Cases involving Modesty Patrols in Chasidic and Charedi Communities
(AKA: Tznius Patrol, Tzeniut Patrol, Vaad Tzniyus)
Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Israel, South Africa, United States
Due to numerous complaints regarding "modesty patrol's" attack against women (adults and children) The Awareness Center has created this site in hopes of putting an end to this form of violence against Jewish women. Sexual harassment and assault are considered crimes in most countries and should be prosecuted as such.
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Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.
Table of Contents
- Threat Made To A Sixteen Year Old Girl (05/01/2001)
- Rachel's Story (10/10/2005)
- Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat (12/17/2006)
- Woman accuses Orthodox men of bus attack (12/20/2006)
- "Modesty Patrol" (12/20/2006)
- So Many Rules, Protection, Sex Among Ultra (12/22/2006)
- Ultra-Orthodox modesty squad burns clothing (01/30/2007)
- I Am Not Sitting at the Back of the Bus (02/23/2007)
- Women must sit in the back of the bus - News Broadcast on YouTube (02/25/2007)
- Mea Shearim's 'egg brigade' to prevent touristic infiltrations (02/29/2007)
- Enough is Enough! (10/24/2007)
- Israel's Ultra Orthodox - Australia's George Negus of Dateline presents "Israel's Ultra Orthodox". (01/26/2008)
- Rabbi Aviner: Women must not wear pants even when alone (05/02/2008)
- Modesty patrol' suspected of spilling acid on teenage girl (06/05/2008)
- Police make peace with modesty patrols (09/04/2008)
- Jewish 'Modesty patrols' sow fear in Israel (10/04/2008)
- Inside Haredi modesty patrols (12/28/2012)
- Abuse Whistleblower Battling Both Haredi Community, DA (01/14/2013)
- Hasidic Modesty Patrols Enforce Jewish Law in Orthodox Neighborhoods (01/30/2013)
- New York City suing ultra-Orthodox for posting modesty guidelines in stores (02/15/2013)
- Satmar Hasidic scolds pressure merchants to comply with dress codes, other standards; force business owners to choose between boycott or potential discrimination rap (02/21/2013)
- London Jewish community launches modesty patrol (05/01/2013)
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Ultra-Orthodox ‘modesty patrol’ clashes with police (06/06/2013)
- Halachically sanctioned degradation of women makes me scream (09/03/2013)
- Touring The Village of New Square, NY (12/07/2013)
2014
- Pamphlet about modesty and clothing (01/16/2014)
Also See:
- Domestic Violence in Jewish Homes
- Case of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner
- Case of Rabbi Elior Chen
- Case of Rabbanit Bruria Keren
- Case of Rabbi Baruch Lebovitz
- Case of Meilech Schnitzler
- Case of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman
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Threat Made To A Sixteen Year Old Girl
Jerusalem, Israel - 2001
Vicki Polin, executive director of The Awareness Center stated:
I personally know of a case where the "modesty patrol" in Jerusalem was threatening to throw acid in the face of a religious teenage girl who was "off the derech." The girl's family was in crisis, she was seen wearing pants and hanging out with teenage boys. The "modesty patrol" basically told her that if she didn't change her ways, they would throw acid in her face. This would ensure the boys would stop looking at her and tempting them. A police report was made, yet nothing was ever done to catch the assailants.
The teenager was forced to leave the community she resided and live elsewhere.
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Rachel's Story
by Naomi Ragen
NaomiRagen.com - October, 10, 2005
On Sunday, I went to Israel's Supreme Court to listen to the wisdom of the highest judges in Israel concerning the case of Rachel S. (there's a partial gag order, thus the initial), the woman on whom I based my play, Women's Minyan.
Rachel, who was married to an admitted adulterer in Chasidic Rabbi's clothing, a man who not only cheated on her but abused her, has been shunned, harassed, physically threatened, intimidated, and made miserable ever since she walked out on him twelve years ago. But the worst punishment she received -- which by the way is standard in the haredi community for wives who won't put up with such husbands -- is losing her children.
Rachel has twelve children.
At the time she left, one was a three month-old baby. She had three year-old twin girls. A bunch of little boys under Bar Mitzvah age, and a fewer older ones, some even married.
Fearing for her life after a violent attack, she fled her home, even though her husband was legally supposed to vacate the premises. Instead, he forced her out.
She has not been allowed to see her children since.
She went to the Rabbinical Court. To the highest Rabbis in Meah Shearim (including Rav Eliyashiv, who knows her well, and used to send her women to counsel.) Everyone knew her story. The social workers involved, mostly haredim who live in that world, everyone was afraid to stick up for her because her ex's father in -law was the head of a well-known kollel and a member of the Torah Council of Sages (which should give you some idea of what passes for a sage these days...)
The Rabbinical Court issued a ruling that her ex should bring the children to see her. That was six years ago.
She's still waiting.
