Mehadrin bus lines
Encyclopedia
Mehadrin bus lines are special bus lines in Israel
which run in and between major Haredi
population centers. Mehadrin lines are generally cheaper and provide a faster service between cities than other lines. In early 2010, there were 56 Mehadrin buses in 28 cities across Israel operated by public transportation companies, although usually not specifically labelled.
Mehadrin lines were created to cater for the Haredi public who wished to travel in accordance with their traditional rules on gender segregation. On Mehadrin (meaning "enhanced") buses, female passengers utilise the rear end of the bus, while males board and exit through the front doors. Women are expected to be modestly dressed, the playing of the radio or secular music is avoided and only advertisements appropriate for the religious community are posted.
In a ruling of January 2011, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled on the unlawfulness of such gender segregation on public transportation and abolished concept. It did however allow the continuation of the gender segregation on a strictly voluntary basis for a one-year experimental period. Before the ruling, instances of female passengers being harassed and forced to sit at the back of the bus were reported.
for the Haredi public. It began with two lines in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak in 1997. In fall 2001, Dan
and Egged bus companies, in order to compete with private buses run by Haredim, had come to an agreement with the ultra-Orthodox Mehadrin Council. In 2007 there were an estimated thirty “mehadrin” buses operated by public transportation companies, in early 2010 the number had risen to more than fifty.
“Mehadrin” buses were heavily criticized in the media worldwide after an American Jewish
woman, Miriam Shear
, reported being attacked and beaten by a group of ultra-Orthodox men, after refusing to move to the back of the bus on a non-segregated line. The bus driver contended there was no violence, but that he did see a crowd around Shear and stopped the bus to inform passengers that his line was not sex segregated. Another passenger, however, confirmed Shear's account. Critics have likened the “mehadrin” lines to racial segregation in the United States
, with Shear compared to African American
icon Rosa Parks
. Two years before, in July 2004, American-Israeli novelist Naomi Ragen
, after unintentionally boarding a “mehadrin” bus toward her home in Ramot
, was insulted and physically threatened because she refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus.
According to a survey condacted by the Smith Research Institute in Summer 2010 for the organization Hiddush
, 70% of Jewish Israelis, male and female, support abolishing or reducing the gender segregated public bus lines. 40% support complete abolishment, 30% are in favor of reducing their number and 22% support continuing the arrangement as it was at the time of the survey. Only 8% supports further expanding gender separated transportation services. Among those supporting the abolition or reduction of gender segregated public bus lines are 75% of Likud
voters, 76% of Yisrael Beytenu voters, and 88% of Kadima
voters. A Jerusalem Post online poll found that 76% of those who responded did not approve of segregated buses, 6% approved and 18% said that segregation should only exist in lines that operate in haredi neighborhoods.
(IRAC), an organization close to Israel′s Reform
movement, together with several women who were harassed while traveling on gender segregated buses, including Shear and Ragen, both Orthodox
Jewish women, submitted a petition, demanding the introduction of alternative lines without gender segregation, and requiring the authorities to ensure the safety of female passengers. The Ministry of Transportation replied that the gender segregation is a “voluntary arrangement” and that the ministry does not intend to intervene.
In January 2008, the Supreme Court recommended that the Ministry of Transportation appoint a committee to examine the matter. In its report published in October 2009, the committee came to the conclusion that gender segregation in public buses is illegal and that arrangements in public transportation that include segregation, inherently entail a dimension of coercion. The committee’s main recommendation was to introduce a temporary arrangement on the bus lines that had imposed gender segregation, in which both the door in front and in the back would be opened at the bus stops, instead of just the door in front, as customary in Israel, giving women the possibility to use the back door and sit in the back, but that each passenger, male or female, could choose where to sit with no defined segregation, and no specific seating arrangement would be enforced. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz
, in an affidavit to the High Court, said in February 2010, that the state would not tolerate the use of threats and violence to enforce the separation. However, he suggested, that bus operators should be permitted to hang “behavior-directing” signs asking passengers to sit separately, but indicating that this is not mandatory. According to the state, who was required to monitor these buses, there were no problems, but data collected by IRAC showed numerous cases of abuse, harassment, and even women being denied entrance to the bus.
