If only it were Lyme Regis
Imagine being confined to a flat in Bournemouth for 24 hours.
Gordon and Dena Coleman said they cannot leave or enter their Bournemouth flat on the Sabbath because the hallway sensors automatically switch on lights. The couple’s religious code bans lights and other electrical equipment being switched on during Jewish holidays. They have now issued a county court writ claiming religious discrimination. They also claim breach of their rights under the Equality Act 2006 and Human Rights Act 1998 and the case is due to be heard at Bournemouth County Court next month.
Religious discrimination – how does that work? People trying to live in a reasonably efficient way (using light sensors instead of having the lights on 24 hours a day) amounts to religious discrimination simply because two other people have some inane antiquated meaningless pettifogging stupid interfering tedious code that says they can’t switch the lights on? Why is it not religious discrimination for the people with the stupid code to interfere with the convenience of everyone else for the sake of a stupid code? I would like to know.
In a letter to the other residents, the couple said they sought legal help because the sensor lights meant they would never again have full use of their flat.
But that’s only because they choose to be childish and slavish and fat-headed enough to obey an inane antiquated meaningless pettifogging stupid interfering tedious code instead of just ignoring it like sensible rational adults. They could act like grown ups, or they could go on acting like children but only as it affects themselves – but to insist on acting like children at the expense of all their neighbours is just…presumptuous.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this site of yours, OB, is its mix of tragedy and comedy. It never ceases to engage and amaze me.
I won’t say it’s unique; just that to my knowledge there’s nothing like it anywhere.
As for the Colemans’ problem, there are a number of easy solutions that spring readily to mind.
(1) Have they thought of leaving via the fire escape at times they can’t turn on lights? Their flat should have one accessible via an exit other than the front door.
(2) The hall lights are no doubt controlled by infre-red sensors. No problem. Any ski store will sell them heavily insulated top-to-toe clothing, which they can store in a deep freeze. For a short time after they put such gear on, it will emit no IR radiation at all. Then if they store it in a car-fridge or icebox while they are out, they do the reverse when they get home. Easy.
(3) They change the times and dates on all clocks and watches before they leave or enter.
(4) They get a dog, and make sure the dog, and not either of them, trips the sensors. Religious authorities might find something wrong with this, but only after long debate and discussion all round I am sure. At least all that interaction and discourse will buy them a bit of time.
(5) They put thick black bags over their heads before entering or leaving. That will give them no way of knowing for sure whether the lights have come on or not, because no sensor is 100% reliable. They will have to grope their way in and out of the building, but only on their special days.
The above list is clearly not exhaustive. But it does show that no problem is insurmountable if one is perpared to think outside the square.
Great list, but it only scratches the surface. They could hire a goy to stay with them each Sabbath, who could trip switches for them. They could listen at the door for when an infidel leaves their apartment, and then they could traverse the now-lit hallway without activating any lights. They could learn gymnastic maneuvers that avoid the motion sensors – you know, like in every heist movie that has ever had sensors to guard the prized Macguffin.
I read a great nonfiction book once about top-level Scrabble players (Word Freak, by Stefan Fatsis). One of the up and coming players is jewish, and he believes he is not permitted to assemble or break things on the Sabbath – by his interpretation, this would include making Scrabble plays by connecting letter tiles and taking the board apart at the end of a game. So, he actually hires a goy flunkie to do this for him, so he can play in Saturday tournaments.
The tradition of hiring a “shabbos goy” (a gentile who can light fires, prepare meals etc.) is an old one.
Actually, many orthodox Jews are inventive about these issues. Bill Maher devotes a sequence in”Religulous” to a business devoted to creating devices to aid in getting around the sabbath laws.
In the days before television recording devices, a friend told me proudly of his father’s rigging a timer so they could watch tv baseball on Saturdays. They set it before sunset on Friday. When I opined that he was following the letter and not the spirit of the law, he was not pleased.
Thanks Ian!
God this stuff is hilarious. Perhaps the Captives of Bournemouth could get a robot dog, and sent it out to turn the lights on – provided it runs on solar energy, that is.
I’ve been laughing about this all day. Not with the sort of gentle, passing chuckle that happens when you read a mildly droll comic. With the full-throated, snorting, I-ma-spit-my-coffee-out-sweet-jesus convulsions.
Yes, a strange set of beliefs but would it have hurt the other residents to have allowed the override switch?
Surely it is just another example of simple compromises we sometimes have to make to live close together.
The funny thing is, they probably could’ve just asked their rabbi about this and he’d have said, “What are you, meshugga?” I doubt there’s a rabbi in the world – even among the Lubavitchers – who would count these idiots tripping a motion sensor someone else put in place as a violation of Sabbath rules. Casuistic argumentation over the interpretation of Sabbath restrictions so that people don’t get themselves into such ridiculous tizzies is a much-beloved rabbinical hobby.
