[WCUSP] What's up with these Taliban in Israel?

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

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JEWISH  WOMAN BEATEN FOR REFUSING TO SIT IN BACK OF BUS
[By Daphna Berman -- Ha'aretz  -- December 20,  2006]
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JERUSALEM  -- A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad hoc "modesty
patrol" on a  Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case
and may be  included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the
legality of  sex-segregated buses.

Miriam Shear, 50, says she was traveling to pray at  the Western Wall in
Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of  ultra- Orthodox
men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the  Egged No. 2 bus.
She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's  organizations,
and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her  attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that she  was slapped,
kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that  she sit in
the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in  response to a
media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but  Shear's
account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus  who
confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe  beating."

Shear, an American-Israeli woman who currently lives in Canada,  says that
on a recent five-week vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to  the Old
City to pray at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged as a  sex-segregated
"mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit  in the front,
as a matter of custom.

"Every two or three days, someone  would tell me to sit in the back,
sometimes politely and sometimes not," she  recalled this week in a
telephone interview. "I was always polite and said  'No. This is not a
synagogue. I am not going to sit in the back'."

But  on the morning of November 24, a man got onto the bus and demanded her
seat  -- even though there were a number of other seats available in the
front of  the bus.

"I said, 'I'm not moving' and he said, 'I'm not asking you, I'm  telling
you.' Then he spat in my face and at that point, I was in high  adrenaline
mode and called him a son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of.  Then I spat
back. At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were  screaming
that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face,  punched me in
the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood  [hair
covering] came off. I was fighting back and kicked one of the men in  his
privates. I will never forget the look on his face."

Shear says  that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair
covering, "one of  the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my
eye. I got up and  punched him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but
he wouldn't give it  to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the
aisle."

Throughout  the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The
other passengers,  she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the
bus and called her a  "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People
blamed me for not  knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus
where I  belong."

According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident,  Shear's
account is entirely accurate. "I saw everything," he said. "Someone  got on
the bus and demanded that she go to the back, but she didn't agree.  She was
badly beaten and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried  to
fight back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone  was
stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I  couldn't
call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He stopped  once, but
he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the Kotel [Western  Wall], she
was beaten badly and I helped her go to the police."

Shear  says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she did not
even know  that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also says that sitting
in the front  is simply more comfortable. "I'm a 50-year-old woman and I
don't like to sit  in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a
public bus."

"It  is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a public
entity  and enforce their will without going through due process," she said.
"Even if  they [Haredim who want segregated buses] are a majority -- and I
don't think  they are -- they have options available. They can petition
Egged or hire  their own private line. But as long as it's a public bus ...
I can sit  wherever I want and so can anyone else."

Word of Shear's story traveled  quickly after she forwarded an e-mail
detailing her experience. She has been  contacted by a number of groups,
including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's  Empowerment and Training Center for
Social Change; Kolech, a religious  women's forum; the Israel Religious
Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy  arm of the local Reform movement;
and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance  (JOFA). IRAC will be submitting a
petition to the High Court of Justice  against the Transportation Ministry
over the issue of segregated Egged  buses.

Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is  not
actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that Shear's  story
is further proof that the issue requires legal clarification. About  30
Egged buses are designated as mehadrin, mostly on inter-city lines,  but
they are not marked to indicate this. "There's no way to identify  a
mehadrin bus, which in itself is a problem," she  said.

"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a  mehadrin
line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [gender  segregation] even
on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part of the danger,"  she said.

On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit through the rear door,  and the
seats from the rear door back are generally considered the  "women's
section." A child is usually sent forward to pay the  driver.

Egged spokesman Ron Ratner wrote: "According to the driver, once  he saw
that there was a crowd gathering around her, he stopped the bus and  went to
check what was going on. He clarified to the passengers that the bus  was
not a mehadrin line and that all passengers on the line are permitted  to
sit wherever they want on the bus. After making sure that the  passengers
returned to their seats, he continued driving."

The Egged  response also noted that their drivers "are not able and are not
authorized  to supervise the behavior of the passengers in all situations."

Ministry  of Transportation spokesperson Avner Ovadia said that the mehadrin
lines are  "the result of agreements reached between Egged and Haredi
bodies" and are  therefore unconnected to the ministry. A spokesperson for
the Jerusalem  police said the case is still under investigation.
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