Tel-Chai Nation

I'd wanted to write about this subject informing last year that Israel wasn't the only place having a problem with reprehensible demands that women sit in the back of buses where many Hasidics travel. Even in New York City, the B110 route, which had been loaned out to a private company, was conducting this kind of discrimination under everybody's noses. It may go back as far as 1973, and I'm glad it was addressed. The news begins like this:

An investigation has been launched into possible discrimination on board some public buses in New York City.

Women are being asked to move to the back of the buses. CBS 2’s Kathryn Brown found out first hand on Wednesday when she took a ride (see video below).

Boarding the B-110 bus in Borough Park, Brown had no problem sitting right up front. But after several stops one passenger informed her that she needed to move to the back of the bus.

The reason, the passenger explained, was the B-110 caters to the Hasidic Jewish community running between Borough Park and Williamsburg and tradition calls for men and women to be separated.

The bus driver then asked Brown to move as well. When she resisted he seemed confused but returned to his seat.

But, one by one, passengers continued to approach Brown, telling her she could not sit in the front and needed to move to the back.

The B110 is a public bus and looks similar to other city buses. Riders pay an amount equal to Metropolitan Transportation Authority fares of $2.50, cash only, no MetroCard.

But it is what’s known as a franchise route, meaning a private company pays the city for the right to provide the public service.

After getting several complaints from passengers who had experiences similar to Brown’s — the Department of Transportation now says it is investigating the bus company — Private Transportation Corp. — for discrimination.

That they did, and warned that the route would be closed if they didn't cut it out. The story was first published by the New York World (via Hot Air's Green Room), and the female passenger who learned about this told the following:

On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.

They were Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding a “private bus” and a “Jewish bus.” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.

“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.

I don't think there's any written rule in the Torah/Bible decreeing that women must sit in the back of a vehicle, and since this is a bus and not a synagogue, it's all the more insulting to the intellect to claim that. One saving grace here is that these Hasidic passengers were at least more respectable in answering than some nuts over here were in how they spoke to a soldier girl.

However, I am annoyed at a little something in the latter article I cited here: although the name "Hasidics" is known in the USA, this one calls them simply "Orthodox" when "ultra-Orthodox" would at least describe their stature more clearly. As it so happens, there are plenty of followers of Judaism who go by what's called Orthodox but even if they wear a modest form of dress, they don't dress in black hats and suits, don't have noticeable sidecurls, and nor are they concerned with silly things like where a woman should sit in a bus or what kind of clothes she's wearing. These kind of Orthodox can definitely be found here in Israel, and rest assured that if you know where to look, they can be found in other parts of the world too. Can they at least get their research straighter?

I think they're lucky if this wasn't a black woman who had the annoying experience, or I'm sure the reaction would be a lot louder and more embarrassing. And I hesitate to think how this would play out in Europe. But what's really irritating in reflection is that these kind of beliefs are MUCH more likely to be referenced by the MSM, who'll exploit it for all it's worth to obscure the far more dangerous misogyny under Islam. If a bus catering to Muslims did this, I think it's sadly guaranteed that the MSM wouldn't report it at all.

If this were a privately owned bus line, we could say in fairness that this is where they could run it according to their beliefs. But they cannot and should not be using someone else's bus units that also happen to service regular citizens, and should not be forcing them to adhere to beliefs that aren't their own, and the bus drivers shouldn't be turning the other cheek if discrimination is in the vicinity, which unfortunately was just what was taking place.

If you want a similar example of discrimination under Islam, here's a case from Canada of Muslim women being made to sit at the back of mosque set up in a public school library in Toronto. For Judaism's sake, it would be strongly advised to avoid any such practices.

Labels: Canada, islam, Israel, Judaism, misogyny, New York, United States