By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM–Tanya Rosenblit, the 28-year old producer of Israel’s Channel One English news, has by now had more than the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Boarding a bus one day last week from Ashdod to Jerusalemand dressed “modestly” even by Orthodox standards, she refused to yield to ultra-Orthodox (haredi) demands to sit at the back away from the men. As a result, she was called nasty names (no doubt with sexual innuendos) so that the driver felt compelled to call the police.
To get the bus on its way, a police officer is said to have tried to persuade Tanya to yield to the demands of the fanatics. She again refused.
Though there’re almost daily incidents of ultra-Orthodox shocking discrimination against women, this comparatively mild confrontation has caught the Israeli public’s attention. It has provided a welcome opportunity for ordinary Israelis to express the long-pent-up indignation with haredi antics that seek to punish women for being women.
Politicians have deemed it expedient to take up Tanya’s cause. Tzipi Livni, the Leader of the Opposition has met with her. Prime Minister Netanyahu began the cabinet meeting last Sunday with a firm denunciation of forced segregation on bus.
A Ha’aretz editorial made reference to the late Rosa Parks who in 1955 boarded a segregated bus in MontgomeryAlabama to become in time “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement.” Though it’s unlikely that Tanya Rosenblit will go down in history, the comparison is telling.
Even Israel’s chief rabbis have come out against attempts to coerce women to sit at the back of buses. Other exponents of mainstream Orthodoxy have joined them. Not that they’re in favour of unrestricted contacts between the sexes, but they believe that it’s wrong to force Israeli citizens to follow haredi dictates. Perhaps it also gives mainstream Orthodoxy an opportunity to assure the public that it’s very different from “them.”
I don’t know how to interpret the preoccupation of some men with sex in the guise of acting on behalf of God. Nor do I understand the fascination with power over women that these “pious” men so often display. But in a review article in Jewish Ideas Daily of December 19, Elli Fischer uses the term “orthosexuality” about the Jewish phenomenon. It seems to be a useful term in our context.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the ever louder shrills in the ultra-Orthodox community calling for women’s “modesty” are very much akin to what’s happening in many neighbouring Muslim societies. Those who speak of the “talibanization” of the haredi world may have a point.
The irony shouldn’t escape us. The same Jews who are determined to keep their people isolated from the world around them are seemingly slavishly influenced by it. The achievements in the field of gender equality in the West – including Israel– may be the immediate cause for this countermovement, but there may be more to it.
Whatever the reasons, it’s the many Tanya Rosenblits inIsrael who’re suffering from the excesses of a menacing minority that, for example, seeks to prohibit them from singing in the presence of men, prevent them from praying like men, at times even not allowing them to walk on the same sidewalks as men, etc. etc.
A consensus may be developing inIsrael that says: Enough is enough! Amen.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his time between Canada and Israel. He may be contacted at dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com