Life is not a museum
Some tensions here.
Miriam Shear’s day quickly turned ugly when she was ordered by a religious man to move to the back of the bus, a common practice on many routes serving the religious population…[She] refused politely when he demanded her seat, pointing to several others nearby. He yelled and spat on her. Incensed, she spat back. In the 20-minute scuffle that followed, which was joined by four other men, she was slapped, pushed out of her seat and onto the floor, beaten and kicked…Shear’s case, which has gained notoriety here as a kind of religious Rosa Parks incident, is cited in a petition to the Supreme Court to review the segregated bus policy, in what is seen as a test case in balancing the rights of a minority’s freedom of religion against the basic human rights of all.
I am already very leery of that phrase, ‘the rights of a minority’s freedom of religion,’ and its cognates, and I get more so all the time, since they keep expanding and explanding and encroaching more and more on all other rights. To be blunt, I don’t think a minority (or anyone) should have ‘rights of freedom of religion’ except to the extent that such rights don’t encroach on other people’s rights. That’s a lot easier to say than to spell out, because what does and does not encroach on other people’s rights is, to put it laughably mildly, contested. But that’s my basic stance, all the same.
‘…when people are being sprayed with bleach on the street because their clothes are not considered modest enough, when women are being beaten on buses, when these things are going on and the rabbinical leaders say nothing, there is an appearance that it is condoned,” Ms. Shear said in a telephone interview from her home in Canada, emphasizing that she respects Haredi values but regards the violence as a tragedy that cannot be ignored.
Well, she has something of a problem then, whether she realizes it or not. It’s very very difficult to do both; perhaps impossible. It’s hard to ‘respect’ values and resist their real-world instantiation at the same time. If you decide to sign up to (or never decide to sign off from) a set of very conservative religious beliefs and rules, it becomes very difficult to justify resisting any of them. That’s because that’s how very conservative religious beliefs and rules work: they are given, they are a product of authority, they are dogma; change, flexibility, critical thinking, adaptation are not the goal and not valued. This means that people who ‘respect’ the overall picture are at a radical disadvantage if they want to select a few of the rules and beliefs to refuse.
[S]ecular passengers have reported being harassed or kicked off for what other passengers deem inappropriate dress, and even modestly dressed women have been verbally abused for refusing to board through a rear entrance and sit at the back…[T]he bus question is part of a growing trend of what observers say is an increasing drive for religious purity in some parts of Haredi society in the face of growing Western and secular influences…[R]eports have emerged of so-called bleach patrols trolling the religious neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, throwing bleach on the clothing of women they deem to be immodest…More serious is a new rabbinical ruling that has ordered an end to postsecondary degree programs for Haredi women, even within ultra-orthodox educational institutions.
Familiar stuff. Growing Western and secular influences. Oh dear; what to do? Crunch women some more. Squeeze them harder and harder and harder until there’s nothing left – just a husk. Just a dry empty weightless husk. The only safe woman is an emptied-out woman.
“There is a very strong feeling of attack from the outside world,” said Tzvia Greenfield, a Haredi woman and former left-wing member of the Knesset who holds a doctorate in political philosophy…The question for liberal thinkers is to find the right equilibrium between these two main concerns: women’s rights and human rights on one hand, and the right of the group to maintain its way of life.”
Well, that’s not the question for this liberal thinker (meaning me). The question for this liberal thinker is why Greenfield is concerned at all about ‘the right of the group to maintain its way of life’ when that way of life depends so heavily on squashing and controlling and bullying more than half of its members. What’s to maintain? What’s to be concerned about? Not all ways of life are good for all members of the group, so what’s all this curatorial fretting about maintaining them? The hell with them. The way of life of slaveowners was not worth maintaining; why maintain the way of life of any group that has no truck with equality or justice or rights except for the privileged sector of the group?
The comparison made, in the original article, with the recently-deceased Rosa Parks is entirely apposite.
These religious bullies should be told to stuff it – preferably painfully.
Waht I want to know is how they’ve managed to get away with it, and for the habit to spread…
Is is some sort of version of Gresham’s law that says “bad money drives out good” …
No, I think there is a difference, even if it’s useful shorthand. Rosa Parks did not, to the best of my knowledge, subscribe to any belief system which, taken to extremes, would have led to her being condemned to giving up her seat on the bus.
I don’t know the woman personally, but it would be interesting to know, for example, to what extent her opinion of the gay parade in Jerusalem differed from that of her ultra-Orthodox atackers. Her comment “I’m dressed appropriately” does indicate to me that for her the requirement to dress modestly is part of the code she does accept. The label “Jewish” is certainly not enough, but many reports were clear about her being orthodox, which does say something about what she subscribes to and, given the way she acted on the bus, I would guess she doesn’t merely submit to the lifestyle because she’s never had a choice.
