Mehadrin Buses - A Chareidi Perspective - Part IV

Pregnant and elderly women. Firstly, this doesn't apply on intercity routes. There is no natural division between the front and back sections. It moves in respect to the makeup of the passengers. Even on an intracity bus where the division is clearer, I really don't see the issue here. Do only men have to offer their seats but not women? Why can't a woman stand? And what happens when an elderly man gets on the bus? Why is any of this relevant only to mehadrin buses?

Now to Miriam Shears. Before you jump, no I don't approve of any violence, and what happened was completely unjustified. But she was also not entirely innocent. By her own admission, she regularly and deliberately sat in the men's section. She consistently refused to move, even when requested politely. She knew she was annoying people. She knew was antagonizing people. Even if she couldn't be expected to understand, after all, she'd heard of Rosa Parks, and the whole Mehadrin arrangement was strange to her, why couldn't she see what she was doing? What did she hope to achieve? Re-education?!? Eventually someone got annoyed enough.
So was she within her rights? Yes. Did she deserve what she got? No. Does she deserve any sympathy? Absolutely not!

Mehadrin Buses - A Chareidi Perspective - Part III

What about the violence?
Firstly, it must be pointed out that all the unpleasentness is not on the private lines. I have travelled these buses and sheruts for years and nobody has ever, ever had a complaint. Why should they, it's private.
What I have seen is on the Egged routes, someone will get on and sit in the wrong area. After a while, a fellow passenger may approach him/her and point out that this is a Mehadrin, while politely requesting that they move their seat. I have even seen, and I stress that this is only rarely, the offending passenger refuse to comply. So somebody else attempts, and still no go. So he shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "Nu, what can you do. Some jerk has to be a nudnik". End of story. I have, after many years, never seen a case of someone forcibly evicted, nor of any physical fights, spitting or even name-calling. I don't claim that it doesn't occur, but this must be approached in perspective. The chareidi community, by and large, is non-violent and tolerant with regards to nudnik jerks.
What to do about the violent ones? I don't believe there is anything you can do. They are individuals and are basically impossible to identify. Public declarations do not register with them. Bans and cheirems don't apply because they are unidentified.
In addition, this has nothing to do with mehadrin. A thug doesn't need to see a good arangment violated to get angry. He can get just as easerly angry with no arrangement at all! Stopping the system does nothing to appease him.

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Mehadrin Buses - A Chareidi Perspective - Part II

Why the women at the back? Why not the men at the back or side by side?
One major issue here is the Rosa Parks experience. Anyone who is capable of a detached observation will recognize that our concerns with the 'back of the bus' is a knee-jerk reaction. Blacks were sent to the back to degrade them. So they were degraded. There is no such objective here. Even though there may be something intrinsically inferior in the back than the front, one has to start by removing al his cultural prejudices. So why the back? It's the most practical arangement. The men hardly see the women. The women don't care to see the men. This is unlike a side-by-side arrangement where everybody gets a good look. A curtain down the middle is really not a practicle option, and it doesn't avoid the jostling problem. Someone suggested seating the men at the back - facing backwards. This person does not seem to be a regular bus ridder, or else he would be aware that the seats do not swivel, and they're fixed facing the front.

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Mehadrin Buses - A Chareidi Perspective - Part I

There seems to be a recent revival of the mehadrin bus brouhaha, and there have been a number of points raised which I wish to address.
1) Why do we need these busses at all. Is it just another opportunity to control or abuse women?
2) Why now? Gedolei Yisroel rode the busses and never complained.
3) Why is it good enough to have mixed busses in the US but not in Israel?
4) What next? Separate times or lines in the makolet? banks?
5) Why should non chareidi be forced to fit chareidi contrived standards?
6) What about pregnant and elderly women? Why should they be forced to stand?
7) Why women at the back? Why not the men?
8) Are we just following the lead of a few violent thugs, and are too afraid to raise our voices? Or are we by our silence really acquiescing?

It is a fact of life that men's minds do not work the same as women's. A woman can stare at a man from morning till night and not suffer for distracting thoughts, or alternatively, she will get little enjoyment from it. A man's mind works very differently. He can receive pleasure from staring at women, even briefly. Note the popularity of pin-up girls. Similarly, if he wishes to remove such images from his mind, it is very challenging. The Torah exhorts him to prevent those images in the first place. And because of this weakness, even a fully clothed woman be a distraction. Not as much, but a distraction nonetheless. While a woman can hardly be blamed for arousing such thoughts in a man, provided she acts within the spirit of the laws of tznius, she does have the opportunity to participate in overcoming his challenges.
But how far should she have to go? As already stated, if her dress and actions are those that do not arouse undue attention, which means basically, not sticking out, anything else is hiddur.
In addition there is a problem of men and women jostling each other. This is a problem, for both men and women. Mixing with women who are improperly dressed is also a problem (at least for men). So what's the hetter? If the issur is not meikar hadin, strictly forbidden, then the hetter is due to the fact there is no suitable alternative.
That is the idea behind the mehadrin bus. A man can have a ride on the bus with one less thing to disturb him. A woman can enjoy a bus ride without being jostled by women. From personal experience, I have found exactly that. Peace of mind. Perhaps I have a problem that others don't. Perhaps not. But I don't need a woman who understands nothing about men's minds, especially one who has a poor sense for tznius or kedusha, to tell me where I stand.
Once we understand that the issue is hiddur and not issur, the questions of gedolim and history, banks and the US become easier to understand. Men and women jostling each other on public transport is a problem. Being in places where women are poorly dressed is a problem (for a man). When all you have is the regular bus routes, there's no alternative. So there's no problem - as far as the mixing problems are concerned. The US has no other options. The banks are not offering other options. It was never an issue in the past, because there were no other options. The hiddur issue doesn't even start.
But Israel has come of age. The chareidi community is large enough to support it's own transport, run according to it's own preferences. In fact, on a small scale, the system has been running for years. Anyone who has traveled between Bnei Brak and Yerushalayim by way of sherut knows the arrangement. Full size buses were just the next step. So these buses ran alongside Egged buses, intercity. Nobody had a problem. Don't like it - go with Egged - or walk. This is a private bus. The success, and continuing success, of these routes is testimony of the desire of the community for Mehadrin.
The problems really only started when Egged stepped in. Egged came to an arrangement with a number of private intercity routes to take over, according to the same format. Some routes were also started intracity in the absence of competition under pressure from passengers. Some routes were bullied into submission by price cuts and legal methods. All these new lines are still not exclusive. Don't like it. Take the non-Mehadrin. True that many of the Mehadrin buses are far more frequent than the alternatives, but this is simply a capitalist market response. The Mehadrins are more popular.
But Egged has been negligent. The buses are not properly marked, and the alternative routes have also not been made clear. So a person could really get on without being aware that in some way he has committed himself to a set of guidelines. This is where the antagonists find their nitch.
So if you don't like a Mehadrin bus, pick up the phone and ask Egged what your alternatives are. Perhaps due court activity will force the issue.

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