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Jan 6, 2010
mehadrin bus attack
Mynet has reported that there was an incident on a mehadrin bus in Ashdod. A 60 year old woman got on the bus, in the front, and sat down, not going to the back section designated for women. A short while later, an 18 year old young man got on the bus. He saw the woman sitting there and started telling her to go to the back.
She argued and said she is not interested and all she is doing is sitting there so there is no problem. He argued some more, and she then took out her canister of pepper spray and let him have it right in the face.
He called the police, she was arrested, and eventually released on bail.
She said she did it because she wanted to scare him, as he had screamed at her.
(source: mynet)
Perhaps the worst thing about the mehadrin buses, aside from the obvious, is that it has bred a new creature of young frum men being, and feeling they have the right to be, completely chutzpadike to their elders. An 18 year old screaming at a 60 year old woman and telling her what to do? That should be unheard of.
However, nowhere does it say, nor did she make any such claim (at least according to the article), that he had attacked her or threatened to attack her. it seems the argument was purely verbal. Perhaps she felt threatened, but she did not say so.
In such a case, I see no justification in her having used the pepper spray on him. Had he started to get physical, or implied he was about to, then yes, I can understand using the spray. but just a verbal argument?
The kitzonim on both sides of the society are the ones who hurt everybody else. The kitzonim who insist on everyone following their chumras, and the kitzonim who look to provoke those who wish to act differently.
She argued and said she is not interested and all she is doing is sitting there so there is no problem. He argued some more, and she then took out her canister of pepper spray and let him have it right in the face.
He called the police, she was arrested, and eventually released on bail.
She said she did it because she wanted to scare him, as he had screamed at her.
(source: mynet)
Perhaps the worst thing about the mehadrin buses, aside from the obvious, is that it has bred a new creature of young frum men being, and feeling they have the right to be, completely chutzpadike to their elders. An 18 year old screaming at a 60 year old woman and telling her what to do? That should be unheard of.
However, nowhere does it say, nor did she make any such claim (at least according to the article), that he had attacked her or threatened to attack her. it seems the argument was purely verbal. Perhaps she felt threatened, but she did not say so.
In such a case, I see no justification in her having used the pepper spray on him. Had he started to get physical, or implied he was about to, then yes, I can understand using the spray. but just a verbal argument?
The kitzonim on both sides of the society are the ones who hurt everybody else. The kitzonim who insist on everyone following their chumras, and the kitzonim who look to provoke those who wish to act differently.
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I see every reason for her firing pepper spray at him. He'll think twice before he opens his mouth next time.
ReplyDelete"telling her" - I've seen such incidents, and the "telling" is never a nice quiet "this is a mehadrin bus, could you please". No, it's definitely a "GET TO THE BACK OF THE BUS, MOVE, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG SECTION" in your face. It is DEFINITELY threatening. Even more so if you have a 18 year old larger bachur (add on black hat for size and black coat to increase width) versus a 60 year old woman, who's probably a foot shorter.
ReplyDeletewhere can i buy pepper spray in israel?
ReplyDeleteif the guy really was yelling at her, she was totally right to spray him.
btw- the one time i was asked to move to the back of the bus, it was said very softly and politely. and when i refused (i was pregnant and loaded with bags), the guy just dropped it.
Good for her. If a man is in the face of an elderly woman, let her be pre-emptive about defending herself. If she waits for him to get physically violent, it's too late. That's not a chance she ought to have to take.
ReplyDeleteI too am in favor the woman. I think that she did something that has been long overdue. Which is for someone to stand up to the self-appointed bullies that try to run our communities. Personally I hope that this not the last time that this happens.
ReplyDeleteGo LADY!!!
ReplyDeleteLet's spray all these chutzpadik holier-than-thou guys. And while we're at it, give them a few Talmudic quotes about respecting elders, not talking to women, and that nice quote about embarrassing someone in public is worse than killing them.
I agree - this will teach that young shnook to mind his own business, he can sit in seat not right next to her and CLOSE his eyes, or look at a holy book.
So where are the defenders of these lines, who say it is voluntary, and the women just love sitting int he back?
Rafi you are clearly outvoted here. He got what he deserved. Good for her. If she has a facebook page then I'll become a fan.
ReplyDeleteWhy should she have to wait to be attacked to defend herself? If she knew anything about the previous attacks, the verbal can quickly turn into physical.
ReplyDeleteWhat the man did was obviously wrong, but if this in fact was a mehadrin bus, she is the one who is not following the rules and can not be totally blameless.
ReplyDeletebushalter-
ReplyDeletewasnt there a recent ruling that mehadrin buses are not legal nor enforcable? that if ppl choose to adhere to the mehadrin concept they may, but if ppl don't want to, they are in the right legally and dont have to nor should they be forced to
Bushalter:
ReplyDeleteSo the lady went against the rules, you claim.
Rules? The ones posted on the bus?
The ones Egged claims to the Supreme Court are not rules, just seating reflecting the customers' wishes? And was the bus clearly marked before she got on?
Hope you don't wear halter tops on busses - who knows what will happen to you. My cousin was refused service on a mehadrin bus because he - yes he - was wearing shorts and a T-shirt....
How does a person know when it is a mehadrin bus? If you call Egged to find out about bus lines to take you to where you need to go, they don't give a warning saying that it is a Mehadrin bus and thus you take your life into your own hands if you sit in the wrong section.
ReplyDeleteIn fact Egged denies that it has an official policy of "Mehadrin Lines". In truth it is more that they have simply stopped enforcement of citizens rights on some lines. On most lines if a group of thugs starts to attack someone the driver is supposed to notify the police and stop at the nearest station without letting anyone off in between. On these "Mehadrin" lines they simply allow people to be mistreated. So it comes down to vigilante justice.