I came into this picture rather late, when I saw her on television because the woman who was helping her,someone who'd been counseled by her, and felt she owed Rachel her life, took her in. This woman was beaten by thugs calling themselves the Modesty Patrol. They put her into the hospital because she refused to send Rachel back to her husband.
I tried to help Rachel because I was outraged that a beautiful, righteous Rebbitzen, who had given birth to twelve children and cared for them, should have them ripped out of her life because she dared divorce her philandering husband.
That was seven years ago. I've come to know this woman well. She was full of energy when we started, and so was I.
We couldn't imagine that there would be people venal enough to prevent her from seeing her children, a basic human right.
I was in touch with her social worker, Ruth , who told me in no uncertain terms that Rachel was a wonderful mother, and that her husband was brainwashing her children against her with the help of the Rabbinical Court, who refused to enforce their own edicts by calling in the police.
I wrote a play about her. I went on television shows and had them interview her. The dailies all did stories. We took the Rabbinical Court to the Supreme Court for not enforcing its judgements, hoping to finally get some judicial relief and have her case removed from the Rabbis and put into civil court.
That was two years ago. The Supreme Court brought in Ruth for another social worker's report. And this time she wrote that the children were curious about their mother but their father didn't allow any discussion about her in the house.
Some of the children said they didn't want to meet their mother. So Ruth suggested that Rachel write them letters (!) and have the father give them to the children (!) and that the father report on the children to the social workers every once in a while. (!)
I'd say I couldn't believe it if I hadn't been involved in meeting these social workers, one of them a haredi woman who lives in Meah Shearim who thought Rachel should apologize to her mother (who worked against Rachel all these years). It was disgusting to witness. Guess what? The Rabbinical Court thought even that was too much.
So there I was in the Supreme Court of Israel, hoping for a miracle. After all, in the place where judges have endless sympathy for Palestinian terrorists one would think there would be a little compassion left over for Jewish women.
Sending Rachel's case back to the Rabbinical Court is like sending IDF soldiers to be tried by the Palestinian Authority. But that's what they did. After all, one of the judges said, a woman no less: "The situation that existed years ago when the Rabbinical Court ordered the father to bring the children to see their mother isn't relevant anymore, since they don't want to see her."
Well, isn't that brilliant? The father gets away with brainwashing them, kidnapping them, ignoring court orders.
All that isn't "relevant." Final decision: Send it back to the Rabbinic Court for yet another decision. Meet back in
Supreme Court in January. These children will be grandparents by the time this is over.
Rachel has stopped coming to these hearings. She can hardly walk up the steps of her hovel anymore.
And as I passed her well-fed, immaculately dressed, bearded, black-coated ex, I couldn't help but turn to him and say:
The Ten Days of Repentance. I saw the steam come out of his head. He hates me. As well he should.
I went to see Rachel the other day. All this time, she has been living in sub-human conditions. I hold my nose when I go into that apartment:the air is so thick and foul it's unbreathable. It was never meant to be lived in. Years ago, it was her clothing store, until her ex embezzled all her funds. An apartment on the bottom floor on the main street of Meah Shearim near an open sewer and piles of garbage.
All these years she's been reluctant to move because it's a "key money" apartment, a legal arrangement in which if she doesn't live there, she'll lose her investment.
Her husband lives in a penthouse a few blocks away. Her health is gone, as she takes higher and higher doses of cortizone to breathe. I have seen her in the hospital on oxygen only last year. She is very fragile. The possibility she may never see her children again is crushing her. She wouldn't recognize them now even if she passed them in the street. It only takes some stupid remark (like the idiot she met the other day who knew a little about her case, who was "kind" enough to tell her she would never win because some Rabbi didn't believe she was telling the truth) to devastate her.
Finally, finally, I think I've convinced her she has to move. She says in a year she expects that the court-ordered property settlement (that's taken ten years...) will finally be executed (if her ex doesn't find some way to sneak out of that), and her ex will sell the penthouse and give her half.
Then she'll have the money to move.
Friends, if she's in that apartment another year, she's not going to make it. I mean it. She's a woman in her forties.
I never turn to you unless I have a situation in which there is no one else to help. This is one of them. I want her to rent a little place now where the air is clean, a place where no one knows her. A place where she can sit in the sun, and breathe clean air. I want her to live, to get well. Because one day we are going to find some way to reunite her with her children if it's the last thing we ever do. I have no intention of giving up. Ever. God's justice will not tarry forever
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Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat
By Daphna Berman
Haaretz - December 17, 2006
A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.
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."
Shear, an American-Israeli woman who currently lives in Canada, says that on a recent five-week vacation to Israel, she rode the bus daily to the Old City to pray at sunrise. Though not defined by Egged as a sex-segregated "mehadrin" bus, women usually sit in the back, while men sit in the front, as a matter of custom.
"Every two or three days, someone would tell me to sit in the back, sometimes politely and sometimes not," she recalled this week in a telephone interview. "I was always polite and said 'No. This is not a synagogue. I am not going to sit in the back.'"
But Shear, a 50-year-old religious woman, says that on the morning of the 24th, a man got onto the bus and demanded her seat - even though there were a number of other seats available in the front of the bus.