This is a pathetic (and would be funny, if it wasn’t so stupid) re-run of the eruv restrictions in Barnet (?), a couple of years back.
This is a real crock, as far as I am aware the Sabath rules prohibit Jews from operating things like light switches. Other people Triggering a motion sensor would not break this rule even if you take the most orthodox interpretation of the rules?
Not only did I grow up in a family with a Shabbat clock (make sure you’ve made it to bed before pitch black sets in on Friday night), we had no light in the fridge at all to avoid special arrangements being made for it on Friday night and Saturday.
And I’m sure I’ve told the one about my work colleague’s attempts to get a child to open a fridge by subtle suggestion to avoid telling her directly, so I won’t repeat it now.
If you’ve really lived with this, all the holes in Ian’s suggestions become glaringly obvious: a car-fridge?! On a Saturday?!
OB
I’m sorry this is off topic, but I thought to comment here as perhaps it’s more likely to be read by you than in the comments of an earlier post. Just to let you know Bunting has started commenting in the thread of her CiF post ‘the problem with Ophelia Benson’. I think you’ll agree she’s at least changed her tone, if not quite her tune! I’d love to know what you make of her response?
T
Is sonofarock, bristol boy?
Thanks for the heads up, Theodore.
What do I think…I think it’s pretty bad, actually. She’s behaved conspicuously badly, and she’s not only not admitting it, she’s complaining about ‘personal abuse’ herself. A minimally decent response would be ‘I got carried away, I’m very sorry.’
My opinion of her keeps going down…down…down…
This is just plain bizarre: why do people continue to restrict their normal behaviour on the basis of antiquated and irrational religious edicts? Given how much effort in late 18-19C went into Jewish emancipation from the ghetto, it baffles me why any choose to constrict their existences within self-constructed ghetto walls. And don’t get me on to Haredi schools that disapprove of and discourage higher education for girls…
Well, you surely don’t think opposition to emancipation came only from outside the ghetto, do you? Sometimes I think the very age of the tradition is what makes some people cling to it more desperately. Something psychological along the lines of “if they’ve all avoided dropping the ball for so many thousand years/generations, I don’t dare to be the one to mess up the unbroken chain.” A sort of peer pressure coming not from one’s contemporaries (well, that could always be there, too), but from one’s ancestors. Which doesn’t mean there’s no explanation for why converts are so often the most fanatical.
How often do I wish I knew less about this?
Stewart: “Well, you surely don’t think opposition to emancipation came only from outside the ghetto, do you?”
No, but one would have hoped the message might have sunk in by now. I am heartily glad not to feel the dead hand of my ancestors (from Free Church Highlanders to Irish Catholics, and various other shades between): they are not me. There was a time when I felt a degree of it regarding language: on the Highland side of the family, my great-grandfather had been a Gaelic speaker, but had not passed it on to his children as it was then regarded as a social disadvantage. I’d then seen my father trying to learn it as an adult. I tried… but then decided it wasn’t for me. There are other cultures and languages that mean more to me by choice: the Occitan troubadours, for example. Cultural influences and interests are not (and should not be) determined by genes, but by education and choice: elective affinities.
Ain’t it the truth. Lucky us to live in a secular world where that is possible and conceivable and permitted. (Though in pockets of that secular world it’s not so possible or permitted. Lucky me to live on the relatively godless coast.)
There might be technical solutions. The problem seems to be the identification of electricity as being equivalent to fire, so perhaps some sort of bioluminescent system would be acceptable. Alternatively a passive sensor could be periodically queried by a computer in Australia which switches the lights on remotely so that the device doing work is somewhere where it isn’t shabbat. Some of Bob Shaw’s slow glass would do the trick, but that would involve inventing it.
(One has to wonder though if they really think their god gives a flying fuck whether or not they trigger a motion sensor, and if they really do think it does, why they don’t find a saner version of religion. I mean honestly. The deity might as well be correcting their punctuation. It has nothing better to do? Please.)
Stewart: “A sort of peer pressure coming… from one’s ancestors.”
I think you are onto paydirt there. There is a lot more ancestor worship/honouring in the practices of the big contemporary religions than is commonly acknowledged.
It is by no means the full story, of course.
Even among those who consider themselves Orthodox in their practice of Judaism there is quite a bit of variation. It’s not that many who will eschew use of a preset timing device for the lights, but for the VCR it’s sometimes another story. Those who won’t even look at TV are the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim). I mention this because the ingenuity or the simplicity of the solution will not necessarily have a bearing on whether it’s acceptable.