In my opinion, when the government and other agencies stop defending citizen rights, it is in the hands of the citizen to defend their own rights. Mehadrin bus lines only exist because self-appointed bullies decided that might makes right on those lines. Well now a 60yr old lady answered that problem.
Given the history of similar publicized incidents she had every reason to assume that she was under threat of physical attack.
ReplyDeleteThe added deterrent value of her actions make her nothing less than heroic.
In response to all of you I say, I would have thought that as well (and did). Then I noticed that she never said she felt threatened (though maybe she did and it just did not make it to the article. my comment is based on what she said in the article). She said she was trying to scare him.
ReplyDeleteThere's a similar (not the same) case in this news parody video:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPPawcPXwDo
I was wondering...there used to be signs on the busses that said "mipnei sayva takum" does this only apply to older men? women are not allowed the same respect? Women regardless of age have to go all the way to the back to look for a seat? I don't care if this guy did ask nicely. These crazy fanatics who disregard all human decency because they obviously are crazy perverts who cannot be in the same vicinty as a woman without being aroused are just that, crazy perverts. Whatever happened to "derech eretz kadma latorah?"
ReplyDeleteBatsheva
Rafi, obviously, she felt threatened - as would any normal old lady, when faced with a young man who has no decency and thinks he should be "arguing" with a woman old enough to be his grandmother, a young man who thinks he has the right to tell her what to do.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a law passed against threatening people on busses.
Rafi, let's organize freedom from tyranny rides, let's get some pregnant ladies and Bubbies to sit in the front of mehadrin busses with concealed tape recorders, and let's see how "nicely" they are requested to move, and what actually happens when they refuse. That needs to be taken as evidence to the Supreme Court, which seems to buy Egged's story that is voluntary. What the reports miss is tons of people like me, who never take mehardin busses because of this...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all...Kol haKavod to this lady.I'm certain that this thug and others like him will think twice before launching abuse in the future.
ReplyDeleteI have a question to some of the commentators here.
Why do we consider mehadrin bus lines "kitzoni"?
How long ago did this begin?
Like it or not (and I don't) Klal Yisroel is moving to the right..at breakneck speed.
How many of you voted for our current mayor (the mayor for ALL of the people) and are now discovering that he is mayor for all of his people?
How many of you laud and follow certain moderate" rabbonim whose real goal is to ghettoize Bet Shemesh?"
How many of you support organziations and mosdos who are really kitzoni themselves but "do such great work"?
In time they will be empowered to make our city uncomfortable for many of its present inhabitants.
Your association with certain people, organizations and rabbonim may be no different than aiding and abetting the thugs on the bus.
Just because she didn't articulate "I wanted to scare him before he escalated things" doesn't mean she didn't feel that way.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not (and I don't) Klal Yisroel is moving to the right..at breakneck speed.
Wolves: There's a big difference between to the right (I am far more halachic than the generation before me) versus kitzoni as you say elsewhere in your comment.
Charedi is not the same as kitzoni. The problem is that the kitzonim claim all charedim as under their banner, and the ordinary and nice charedim say yes to what looks like defending Torah but really it's a completely different agenda.
(Unfortunately the ordinary and nice charedim are too busy doing their good stuff to either notice or want to invest the time to fight it. Hence the mess we're in.)
Oh... and the kitzonim never call themselves that. They claim to be like the majority of charedim who in this context I guess you could say act like sheep ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe woman did the right thing. She was verbally harrassed and the perpetrator wouldn't stop, so she protected herself.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am against the whole idea of forced Mehadrin buses, period.
Shira,
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain what "more halachic" means. If it means adhearing to the Shulchan Aruch/Rama then I understand. If it means following many chumros that have no connection to halachic Judaism I might have to argue.
Our previous generations would not have balked at certain hashgachos and considered everything to be treif. Most (not all) of our ancestors found a way to get along with other Jews and even rode in "non mehadrin" buses. Learning Torah was a mitzva to be combined with making a living while there was room for "muflagim" who would be supported to learn full time.
And yet those generations (of less halachic Jews were able to produce rabbonimm and baalei battim on a level far above of what we have today.
In regards to my comment about kitzoni...
I don't know where you live but in my shchuna even many of the "moderate" Charedim follow rabbonim and daven in shuls that have an agenda.
Just because a rav smiles alot and speaks well doesn't mean that he can't have a goal of making a neighborhood totally Charedi.
Such a person who has no true regard for other Jews with different hashkafos and doesn't want to co-exist are kitzoni in my book, no matter how much "good stuff" that they are invloved with.
Woah, you are all jumping the gun (or pepper spray ) a little too quickly I think. None of you were there, so you don't know how he said it to her. In this post, you see nowhere that he screamed or verbally attacked her. What if he did ask her properly, she refused, he continues the conversation and tries to persuade her and she takes out a can of pepper spray?
ReplyDeleteI'm not defending him - if he was verbally assaulting then maybe he did deserve it, but you can't know that from this post. Not enough information. To assume that anyone who asks a woman to move to the back of the bus deserve this is also wrong.
Also, you make it sound like it was a little old lady. She's 60 not 80. That doesn't make it ok, but you're amplifying the chutzpah factor by making it sound like she was elderly.
Bottom line in my view: She has the right to defend herself if she was threatened. She doesn't get to carry out a personal vendetta.
Wanna Saab-in,
ReplyDeleteOK, he can ask once - ONCE - this 18 year old shnook. But she clearly said NO. He asked at least once more, right? So that was wrong. And $100 says he didn't ask nicely either time, and used a tone/voice/language/gestures that made her feel threatened. Also, Egged claims people are just sitting where they want to on Mehadrin busses - but that is A BIG LIE.