The inescapable differance between this incident and Rosa Parks is that what happend to Ms Parks was because of a state sponsored segregation law. Although this is revoling it isnt realy analogous.
And in what sense is the existence of segregated buses here not state sponsored? How can there be “a petition to the Supreme Court to review the segregated bus policy”, if there is no state sponsorship of the policy?
I wouldn’t say it’s directly state sponsored. Petitioning the Supreme Court about something you think shouldn’t be legal or permissible doesn’t mean it’s state sponsored. In an indirect sense, you could check out government subsidies the bus company gets or sanctioning of a policy by the Transport Ministry (with interference by religious politicians whether it’s their beat or not). And, in a more general sense, the fact that there simply are a great many concessions to religious powers who want to call the shots. The psychological pressure not to rock the boat on this issue is enormous. There are officially Christian countries and officially Muslim countries and ostensibly secular countries. Even a fair slice of the completely (personally) secular in Israel would not go so far as to assert there should not be a Jewish country anywhere in the world and no one can name a candidate for this honour other than Israel. And what that then means is that things are slanted pro-Jewishly, including extraordinary consideration for the religion. What some people don’t realize can’t be done is have this attitude without the non-Jewish elements in society, even those with citizenship, coming off second-best. Still others see it clearly and say “tough, I’ll be second best in every other country in the world, but this one is mine and no one is compelling anyone not Jewish to live here.”
OB says – “why maintain the way of life of any group that has no truck with equality or justice or rights except for the privileged sector of the group?” Good question. This raises many other questions.
How much authority should an outside group, majority or minority, have in regulating the activities of another group? Especially in the context of the “offensive” group only oppressing some of their own. If a criminal offence has been committed then the power of the state should be exercised. But if a group has agreed to abide by certain rules, however oppressive they may be amongst themselves, then how much power should another “outer” group have to say no, those rules are not to the standard that we consider right, we will force you to change your rules.
The push for the change of the oppressive rules has to come from within that group. If there are insufficient numbers of the oppressed in a group to want change then there won’t be enough momentum to allow outside assistance to make a difference. The group is likely to turn inwards and resist all outside help/interference.
The state should certainly eschew any assistance to any group that has oppressive policies. But how can the state make the case that assistance to some groups is OK but to others it is not? Should the state be the sole arbiter of what is acceptable and not acceptable? Clearly then, it is preferable that the state does not provide assistance to any group so that it is seen not to favour one group, or set of groups, above others.
I’d agree with para 2, eagle bomber, if the group in question consists only of those who have made a free and informed decision to join the group, and who are free to leave without dire consequences.
Going in that kind of direction, one could ask whether a group that ruthlessly oppresses a minority in its midst should be protected against a larger group that wishes to attack it in defense of the smaller group. And many variations on that kind of question…
Merlijn, but Shear isn’t a ‘liberal Jew,’ she does share most of the beliefs of the people who beat her up and shouted at her; the article said that. This is an inter-Orthodox dispute, not a dispute between liberals and the Orthodox. Plus there’s her statement that she ‘respects Haredi values’ – I wonder what it means to say that and still dissent from some of them. If Haredi values include unquestioning obedience to tradition, it’s hard to see how she can respect them. Maybe she said that just as an unmeaning placatory formula, but that’s part of the point – I think we ought to get rid of the sense of obligation to offer such formulas.
I think that kind of comment is sheer muddle-headedness, prompted by misguided identitarianism – “I’m just like you, how can you possibly think of me as a lesser being, I’m not like those *other* lesser beings over there!”
“Oh yes you are, now f*ck off…”
Like being a slave-owning ‘free black’, or an Indian in pre-war British Africa, people who are halfway up someone’s tree suddenly find out they’re halfway down it from the other person’s end…
Yeah…sad…like bullied children trying to fit in with the bullies by being ineffectual bullies themselves. Or like servants quarrelling with other servants about the grandness of their respective employers.
Anyway, the sheer muddle-headedness is what I was hinting at. It’s like Catholic or Mormon women who express outrage at sexism within the church. Well what were they expecting? Unitarians?
I would guess that to a certain extent it’s connected to the fact that the religion does assign women a definite place, a role, that (partly because they can’t reject that role and still remain part of that society) they take a kind of pride in it, because it’s theirs, even if it’s imposed. A slightly more benign (open to argument, granted) version of Stockholm Syndrome?