"I said, I'm not moving and he said, 'I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.' Then he spat in my face and at that point, I was in high adrenaline mode and called him a son-of-a-bitch, which I am not proud of. Then I spat back. At that point, he pushed me down and people on the bus were screaming that I was crazy. Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off. I was fighting back and kicked one of the men in his privates. I will never forget the look on his face."
Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair covering, "one of the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched him. I said, 'I want my hair covering back' but he wouldn't give it to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the aisle."
Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver "did nothing." The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a "stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong."
According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident, Shear's account is entirely accurate. "I saw everything," he said. "Someone got on the bus and demanded that she go to the back, but she didn't agree. She was badly beaten and her whole body sustained hits and kicks. She tried to fight back and no one would help her. I tried to help, but someone was stopping me from getting up. My phone's battery was dead, so I couldn't call the police. I yelled for the bus driver to stop. He stopped once, but he didn't do anything. When we finally got to the Kotel [Western Wall], she was beaten badly and I helped her go to the police."
Shear says that when she first started riding the No. 2 line, she did not even know that it was sometimes sex-segregated. She also says that sitting in the front is simply more comfortable. "I'm a 50-year-old woman and I don't like to sit in the back. I'm dressed appropriately and I was on a public bus."
"It is very dangerous for a group of people to take control over a public entity and enforce their will without going through due process," she said. "Even if they [Haredim who want a segregated bus] are a majority - and I don't think they are - they have options available. They can petition Egged or hire their own private line. But as long as it's a public bus, I don't care if there are 500 people telling me where to sit. I can sit wherever I want and so can anyone else."
Meyer says that throughout the incident, the other passengers blamed Shear for not sitting in the back. "They'll probably claim that she attacked them first, but that's totally untrue. She was abused terribly, and I've never seen anything like it."
Word of Shear's story traveled quickly after she forwarded an e-mail detailing her experience. She has been contacted by a number of groups, including Shatil, the New Israel Fund's Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women's forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA).
In the coming month, IRAC will be submitting a petition to the High Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry over the issue of segregated Egged buses. IRAC attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski is in touch with Shear and is considering including her in the petition.
Although the No. 2 Jerusalem bus where the incident occurred is not actually defined as a mehadrin line, Erez-Likhovski says that Shear's story is further proof that the issue requires legal clarification. About 30 Egged buses are designated as mehadrin, mostly on inter-city lines, but they are not marked to indicate this. "There's no way to identify a mehadrin bus, which in itself is a problem," she said.
"Theoretically, a person can sit wherever they want, even on a mehadrin line, but we're seeing that people are enforcing [the gender segregation] even on non-mehadrin lines and that's the part of the danger," she said.
On a mehadrin bus, women enter and exit through the rear door, and the seats from the rear door back are generally considered the "women's section." A child is usually sent forward to pay the driver.
In a response from Egged, the bus driver denied that Shear was physically attacked in any way.
"In a thorough inquiry that we conducted, we found that the bus driver does not confirm that any violence was used against the complainant," Egged spokesman Ron Ratner wrote.
"According to the driver, once he saw that there was a crowd gathering around her, he stopped the bus and went to check what was going on. He clarified to the passengers that the bus was not a mehadrin line and that all passengers on the line are permitted to sit wherever they want on the bus. After making sure that the passengers returned to their seats, he continued driving."
The Egged response also noted that their drivers "are not able and are not authorized to supervise the behavior of the passengers in all situations."
Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Avner Ovadia said in response that the mehadrin lines are "the result of agreements reached between Egged and Haredi bodies" and are therefore unconnected to the ministry.
A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police said the case is still under investigation.
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Woman accuses Orthodox men of bus attack
JTA - December 20, 2006
A woman who said she was attacked on a Jerusalem bus by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" is gathering support for a reaction.
Miriam Shear said she was on her way to the Western Wall on a gender-segregated bus in late November when a group of fervently Orthodox men slapped, kicked, punched and pushed her after she refused to sit in the back of the bus with other women.
The bus driver, who Shear said did nothing throughout the attack, denied that it took place.
Shear, 50, an Orthodox American Israeli, is in contact with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and may be included in a lawsuit against the Egged bus company over the legality of gender-segregated buses.
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"Modesty Patrol"
Fox News - December 20, 2006
A 50-year-old American-Israeli woman says she was viciously attacked by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" because she refused to go to the back of a bus in Jerusalem. Miriam Shear tells the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that she was in Israel on vacation and riding a bus to the old city to pray at sunrise. Jerusalem does have some sex-segregated buses, but she was not on one. Yet a man demanded she give up her seat — and when she refused — a group of four attacked her.
Shear says she got in a few good licks of her own, however, including a punch to the face of one and a kick to the privates of another, saying, "I will never forget the look on his face." She also lost her hair covering in the attack — so she grabbed one of the men's hats and threw it down the aisle. She says the bus driver did nothing and the passengers actually said the whole thing was her fault.
