'Modesty police' patrols bridge ceremony

[Scurrilous]

Dancers scheduled to appear in opening ceremony of new Chords Bridge in Jerusalem undergo emergency wardrobe change after ultra-Orthodox elements deem original outfits immodest, threaten mass protest

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3560615,00.html

<snip>

"The dancers hired to perform at Wednesday inauguration ceremony of Jerusalem's new Chords Bridge had to undergo a last-minute wardrobe change, after ultra-Orthodox elements deemed their costume "too revealing," and threatened to stage a mass protest at the ceremony.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was reportedly under significant pressure to cancel the performance altogether, but eventually, a compromised was reached: The dancers were dressed in long outfits – complete with headdress – which rendered their figures unrecognizable. The performance was also cut from three segments to one.

Yaniv Hoffman, the company's manager, slammed the decision: "The parents and the girls were stunned and we're completely thrown. This company has been performing in every official city event for the past 20 years and this is the first time anything like this has happened. These are 13 to 16-year-old dancers. This is art, it's not like they're go-go dancers."

The secular residents of Jerusalem, added Hoffman, should do something now, before it is too late: "This isn't just the company's fight. The public has to wake up. These are dark days for all of us. It saddens me to see the depths our capital has sunk to."

City Councilman Saar Netanel called the decision "scandalous", adding it serves as an example to the city's "backwards leadership."

[Tesha]

1. Fundamentalists of all faiths are bad news for modern civilization. (NT)

[predfan]

2. Go read about Pensacola Christian College on Firedogglake.........you can't make this stuffup,

unless of course they're making this stuff up, which I fear they aren't.

[jody]

8. What does PCC have to do with the OP? n/t

[madaboutharry]

3. Religious tyranny is always oppressive.

n/t

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pelsar]

5. and the taliban have arrived....

welcome to the israeli version.....

[sabbat hunter]

7. are you kidding me this happens here

in the US. My friend went to a kosher restaurant on a date recently and was wearing a nice outfit. She was getting looks, comments from Hasidim near by about how she was immodestly dressed, etc. They also run a curtain down the middle of buses that travel in a village upstate that was founded by hasidim.

[pelsar]

10. this was a public ceremony...

following the general culture of israel....dancers dance wearing outfits that give them freedom of movement, that shows their limbs etc.....More so this was planned, practiced and at the last minute modified for a "political approval"....and these were just kids.

there is no excuse in public ceremonies for that kind of "modesty police" to enforce their version of modesty. They do so in their own neighborhoods...and that is enough.

All religions have their extremists and their modesty rules...none of them are fit to run a country as they by their very essence represent an intolerant dictatorship....and that road starts with the 'modesty police'.

examples abound in Saudi Arabia, Iran, taliban country.....

[Scurrilous]

6. Fearing Haredi ire, Knesset choir excludes women singers at Brown session

<snip>

"A senior Knesset official on Monday said fear of offending ultra-Orthodox MKs led the institution to exclude women singers from the parliamentary choir at a special session in honor of visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier in the day.

Two-thirds of the Knesset choir, headed by MK Zevulun Orlev (National Union-National Religious Party Chairman), were missing when the national anthem Hatikva was performed at the afternoon session.

Director-general of the Knesset, Avi Balashnikov, told Haaretz that the decision to leave out the female members of the choir was made in order to accommodate all MKs."

<snip>

"At previous special sittings of the Knesset organized in the last few months in honor of U.S President George Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nikolas Sarkozy, the national anthem was sung by a children's choir, which included females.

Balashnikov said Knesset policy is to use choirs of children of both genders aged under 13, or to bring in older, all-male choirs."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004102.html

[Sezu]

9. No women were beheaded stoned or hung so it's

a 1 on a scale of 1-10 of oppression even if it is digressive.

[pelsar]

11. true but.....

its still repressive, digressive, disgusting and immoral.......

[azurnoir]

12. What I don't get

is why the ultra-orthodox are kowtowed to they are without question a minority, better to let them protest,and keep the protest contained. There was nothing wrong with the outfits, I have seen far worse on High School cheerleaders, the "new" outfits reminded me of the Bookworm on the old Batman series not to mention looked like they would restrict movement or at least take away from the grace of dance.

[pelsar]

13. jerusalem politics....

the mayor is haridi ..his constitutes are mainly the religious element. The whole concept of a multiparty system, designed to give the minority parties are say...is a major failure. It gives way too much power to those minority parties.

stick with the two party system.....its the better one

[Violet_Crumble]

15. Two party systems tend to evolve naturally over time...

That's how it happened with our local elections when we got self-government in the early 80's. First few elections there was a cavalcade of tiny parties, but over time it settled down, and they vanished and only the two major parties and the Greens have remained.

