –
So they’re just out there trying to start problems, out of “fear” that the bus companies would try to force women to move when asked, even if not legally required. Instead of waiting for the “other side” to break the law, they went out there and provoked them as much as they could.
kris 8:49 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
It sounds like they really DO need people to stand up for the law though.
Aaron 8:53 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
What makes you say that?
kris 8:55 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Because the ultra-religious dudes were trying to force the bus driver’s hand
Aaron 9:05 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
How many of these “freedom riders” previously rode without incident? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Of course they were going to run into a jackass eventually. That’s why they kept at it.
Don’t you think that 99% of people who disagreed with the segregation (on a handful of buses) would still voluntarily observe it, out of respect for their neighbor? Or take another bus?
These people wanted to prove their hypothesis, that voluntary segregation would never work. Even though there was no evidence of that, no horror stories. So they just kept provoking until they got the result they wanted.
kris 9:19 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink |
Like I said, I’m torn. I know you can’t beat the jackassery out of people by being jackasses.