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Ultra-Orthodox modesty squad burns clothing
By Staff Writer
Israel Today - Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Ultra-Orthodox extremists continued to wage their immodest clothing war as they set ablaze women's apparel they deemed impure.
The "clothes of impurity" were burned in an open square in Jerusalem as rabbis admonished the crowd.
"We will get rid of the tight clothes and the Holy One, Blessed be He, will place his mercy on us," it was written on one of the signs held by the protestors. "Modesty is the only thing that needs to be corrected in our generation," the rabbis clarified, saying this would solve the troubles of today. "We must overcome this hurdle," they proclaimed.
The campaign for modesty offered women coupons to "authorized shops" to buy new apparel if they handed over their immodest clothing.
Clothing that is forbidden by the ultra-Orthodox rabbis include: Tricot shirts, Lycra shirts and skirts, open-collared shirts, short and tight skirts, skirts with a slit, skirts with a straight cut, long or bulky earrings, clothes and bags in loud, flashy colors, wigs that are too exclusive, transparent or colorful stockings and clunky shoes.
The crusade descended into violence as extremists attacked women who didn't fit their criteria and caused damage to various clothing shops, ruining thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
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I am not sitting at the back of the bus
By Naomi Ragen
Jewish Chronicle - February 23, 2007
In July 2004, after spending too much time sitting behind a computer, I took a walk in downtown Jerusalem. I bought Vanity Fair magazine, and looked forward to reading about the goings on at a famous writers' colony. In this serene state of mind, I boarded the number 40 bus towards my home in the suburb of Ramot.
In an incident which made headlines worldwide, I found myself insulted, humiliated and physically threatened because I refused to be bullied into giving up my seat and moving to the back of the bus. Unbeknown to me, this unmarked bus was part of a mehadrin, or stringent line, in which rabbis, in cooperation with the public bus company Egged, dictate where women can sit — at the back — and what they can wear — only clothing in line with a code of haredi modesty.
Now, two years later, I have joined with the Centre for Jewish Pluralism, part of the Israel Reform Movement, to file suit against Israel's public bus lines, Egged and Dan, and the Israeli Ministry of Transportation, in the name of women who have suffered abuse or who feel that their human rights have been trampled by the public, sex-segregated mehadrin lines. The suit asks that these buses be suspended until a survey is conducted to gauge the true need for them. If such a need can be proven, the suit asks that provisions be made to clearly mark such buses; that rules governing public behaviour on them be openly displayed, and that provisions be made to protect women passengers from verbal and physical abuse. The petition also demands that alternate public bus lines be made available on the same routes and at the same price.
What happened to me on this Israeli bus generated extraordinary interest worldwide. I have been interviewed on BBC four times. There was a front page article in The Times, in New York's Newsday, and America's National Public Radio. I have been filmed for German and Canadian television news programs and interviewed by Der Spiegel, as well as by reporters from Spain, the Netherlands, and France. And now, with this new lawsuit, every day the phone rings with new passengers.
Why has this incident attracted so much media attention? Is it warranted? Or is it just anti-Israel and antisemitic news organisations looking for negative material? If so, why would I, an Orthodox Jewish writer living in Israel who has spent the last 10 years trying to combat media prejudice, cooperate?
The insidious degradation of the faith I was born into, love, and have practiced faithfully all my life by fanatics who pervert its meaning in order to bully women in the name of God, is something I cannot, and will not, abide. First and foremost, because it is a desecration of God's name; second, because it is limitless.
Why is it that in the past no one insisted on segregated buses? When asked, Rav Moshe Feinstein, a major halachic authority, ruled against the idea. And yet now, suddenly, they are an absolute necessity in the religious world. What happened? And what does it mean when long-held Jewish law and custom can be swept away by some religious politician or some macher in the yeshivah world, who can then establish, at will, new rules that oppress women?
Where does it end?
We in Israel have already seen modesty patrol hooligans roaming religious neighborhoods, assaulting people in the name of religion. We have seen paint and bleach thrown at women by men who disapproved of their clothing. We have seen public bonfires of so-called immodest clothing taken in house-to-house searches. We have seen more and more public streets covered with posters warning women how to dress, or else. In the past few weeks we have seen higher education for haredi women abolished overnight, breaking many hearts.
Ten years ago there were two mehadrin bus lines in Bnai Brak. Today there are 30 all over the country, with a new line being added every month. And two-and-a-half years after my experience on the Egged bus, Miriam Shear, a religious woman on her way to pray at the Kotel, was spat at, then punched, and finally beaten to the floor by four male passengers because she refused to move to the back of the bus. The bus she was on was not part of the mehadrin line.
Ayaan Hirsan Ali, the brave Somali woman who is still under a death threat for making a movie in the Netherlands depicting the brutal treatment of Muslim women (her director, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered), recently said that 20 years ago, none of the women in Somalia wore veils. Then a few men forced the issue, and now all of the women are in veils. What she said holds true for all of us: "We are not fighting for freedom for its own sake but from a life of repression, subordination and violence," she declared.