On January 6, 2011 the High Court of Israel ruled that gender segregation was illegal and ordered that signs designating buses as segregated were to be removed and new signs to be put up informing passengers that they had the right to sit wherever they wanted, and stressed that neither passengers nor the driver could pressure anyone into complying with a segregated seating arrangement. These were to be the conditions of a one year experiment to see whether a voluntary segregation system could function. In his ruling, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein
wrote: “A public transportation company (like any other person) cannot say, ask or order women where to sit on a bus simply because they are women, nor what they should wear, and they are entitled to sit anywhere they wish. Of course, this also applies to the men, but for reasons that are obvious, the complaints have to do with the harmful behavior toward women.” And he added: “As I now read over these lines emphasizing this I am astounded that there was even a need to write them in the year 2010. Have the days of Rosa Parks, the African American woman who collapsed the racist segregation on an Alabama bus in 1955 returned?”
The Egged bus company was also ordered to publish ads about the cancellation of the “mehadrin” gender-separation arrangement in three daily publications, including at least one haredi newspaper. In February 2011, the Jerusalem Post reported that all haredi newspapers had refused to publish the ads. One of them even presented the High Court’s decision “as a victory, enshrining the arrangement”.
Fearing that the court′s orders might not be properly enforced by the bus companies, IRAC has launched a year-long Rosa Parks-inspired Freedom Rider project. Foreign and local female volunteers will be assigned a bus route that has been considered “mehadrin” until the court′s ruling, and will sit in the front section of the buses which used to be reserved for men.
In early June 2011, Haaretz reported that Egged allegedly violated the Supreme Court ruling. According to the report, a haredi magazine puplished an ad describing arrangements for gender segregation on Egged buses linking Ashdod and Jerusalem for the holiday of Shavuot
. The ad announced separate buses for families and for men only, accompanied by a supervisor onboard. Egged called the announcement “a forgery which was done without the knowledge of Egged”, affirming that there is no “mehadrin” concept on their buses and that the company “operates only in line with Supreme Court instructions and allows every passenger to select his seat without gender discrimination.” If there were only men on a bus, it was “because there was no demand by women, and not because there were instructions from anyone which prevented the travel of women”, according to the bus company. The head of the Free Israel movement which fights segregated bus lines doubts this, and claims that “Egged and the Ministry of Transportation ... use any means, to cooperate with the Haredi politicians in order not to carry out the Supreme Court decision, and in essence maintain these bus lines which discriminate against women”.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
which run in and between major Haredi
Haredi Judaism
Haredi or Charedi/Chareidi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism, often referred to as ultra-Orthodox. A follower of Haredi Judaism is called a Haredi ....
population centers. Mehadrin lines are generally cheaper and provide a faster service between cities than other lines. In early 2010, there were 56 Mehadrin buses in 28 cities across Israel operated by public transportation companies, although usually not specifically labelled.
Mehadrin lines were created to cater for the Haredi public who wished to travel in accordance with their traditional rules on gender segregation. On Mehadrin (meaning "enhanced") buses, female passengers utilise the rear end of the bus, while males board and exit through the front doors. Women are expected to be modestly dressed, the playing of the radio or secular music is avoided and only advertisements appropriate for the religious community are posted.
In a ruling of January 2011, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled on the unlawfulness of such gender segregation on public transportation and abolished concept. It did however allow the continuation of the gender segregation on a strictly voluntary basis for a one-year experimental period. Before the ruling, instances of female passengers being harassed and forced to sit at the back of the bus were reported.
