Spiraling Out Of Control?

I received e-mails regarding this awful story earlier in the week, and saw it posted on a few blogs as well, and every time I read an account of the events that transpired, I feel like vomiting. The story goes like this, from Haaretz (via Shmarya):

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe beating.

More details of this woman's brutal treatment are in the article. I simply cannot believe that something like this could happen, with witnesses looking on and doing nothing. According to witness accounts, Charedi women sitting in the back of the bus (they knew their place, at least!) found fit to criticize the victim for her actions. Is this going to the harbinger of a complete societal breakdown in the Charedi community, as some said the 1964 Kitty Genovese story was indicative of in society at large (Genovese was famously stabbed to death on a city street over thirty minutes. Numerous witnesses were said to have heard her screams, but no one attempted to help her or even call the authorities)? The fact that this common thuggery and violence is considered an appropriate response to deal with a woman who apparently "doesn't know her place", and that numerous people seemed to have looked the other way or declined to inform the authorities in the face of this appaling behavior seems a dreaded throwback to another era or religion.

I just feel that recent events have indicated that things are getting out of control in some pockets of the Charedi world. (And though I am well aware that it is not the case in the vast majority of Charedi communities - I still feel that someone with the Charedi Levush simply does not have the luxury of behaving badly when they are so readily identifiable as a member of such an ostensibly God-fearing community). I can understand that they must feel helpless in the face of the encroaching modernity that is a fact of life in 2006. I struggle with it myself, on an entirely different level, when I drove into Manhattan via the Midtown Tunnel with my son last week and he was treated to a completely inappropriate show of flesh from one huge, five-story billboard after another of half-dressed (and in one case, completely undressed - I kid you not) women. But did I get out of the car and throw eggs or paint at the billboard? Did anyone else who might have been offended by the billboards? Of course not. Would I be perfectly justified in calling or writing the companies whose ads are on the billboards, appealing to their decency and modesty (as unlikely it is that such a tactic would be successful), or perhaps organizing a boycott of those companies? Sure.

Well, members of the Charedi world have the same choice of behaving appropriately or inappropriately in the face of what they find offensive. A boycott of El Al in hopes that they will stop flying on Shabbat? Great. Totally appropriate. A peaceful march to protest the Gay Pride parade? Sure. A violent demonstration where fires are set and people are stoned? Decidedly inappropriate. Throwing bleach at women whose clothing is deemed immodest? Inappropriate.

In this case, there were many options available to this group of men if they were so offended by the prospect of sharing the front of the bus with women. (And please be assured, I am not at all convinced that a man who is sitting minding his own business, with a nose in a sefer, should be in any way bothered by a woman minding her own business, sitting in another row). They could have chartered their own bus line, petitioned for this line to be granted "Mehadrin" status (which it did not have). They could also have attempted to speak with this woman in a reasonable manner instead of resorting to spit and violence.

I don't think that any reasonable person, Charedi or not, could possibly feel that this story is an example of the proper way for members of any community to prevent the encroaching of modernity on their lives. As always, I hope to hear this incident roundly denounced from those aforementioned reasonable people in the coming days.