Today, it's just a seat on a bus. But there is no telling what it will be tomorrow. I hate bad publicity about Israel. But what I hate even more is the idea that the beautiful spirit of Judaism I have spent my life cultivating and passing on; the Jewish State I love, and have spent my life building and defending, will be changed, incrementally, beyond recognition.
We need to draw a red line and defend it so that does not happen. The fact that I and other women have done so is, ultimately, the best possible news about Israel, and the best publicity for the Jewish people.
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Mea Shearim's 'egg brigade' to prevent touristic infiltration
By Neta Sela
YNet News - November 29, 2007
The masses of visitors that descend upon Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhood during the Hanukkah holiday have prompted local extremists to volunteer for anti-tourist action, including attacking strangers with eggs and dirty diapers
Want to see haredim celebrating? Think again: Zealots from Beit Shemesh and Mea Shearim, nicknamed "Sicarrii"(dagger bearers) after Judean extremists from the second temple period, gathered this week for an emergency meeting to devise a plan against the tourists groups that will flood Jerusalem's Mea Shearim and the surrounding neighborhoods when Hanukkah starts next week.
Ynet has learned that participants devised a plan which includes wide-scale actions against tourists beginning next Tuesday when Jews around the world light the holiday's first candle. Eighty locals have already volunteered to enforce the program.
Under the framework of this planned "intifada", volunteers will attack tourists with eggs, diapers full of goodies, and whatever else they can get their hands on. According to their plan, the assault will force the police to hurry to the neighborhood to impose order, resulting in news coverage, which will cause anyone planning on coming to the area during the holiday period to think twice.
During Hanukkah, Mea Shearim and its environs become popular destinations for throngs of tourists from Israel and abroad. This phenomenon — or nuisance as the locals see it — can start as early as 7 am and end as late as 3 am.
Area residents understand what attracts large groups of people to the neighborhood's special festive atmosphere during the holiday, but many claim that the constant tours have become an insufferable inconvenience. "When we have big groups it gets really bad; lots of clatter, shouting. Many secular people come in inappropriate, immodest dress; it's problematic. The secular people are not aware that it is a problem but it really bothers the people," one neighborhood denizen told Ynet.
A history of struggle
The struggle against tourism in Mea Shearim did not begin on Thursday. Last year, for example, residents established rotating neighborhood watches of five yeshiva students each whose job it was to prevent visitors from penetrating the walls of Mea Shearim. And just so that no one could claim he was not warned, volunteers posted signs around the area with the headline "Attention Hellenists" demanding that potential visitors avoid coming to the area and disrupting its special way of life.
This strategy was not especially effective, as the small bands of students were overwhelmed by the mass of visitors who treated the signs as a curiosity and occasionally got involved in useless confrontations with locals. Thus it was decided this year to make arrangements on a wider scale before it was too late.
One resident told Ynet about an event that occurred during an encounter with one group last year. One of the children visiting the neighborhood wore an earring and the resident asked the guide if the child was a boy or a girl. When he was informed that the child was indeed a boy, the resident asked the group to leave, telling them, "I do not want my children to see such a thing. What do I live in Mea Shearim for?"
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Enough is Enough!
By Miriam Shear
October 24, 2007
When I publicly disclosed the beating I received on the #2 bus going to the Kotel last November it was after consulting with daas Torah and after lots of soul searching. I did not relish the black eye this would inevitably give Chareidi Jews, and I was uncomfortable associating my name with such a grievous event.
There was no shortage of criticism leveled at me for publicizing this horrendous incident. While the majority of the 3,000+ emails I received were supportive and even congratulatory for my refusal to be bullied by a group of mutineers on a public bus, there were nevertheless a significant enough minority who felt that I had erred for various reasons. The most common was that I should have behaved as a "bas melech Yisrael" and could have avoided all of the ugliness if I would have just been a little more compliant. A few even went so far as to condemn my response to the initial spitting ("you should have just gotten up and moved to the back").
When Jonathan Rosenblum interviewed me for his Mishpacha article, "Knowing our Limits", he was sincere (without condemnation) in his curiosity as to why I stood my ground in refusing to give up my seat. This is what I explained: "The incident has to be taken in the context of what was going on while I was in Yerushalyim for 5 weeks – during the "gay parade" brouhaha. Every night, yeshivas were letting their students out to riot in the streets. Garbage cans were dumped and strewn in the streets and their contents set on fire. Many people, particularly the elderly and small children, had been rushed to hospitals suffering from respiratory difficulties due to the toxicity of the smoke that was belching throughout residential neighborhoods. Public health officials were warning that the carcinogens in the air were at dangerous levels. I personally was in bed for 3 days with a severe respiratory infection caused by being forced to inhale these fumes every day. Almost every morning, our bus would have to stop and carefully navigate around burning piles of rubbish.
