Israeli Women - Mehadrin Buses

Mehadrin Buses

Further information: Gender separation in Judaism

In Orthodox Judaism, there are certain situations in which gender separation is practiced for religious and social reasons, with strict rules on mingling of men and women. Before they were banned in 2011, Mehadrin bus lines operated along routes with large Haredi populations, with seats in the front reserved for men passengers only. In 2006, Miriam Shear, an American Jewish woman, claims she was attacked by a group of ultra-Orthodox men after refusing to move to the back of the bus on a non-segregated line. Critics have likened the “mehadrin” lines to racial segregation in the United States, with Shear compared to African American icon Rosa Parks. In July 2004, American-Israeli novelist Naomi Ragen was insulted and threatened because she refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus.

Vigilante "modesty patrols" have harassed women perceived as immodestly dressed in Haredi neighborhoods. In 2010, police arrested two Haredi men at the Western Wall plaza on suspicion that they threw chairs at a Women of the Wall group that was praying aloud at the site.

On September 28, 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court outlawed public gender segregation in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood in response to a petition submitted after extremist Haredi men physically and verbally assaulted women for walking on a designated men's only road.

In January 2011, a ruling of the Israeli High Court of Justice allowed the continuation of the gender segregation in public buses on a strictly voluntary basis for a one-year experimental period.

In December 2011 U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on the controversy surrounding gender-separated buses in Israel, comparing Israel to Iran.