The Year In Israel

With all the talk about the protests in Bet Shemesh, the mehadrin bus lines, and “hadarat nashim,” I have compiled some opinions from other seminary students, friends, and staff at my seminary. In this article, I will let other people do the talking! I hope you find these opinions to be interesting and thought provoking.
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“What these groups of chareidim are doing is a chillul Hashem and completely against halachah. I think they have the right to have segregated buses if the community pays for them out of community funds. Our money should not be supporting such a system.”
—Seminary student from Long Island
“The truth? I don’t see why everyone is making such a big deal out of this. Let them do what they want. I was recently on a segregated bus and all my friends decided that they wanted to sit in the front. I just went straight to the back. I do not understand why they thought it was a good idea to sit there. If only these buses were Israel’s biggest problem.”
—Seminary student from
out of town
“The chareidi world has its own ideas of what is important, and we shouldn’t try to make them be like us. If they don’t want to see pictures of women around their neighborhoods, then we should respect that. I don’t agree with them, but that is not important. I think it is so stupid that there are these social activists who go on and specifically ride in the front of mehadrin buses. They think they are helping, but they aren’t. The chareidim need to change the bad name they have now. Spitting on a little girl does nothing to help their image.”
—Israeli girl who sat next to me on an Egged bus
“I don’t have a problem with the concept of the buses themselves. I only take issue with how it is played out. Why was it automatically assumed that women should be sitting in the back? Let men sit in the back and women sit in the front. And this doesn’t stop at buses. This is a problem across the board in Israel.”
—My hostess this past
Shabbat
“While everyone can’t stop talking about how mistreated chareidi women are, it seems very few people have actually asked the women of these communities what they think of all this. I can personally attest to the fact that it is difficult to maintain the halachos of shomer negiah while on a crowded moving bus. It is practically impossible not to bump into or fall on a man when standing on a bus driven on an Israeli highway. On mehadrin buses, they allow anyone who pays for the bus ride to ride on it, and just ask for everyone to comply with the rules which they feel comfortable with. Going to the back of a bus for 40 minutes really isn’t such a big deal. It’s as if we don’t have enough problems so we need to look for more reasons to fight with each other.”
—Seminary student
from New York City
“People need to try and be more in middle instead of going to the extreme. I remember last year when those two IDF soldiers walked out of the tekes (performance). They should have just looked down at the floor when the woman started singing. I was very upset when I heard about their walk-out. There was no need to make such a statement, and they caused a massive chillul Hashem. Dati’im need to be aware that the majority of Israelis do not see a problem with kol isha.”
—My seminary’s secretary
“Every time people hear that I live in Bet Shemesh, they always want to know what is really going on here. I try and explain to people that while these things do happen, they are disproportionately blown up in the newspapers. It really is a small group of people who are doing this. The reputation that Bet Shemesh has received from all this attention is not accurate. However, I do have friends who have had unpleasant run-ins with chareidim. I don’t think I would feel comfortable walking through Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet by myself.”
—Family friend from Sheinfeld,
Bet Shemesh
“I don’t understand why people think they can serve Hashem while disrespecting His creations. Don’t they know that derech eretz kadma l’Torah? Haven’t the chareidim learned that the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed because of sinat chinam? Why don’t they understand that they are hurting their fellow Jew? I don’t think I’ll ever understand how these people rationalize their behavior, where it means verbally or physically assaulting those who do not agree with them. As for buses, what’s next? Segregated sidewalks? I recently purchased some books at Manny’s bookstore in Meah Shearim, and not only because they were having a sale on English books. It was also meant as a show of support. I have yet to understand why a group of sikrikim vandalized the store numerous times because they felt that the store’s inventory was not “high enough” to meet their standards. And to then expect the owners of Manny’s to sit down with them and agree to their guidelines? If these people don’t like the books, they shouldn’t buy from that store. It’s as simple as that.”
—Seminary student
from Long Island
“It would be interesting to find out what the chareidi women who take these buses think about this. If this is something that is important to the chareidi community, then they should be able to have segregated buses as long as regular buses run the same routes. However, in my humble opinion, I think that these segregated buses run counter to Jewish values. By being so machmir on tzeniut, they are taking away what is supposed to come out of it. The women are being objectified, and the men are becoming sensitive to the point where they will not look at pictures of women. To the best of my knowledge, that is not what being halachically observant in the area of tzeniut means.”
—My Tanach rebbi
“Talmidah X” graduated from a high school in the Greater New York area and is attending seminary in Israel.