Sometimes, people would have to get off the bus to remove these burning piles so the bus could get through and soil their hands and clothes in the process. I stood at Kikar Shabbat one evening and watched boys as young as 8 and 9 running through the streets setting anything within their reach on fire. A white van made the big mistake of traveling through Kikar Shabbat. The van was pelted with objects. When the driver stopped and got out of his van, it was overturned and torched. Nobody even knew if this driver was "for" or "against" the very thing the rioters were rioting about! I asked one of the boys – about age 10 – "do you know why you're doing this?" His answer: "Because it's fun!" The following Shabbos, an acquaintance of mine told me that her sons were "not going to shul today, they need to sleep in and catch up on their rest because their rebbe had let them out to go rioting almost every night this week." I couldn't resist responding that I wouldn't send my son to such a yeshiva that employed such "rebbes".'
I also went on to explain to Mr. Rosenblum that it sickened me to stand and watch the store in Geula which had been burned to the ground by the area's "Tznius Patrol". This store, "One of a Kind", is owned by an American Rosh Yeshiva's wife who sells nice and affordable tznius clothing. However, sequins on some of the items did not meet the tznius standards of this "Patrol" and they demanded its removal from the store. The proprietor refused; they responded with an arson that destroyed her merchandise, her store, and her livelihood – and probably jacked up the insurance rates for everyone else in the neighborhood. (Kol ha kavod to this woman for rebuilding her store since then.)
During my 5 week stay in Yerushalyim, I also heard many accounts of women being surreptitiously bleached by more "Tznius Patrol" squads. If their clothing did not measure up to their standards, a baby bottle of bleach delivered its contents, thus rendering the garment useless. I know people who refuse to shop in Geula and Meah Shearim as a consequence of such actions.
It is against this backdrop and in this context, I explained to Mr. Rosenblum, that I decided "enough is enough" and I am drawing my own line in the sand: I will not capitulate to anyone – even over a seat – who wants to impose their chumras on me. It wasn't a matter of being an American who is socially conditioned to protect her "rights" – it was about pushing back against bullies who have yet to learn that they do not own the streets or the buses; who haven't learned that basic derech eretz dictates that a young man half my age should not even suggest I move my seat.
It never crossed my mind that I would be inviting a beating by refusing to move to the back of the bus. The most I expected were some heated verbal exchanges. I honestly did not believe that frum men would beat up on a woman on a public NON-Mehadrin bus over the seating arrangement.
The beating was bad enough. The fact that nobody came to my assistance during this melee was just as shameful. Equally disdainful were those who voiced support for those engaged in the assault.
One Year Later
It has been almost a full year since this incident took place. There has been much time to reflect, to weigh the opinions and comments of others, and to explore solutions to this type of "holy" perversion in our community. Many web sites have discussed this phenomenon within the aura of Torah. Some of these people have done so at great risk to their personal and professional reputations within their own communities. These brave voices need to be given our support. They need us to stick our necks out as well and say "Enough is enough!" Most importantly, we need to educate ourselves and our children and become more "secure" in our Torah values.
It has been brought to my attention a few times that the arbitrary decision by the #2 bus riders to make this line Mehadrin was instituted as a response to the horrific bombing on this line a few years prior. In an effort to provide more physical protection, it was decided to increase the spiritual value of tznius – and its inherent protection – by implementing a separate seating arrangement.
Increasing our shmira in our mitzvah observance in the wake of tragedy is unarguably commendable to the highest degree. But, I would like to ask the men who beat up women on buses: Do the bruises and humiliation you inflict on others, and the dishonor you bring to our Torah and our people increase your ruchnius – and of those around you – or does it diminish it? Did you offer more physical protection in the "merit" of such actions, or leave all of us at greater risk – both physically and spiritually? Did you even manage to accomplish one iota in convincing anyone that separate seating on buses was a value literally worth fighting for? If you are still convinced that your cause has merit, then why didn't you follow the course of due process available to you: Petition Egged to designate the #2 bus as Mehadrin? This is not a futile endeavor, as Egged has reviewed every single request submitted to them and granted almost all of them. Your failure to follow this simple, easy procedure makes all of us question your true motives.
Let me tell you what you have "accomplished" with your total disregard of halacha, Torah, and dina malchusa dina: Because of your actions, five women have petitioned the High Court to have ALL Mehadrin buses suspended. The hearing is scheduled this December. You have put Egged into a legally contentious predicament costing them thousands of shekels. Most likely, because of your actions, Egged will not be legally permitted to offer Mehadrin lines. This means that the private bus lines will return, catering to your request for separate seating arrangements. That's fine for everyone – except Egged, of course, whose revenues will certainly be dented by these entrepreneurs. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
To those who beat up this Beit Shemesh woman last week or the ones who assaulted me last November, or who engage in any kind of violence: The chumras you take upon yourself should not be used to dominate and control others. It would be better for you to forgo your chumras and correct that which is within. Otherwise, your actions will be your own sword upon which you will fall.
As for all charedi Jews worldwide; it is high time that we collectively say in a loud and clear voice, "Enough is Enough!"