History
The so called “mehadrin” bus lines were created in the late 1990s1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
for the Haredi public. It began with two lines in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak in 1997. In fall 2001, Dan
Dan Bus Company
Dan Bus Company is an Israeli bus company based in Tel Aviv. It operates local bus service in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area as well as some intercity bus services between the Gush Dan area and nearby regions such as Samaria, and a connection between Bne Brak and Jerusalem. Dan operates 1,200...
and Egged bus companies, in order to compete with private buses run by Haredim, had come to an agreement with the ultra-Orthodox Mehadrin Council. In 2007 there were an estimated thirty “mehadrin” buses operated by public transportation companies, in early 2010 the number had risen to more than fifty.
“Mehadrin” buses were heavily criticized in the media worldwide after an American Jewish
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
woman, Miriam Shear
Miriam Shear
Miriam Shear is an American-Israeli woman who, on November 24, 2006, on a five-week vacation to Israel, was allegedly attacked and beaten by a group of Haredi Jewish men on her way to pray at the Western Wall while riding a bus in Jerusalem...
, reported being attacked and beaten by a group of ultra-Orthodox men, after refusing to move to the back of the bus on a non-segregated line. The bus driver contended there was no violence, but that he did see a crowd around Shear and stopped the bus to inform passengers that his line was not sex segregated. Another passenger, however, confirmed Shear's account. Critics have likened the “mehadrin” lines to racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
, with Shear compared to African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
icon Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement"....
. Two years before, in July 2004, American-Israeli novelist Naomi Ragen
Naomi Ragen
Naomi Ragen is an American-Israeli author, playwright and women’s rights activist.Ragen was born in New York City on July 10, 1949 and received an Orthodox Jewish education before completing a degree in literature at Brooklyn College , the same year she moved to Israel with her husband...
, after unintentionally boarding a “mehadrin” bus toward her home in Ramot
Ramot
Ramot , also known as Ramot Alon , is a large housing development in northwestern Jerusalem. Because part of Ramot lies north of the Green Line in East Jerusalem, the international community considers Ramot an Israeli settlement that is illegal under international law. Israel disputes this and...
, was insulted and physically threatened because she refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus.
According to a survey condacted by the Smith Research Institute in Summer 2010 for the organization Hiddush
Hiddush
Hiddush meaning innovation, renewal, full name "Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality", is a trans-denominational nonprofit organization founded in 2009 which is aimed at promoting religious freedom and equality in Israel...
, 70% of Jewish Israelis, male and female, support abolishing or reducing the gender segregated public bus lines. 40% support complete abolishment, 30% are in favor of reducing their number and 22% support continuing the arrangement as it was at the time of the survey. Only 8% supports further expanding gender separated transportation services. Among those supporting the abolition or reduction of gender segregated public bus lines are 75% of Likud
Likud
Likud is the major center-right political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had...
voters, 76% of Yisrael Beytenu voters, and 88% of Kadima
Kadima
Kadima is a centrist and liberal political party in Israel. It was established on 24 November 2005 by moderates from Likud largely to support the issue of Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and was soon joined by like-minded Labor politicians...
voters. A Jerusalem Post online poll found that 76% of those who responded did not approve of segregated buses, 6% approved and 18% said that segregation should only exist in lines that operate in haredi neighborhoods.
Petition and court ruling
In 2007 the Israel Religious Action CenterIsrael Religious Action Center
The Israel Religious Action Center also known as IRAC, was established in 1987 as the public and legal advocacy arm of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. It is located in Jerusalem, Israel. IRAC aims to defend equality, social justice, and religious pluralism within Israel, through the...
(IRAC), an organization close to Israel′s Reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
movement, together with several women who were harassed while traveling on gender segregated buses, including Shear and Ragen, both Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
Jewish women, submitted a petition, demanding the introduction of alternative lines without gender segregation, and requiring the authorities to ensure the safety of female passengers. The Ministry of Transportation replied that the gender segregation is a “voluntary arrangement” and that the ministry does not intend to intervene.
