Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

This morning, a member of the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) community insisted that an Israeli woman sit at the back of the bus. The female passenger, Tanya Rosenblit, refused to comply. Shamefully, a policeman came in and asked her if she would considering “respecting” the wishes of the Haredi passenger by agreeing sit at the back of the bus—she refused a second time as well. Surprisingly, not a single passenger spoke out in defense of her.

Fortunately, the police resolved this situation and threw the Haredi man off the bus. Some folks are referring to Tanya as a modern day Israeli Rosa Parks. I imagine the rest of the passengers probably cheered.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rosa Park’s remarkable woman’s story, here is a brief summary. The date was Dec. 1, 1955. Rosa Parks got arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a municipal bus to a white man. This incident sparked the famous Montgomery bus boycott.

Today, Israeli women wish they had someone like Rosa Parks to lead them in their fight for equality against the increasingly belligerent Haredi Jewish communities.

Tanya is not the first to be confronted by the Haredi thugs. This has been going on for quite some time. Israeli novelist Naomi Raegan also refused to sit at the back of the bus, despite receiving physical threats if she refused to comply. Are the threats real? Yes. Many women have already been beaten by Haredi passengers. About a year or so ago, five Haredi men assaulted a woman and an Israel Defense Forces soldier Sunday for sitting next to each other on a bus bound for Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, the civil rights movement in Israel has yet to really get off the ground. Prominent Israeli politicians are afraid to stand up against the Haredi centers of power. Even the Israeli Supreme Court has failed to grant the necessary changes to ensure equality for all its citizens.

Tanya wrote about her experience in an article that appeared in the Ynet News. Here are some remarks that I felt really portrayed the dilemma that she and other women face this problem on a daily basis in Israel. The questions she raises are very important for all Israelis to weigh and consider.

• How could it be that a man in this day and age feels that a woman is not worthy of sitting before him? How would he feel if his mother, sister or daughter encountered such contempt? Ultimately, the police officer accepted my refusal, for lack of other choice. The man who organized the protest remained in Ashdod, while the other passengers, including new ones who boarded the bus later, passed me and sat behind me without an incident . . . Yet I was left with a few questions following this incident: Why is limiting the rights and freedom of someone else considered fair when it comes in the form of adhering to Jewish law demands? Since when does the Torah come before basic manners? How could religion be used so cynically and how come nobody realized until now that this is a social problem, and that its connection to religion is slim to non-existent? How could it be that an entire community chooses to humiliate its daughters, wives and sisters and nobody raises a hue and cry? Who believes that one could really choose to live a life of humiliation and exclusion?

Until recently, the Chief Rabbis in Israel have remained silent on this issue. However the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger finally came out of the closet and condemned the incident, saying, “Israel isn’t Haredi Land . . . We can’t be the world’s landlords. This isn’t the Haredi public’s country,” the Chief Rabbi said in an interview to Kol Barama Radio. “We have no authority to impose our opinion on others. This is a public place . . .”

If you think the situation is bad now, then consider this: The brazen contempt the Haredi Jews have for Israel as a democratic state will probably be getting worse before it gets better. Census experts predict that within 50 years, a third of Israel’s population is going to be Haredi. This jump in growth will eventually pose a very serious social problem. Are we going to allow religious zealotry create a Jewish theocracy that holds democratic ideals and civil rights with utter contempt? Haven’t we learned anything from the last time in our national history, when religious fanatics led an ill-advised war against the mighty Roman Empire, ending in disaster?

If Israel is unwilling to stand up for its own citizens’ civil rights, how are its people ever going to survive as a modern day nation state? Who would imagine that religious zealots would achieve something not even the enemies of Israel have long failed to accomplish by eroding Israeli’s unity from within?

Is our beloved Israel coming to the end of the line?