That means standing up to the bullies who shame Hashem's name by committing violence, and equally as important, assisting those who are injured by their criminal actions.
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Rabbi Aviner: Women must not wear pants even when alone
Ynet News - May 2, 2008
One of Religious Zionism's most prominent leaders defines trousers as a 'self-prohibition,' says women 'must dress modestly also when alone and in the dark'
Women must not wear pants even when they are home alone, Rabbi Shlomi Aviner has ruled.
Aviner, Beit El's rabbi and one of Religious Zionism's most prominent leaders, was asked in a cellular Q&A session published in the "Small World" bulletin, "When a girl goes to relieve herself at night, is she allowed to say the 'Asher Yatzar' ('he who formed') prayer while wearing a short-sleeved shirt and trousers?"
The rabbi replied that it is permitted to say the prayer in such a case, but added that "in general, a woman must always wear modest clothes even when she is alone and in the dark, because the Holy one blessed be he is everywhere. And yes, trousers are a self-prohibition even when a woman is alone."
Meanwhile, Rabbi Israel Rosen, head of the Tsomet Institute, has claimed an article published in synagogues over the weekend that "too much modesty leads women to the opposite direction, from abstinence to immorality."
According to the rabbi, this is "an axiom which applies to people who have experienced leaps forward and sharp transitions in their religious conduct throughout their lives."
Rabbi Rosen also slammed the haredi norm to omit names of women from newspapers and from invitations, comparing it to the veil phenomenon in Muslim countries.
"For so-called modesty reasons, the woman is only presented as 'his wife', nameless, veiled, and my heart twitches," he wrote in a weekly column published in synagogues over the weekend. "Is there no psychological connection between the hypocrisy of concealing the name and hiding the face under the 'Taliban-style' veil?"
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'Modesty patrol' suspected of spilling acid on teenage girl
Religious tension at boiling point in Beitar Illite as 14-year-old girl attacked by member of town's 'modesty guard'
By Neta Sela
YNET NEWS - June 5, 2008
A 14-year-old girl from Beitar Illite (also known as Meah Shearim 2) was taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem after an unknown person spilled acid on her face, legs and stomach, causing light burn wounds.
The act has been attributed to a representative of the so-called 'modesty guard' in this town where religious and secular residents are increasingly at bitter odds.
MDA received the call just before midnight on Wednesday and paramedic Dror Eini who arrived on the scene to treat the girl also managed to calm her down enough so she could explain what had happened.
Eini told Ynet that "the modesty guards have been threatening her for quite some time." According to the paramedic the focus of the threats has largely been the victim's 18-year-old sister and some suspect the attacker mistook the younger girl's identity for that of her older sister's.
Eini said the teenager was in a difficult emotional state: "She cried the whole way to the hospital, partly because she was in pain but mostly because she was terrified." According to Eini at the time of her attack the girl had been wearing loose-fitting long pants and a short-sleeved shirt.
"If she would have been wearing the same thing in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv, she would not have stuck out in any way," he added.
An ultra-Orthodox teen from Beitar Illite who is in contact with the girl's family spoke with her sister who described the incident. According to the boy, the attacker stopped the girl and first asked her for directions. Then, after confirming her surname, he spilled a bottle of acid on her.
The girl was released from the hospital on Thursday and the police sent samples of the liquid she was attacked with for analysis.
According to the young man, her family is under severe pressure. "What makes the treatment of this case so problematic is the feeling that there is no one to talk to in this city and no one wants to find a solution to this problem." Fingers are being pointed towards the municipality for failing to treat troubled youths.
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Police make peace with modesty patrols
By Anshel Pfeffer
Jewish Chronicle - September 4, 2008
The Jerusalem police and the leaders of the Eda Haredit, the extremist camp in the ultra-Orthodox community, have reached an unofficial agreement to end the latest cycle of unrest on the streets of the Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem.
The sporadic outbreaks of violence, arson and clashes with police, followed the arrest of a member of the so-called "modesty patrol", Shmuel Weispish. As part of the agreement, Mr Weispish was released and the rabbis promised that the violence would cease.
The police are currently investigating two cases connected to the modesty patrol which occurred last month. In one, a divorced woman living in North Jerusalem was beaten by a group of vigilantes who claimed that the formerly ultra-Orthodox woman had been entertaining married men in her flat.
Another case was the burning down of an electronics shop that had been accused of selling MP4 players, banned by the rabbis since they include a screen for watching video clips.
The modesty patrol is a generic term for various groups of ultra-Orthodox activists who have enforced moral standards within the Charedi community for decades.
Some of these groups, such as the Committee for Purity of our Camp, headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Safranovich, who directed an offical Modesty Patrol in the 1970s as well as the Guardians of Holiness and Education, are concerned mainly with warning the community against entering shops and entertainment centres which are deemed immodest.
Other more shadowy groups such as the Sicarii - the title of an extremist Jewish group that existed during the Second Temple era in Jerusalem - use more violent tactics and often set up on an ad hoc basis to deal with specific targets.