I was reading recently that Israel tried to do something about the power that religious and one-issue parties have by introducing separate elections for the PM (unlike us, the voters elected the PM directly) and for the Knesset. It lasted for two terms before they went back to how it was before because it didn't really fix the problem. I think part of the reason why a two-party system hasn't evolved naturally yet in Israel is because two dominant parties haven't emerged yet who are on the traditional left/right divide. Israeli political parties seem to be rather fluid and sometimes it seems like you blink and you miss a political party disbanding and some of its leading lights reinventing themselves under a new name. And the multiparty system works against parties that clearly should be dominant ones (like Labor) because due to the individual political aspirations of politicians, they'll shake hands with the devil and enter into coalitions that are clearly not in their best interests, nor that of the people who voted for them. When Ariel Sharon invited Labor to join a coalition with him after his first election and they accepted because Peres and Ben Eliezer put their ambitions and the temptation of a cabinet position over the interests of the party, it pretty much was a death-knell for the Labor Party and would have probably brought about their end as a political force if they hadn't left the coalition. In the end it damaged them badly, and hopefully when they do recover, they will one day be one of the two dominant parties in Israeli politics, and there'll be not one single religious party represented...

[Violet_Crumble]

14. Gosh, I wish I'd heard that line so I could have used it on my grandmother...

Coming from a different era than me, I was shocked when she told me about how she had to leave work when she got married because married women weren't allowed to work. And the single women that were allowed to hold jobs were paid far less than men. Y'know, I should have just said to her. 'Tough shit, Nanna. It's not like women were beheaded, stoned, or hung, so like I'm slapping a 1 on a scale of 1-10 on it and telling you to get over it!' ;)

As a woman I find it demoralising when people minimise successful attempts by religious freaks to oppress and subjugate women. And when the motive for doing so is nothing more than political, then I find it just a bit creepy...

[Scurrilous]

16. Ultra-Orthodox 'Modesty Guard' suspected in beating of J'lem woman

<snip>

"A group of men who police suspect were hired by an ultra-Orthodox gang recently broke in to a Jerusalem woman's home and beat her because they deemed her immodest.

The so-called Modesty Guard is suspected of being behind the incident. The gang has been known to unleash extortion, mercenaries, violence and surveillance on less religious Jews they deem sacrilegious. They claim to do it all in the name of God.

The incident may be one of a string of signs of rising ultra-Orthodox violence."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009580.html

[Scurrilous]

17. Haredi chastity squad methods exposed

Following arrest of chastity squad members, riots erupt in religious neighborhoods. Former members reveal how squads operate

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3589470,00.html

<snip>

"The arrests of two alleged chastity squads members, Elhanan Buzaglo and Binyamin Meirovich, have sparked a new wave of violence in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Following the arrests, garbage bins in the neighborhood of Geula were set on fire. Police officers who arrived were greeted with rocks being thrown at them. A store selling MP4 devices was attacked last week.

Buzaglo, 29, was indicted over an incident which took place two months ago. The District Prosecutor's Office believes that Buzaglo, along with six other chastity squad members, broke into a divorced woman's home located in the Jerusalem neighborhood of, Maalot Dafna, beat her and threatened her.

"The woman was badly bruised and required medical attention. For his role, Buzaglo was paid $2000," claimed the prosecution. Binyamin Meirovich, who allegedly took part in the same attack, was released last week under limiting conditions.

Former members describe a "military-like organization".

"I was pretty much into it", says Chess, who was active in the organization for four years. "We would meet in a regular meeting place and get our assignments. Every Thursday we would be on alert.

"I bought a club, so that I would have an easier time breaking bones. Some used irons. The job only get carried out after hard evidence was gathered. We would collect the evidence, and there was a hotline as well."

[Violet_Crumble]

18. Sick bastards....

Seven armed men beating up a woman and getting paid to do it. I really hate misogynistic religious nutters, no matter what religion they embrace...

[pelsar]

19. religious nutters?.....

sorry i think your being way too easy on them.....i believe stronger language might better suit their positions for tolerance of the 'other".....can i use 'brown shirt" like without getting the post banned?

[azurnoir]

20. How about "thugs"?

seems fitting, on that thought do you know if the guys doing the actual beatings are even members of the sect giving the orders? They're being paid to do it

[pelsar]

21. i actually never heard of them being paid....

i always thought it was 'volunteer' work.....i did run into them once (i was with a girl...and it appears stayed too late in her apt-she was religious and in that neighborhood). At any rate, the guys who pounded on the door consisted of two young thugs and one older guy, white beard an all...who i guess "gave them permission"

[azurnoir]

22. volunteer work?

I had never heard of this until recently, I knew orthodox were strict and things like Hasidim women kept their hair covered, stuff like that but this?!??! Had not a clue Jews did this stuff still kind of shocks me.

[pelsar]

23. it was in fact....

one of the things that i learned about in israel (i had never even heard of such a thing in the US)...that slowly turned my opinion about religion being a "passive not for me" to a more "its far more dangerous and insidious' than i had imagined kind of thing.

i have since seen how is used to gain political power, destroy people etc......no more than a larger organized sophisticated cult.....

[eyl]

24. As I recall

an article about one of the guys in the group referenced at the beginning of this subtjread stated he himself wasn't particularly religious (I don't remember exactly but he might have been formerly religious) and served the "chastity patrols" as a hired enforcer (he said he got 10,000 NIS for the attack in the article, IIRC)