A letter writer in the Washington Post takes issue with a Ruth Marcus column about Israel’s haredim.
No woman in Israel is “forced to board public buses from the back and stay there,” as Ruth Marcus stated. There are several bus lines, servicing overwhelmingly Haredi communities, where there is a voluntary separation of the sexes — the wish of female passengers no less than of males. If a woman chooses to flout that convention, she is protected by law.
Flout. SOS likes that flout. Synonyms for flout, we’re told, include
It’s interesting that this writer considers acting in accordance with your country’s laws (which forbid gender segregation in public places) to be an expression of contempt.
Nor is the flouter at all protected by the law. No one will intervene when the men on the bus spit at her and the women call her a whore. The haredim on the bus don’t do laws; they do conventions which, if disobeyed, are being flouted and will get punished.
Just as Marcus says, Israel is becoming a land of cults, not laws. It’s pretty remarkable that there are people in this country willing to justify this trend.