In January 2008, the Supreme Court recommended that the Ministry of Transportation appoint a committee to examine the matter. In its report published in October 2009, the committee came to the conclusion that gender segregation in public buses is illegal and that arrangements in public transportation that include segregation, inherently entail a dimension of coercion. The committee’s main recommendation was to introduce a temporary arrangement on the bus lines that had imposed gender segregation, in which both the door in front and in the back would be opened at the bus stops, instead of just the door in front, as customary in Israel, giving women the possibility to use the back door and sit in the back, but that each passenger, male or female, could choose where to sit with no defined segregation, and no specific seating arrangement would be enforced. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz
Yisrael Katz (politician born 1955)
Yisrael Katz is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud and as the country's Minister of Transportation.-Biography:Born in Ashkelon, Katz earned a BA and an MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, in an affidavit to the High Court, said in February 2010, that the state would not tolerate the use of threats and violence to enforce the separation. However, he suggested, that bus operators should be permitted to hang “behavior-directing” signs asking passengers to sit separately, but indicating that this is not mandatory. According to the state, who was required to monitor these buses, there were no problems, but data collected by IRAC showed numerous cases of abuse, harassment, and even women being denied entrance to the bus.
On January 6, 2011 the High Court of Israel ruled that gender segregation was illegal and ordered that signs designating buses as segregated were to be removed and new signs to be put up informing passengers that they had the right to sit wherever they wanted, and stressed that neither passengers nor the driver could pressure anyone into complying with a segregated seating arrangement. These were to be the conditions of a one year experiment to see whether a voluntary segregation system could function. In his ruling, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein
Elyakim Rubinstein
Elyakim Rubinstein was the Attorney General of Israel from 1997 to 2004 and is currently serving as a Judge on the Supreme Court of Israel.Rubinstein, a lifelong Israeli diplomat and civil servant, has had an influential role in that country's internal and external politics, most notably in...
wrote: “A public transportation company (like any other person) cannot say, ask or order women where to sit on a bus simply because they are women, nor what they should wear, and they are entitled to sit anywhere they wish. Of course, this also applies to the men, but for reasons that are obvious, the complaints have to do with the harmful behavior toward women.” And he added: “As I now read over these lines emphasizing this I am astounded that there was even a need to write them in the year 2010. Have the days of Rosa Parks, the African American woman who collapsed the racist segregation on an Alabama bus in 1955 returned?”
The Egged bus company was also ordered to publish ads about the cancellation of the “mehadrin” gender-separation arrangement in three daily publications, including at least one haredi newspaper. In February 2011, the Jerusalem Post reported that all haredi newspapers had refused to publish the ads. One of them even presented the High Court’s decision “as a victory, enshrining the arrangement”.
Fearing that the court′s orders might not be properly enforced by the bus companies, IRAC has launched a year-long Rosa Parks-inspired Freedom Rider project. Foreign and local female volunteers will be assigned a bus route that has been considered “mehadrin” until the court′s ruling, and will sit in the front section of the buses which used to be reserved for men.
In early June 2011, Haaretz reported that Egged allegedly violated the Supreme Court ruling. According to the report, a haredi magazine puplished an ad describing arrangements for gender segregation on Egged buses linking Ashdod and Jerusalem for the holiday of Shavuot
Shavuot
The festival of is a Jewish holiday that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan ....
. The ad announced separate buses for families and for men only, accompanied by a supervisor onboard. Egged called the announcement “a forgery which was done without the knowledge of Egged”, affirming that there is no “mehadrin” concept on their buses and that the company “operates only in line with Supreme Court instructions and allows every passenger to select his seat without gender discrimination.” If there were only men on a bus, it was “because there was no demand by women, and not because there were instructions from anyone which prevented the travel of women”, according to the bus company. The head of the Free Israel movement which fights segregated bus lines doubts this, and claims that “Egged and the Ministry of Transportation ... use any means, to cooperate with the Haredi politicians in order not to carry out the Supreme Court decision, and in essence maintain these bus lines which discriminate against women”.