Since the Eda Haredit members do not cooperate with what they view as the "Zionist" police, the modesty patrol groups act also as an unofficial community police, meting out punishment to suspected thieves, adulterers and sex offenders.
Two men were arrested in connection with the attack on the woman and Mr Weispish was arrested on suspicion that he had taken part in the burning of the storage area of the Space electronics shop in Shabbat Square.
Police are convinced that the three men are members of the modesty patrol groups. Following the arrests, especially that of Mr Weispish, who belongs to a prominent Eda Haredit family, small incidents of stone-throwing and bin-burning broke out in Mea Shearim.
The police tried to convince the Eda leaders to order their followers to stop the unrest, and last Wednesday, Weispish was released pending charges.
He was greeted by a victory procession of Eda members. The police denied that his release was part of a deal, but this week, peace had returned to the streets.
On Tuesday evening, about 20 men picketed the Space shop, handing out leaflets on the "corrupting" MP4 menace, but shoppers entering were not attacked, and two policemen who stumbled on the scene left without incident after two minutes.
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Jewish 'Modesty patrols' sow fear in Israel
Associated Press - October 4, 2008
In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.
In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.
"These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community," said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. "If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it."
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews are dismayed by the violence, but the enforcers often enjoy quiet approval from rabbis eager to protect their own reputations as guardians of the faith, community members say. And while some welcome anything that keeps secular culture out of their cloistered world, others feel terrorized, knowing that the mere perception of impropriety could ruin their lives.
"There are eyes and ears all over the place, very similar to what you hear about in countries like Iran," says Israeli-American novelist Naomi Ragen, an observant Jew who has chronicled the troubles that confront some women living in the ultra-Orthodox world.
The violence has already deepened the antagonism between the 600,000 haredim, or God-fearing, and the secular majority, which resents having religious rules dictated to them.
Religious vigilantes operate in a society that has granted their community influence well beyond its numbers — partly out of a commitment to revive the great centers of Jewish scholarship destroyed in the Holocaust, but also because the Orthodox are perennial king-makers in Israeli coalition politics.
Thus public transport is grounded for the Jewish Sabbath each Saturday, and the rabbis control all Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel.
In recent years, however, the haredim have eased up on their long campaign to impose their rules on secular areas, and nowadays many restaurants and suburban shopping centers are open on the Sabbath.
These days, most vigilante attacks take place in the zealots' own neighborhoods.
'They can burn in hell'
Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the modesty police are not an organized phenomenon, just rogue enforcers carrying out isolated attacks. But Israel's Justice Ministry used the term "modesty patrols" in an indictment against a man accused of assaulting the Jerusalem woman.
The unidentified, 31-year-old woman had left the ultra-Orthodox fold after getting divorced, according to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem district attorney's office. The indictment said her assailant tried to get her to leave her apartment in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem by gagging, beating and threatening to kill her. He was paid $2,000 for the attack, it said.
A 17-year-old who moved to Israel from New York five years ago said she was hospitalized after being attacked with pepper spray by a crowd of men outraged that she was walking down a Jerusalem street with boys.
"They can burn in hell," said the girl, who would identify herself only as Rivka.
She lives in Beit Shemesh, a town outside Jerusalem where the vigilantism has been particularly violent. Zealots there have thrown rocks and spat at women, and set fire to trash bins to protest impiety. Walls of the neighborhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly — spelled out as closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.
'Stupid troublemakers'
The state, catering to religious sensitivities, subsidizes gender-segregated bus routes that service religious neighborhoods. Ragen and several other women challenged the practice in Israel's Supreme Court after an Orthodox Canadian woman in her 50s told police she was kicked, slapped, pushed to the floor and spat upon by men for refusing to move to the back of the bus.
Another Beit Shemesh girl, who asked to be identified only as Esther, said zealots threw rocks, cursed and spat at a friend for wearing a red blouse — taboo because the color attracts attention.
Yitzhak Polack, a 50-year-old Jerusalem teacher, is one of those who deplore such behavior.
"They are stupid troublemakers who are bringing shame and disgrace on this holy community," he said.
But the rabbis are afraid to condemn them, says Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, another community member.
"They can't come out against zealots who champion modesty. Here and there they write against violence, but the militants ultimately set the tone," he said.
Stores are targeted too.
'This store burns souls'
In August, a Jerusalem man was placed under house arrest on suspicion he set fire to a store in a haredi district of the city that sold MP4 players.
"It started about six months ago. They would come into the store, about 15 of them at a time, screaming, 'This store burns souls!' and they would throw merchandise on the floor and threaten customers," said 31-year-old Aaron Gold, a haredi worker at the Space electronic store.
One Friday night, just before the Sabbath was about to begin, "they smashed a window, doused the place with gasoline and lit a match," Gold said.
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Inside Haredi modesty patrols
Nechamya Weberman’s sex abuse trial brought to light the Va’ad Hatznius: the self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong in the Jewish American Satmar community.
By Rukhl Schaechter
Forward - December 28, 2012
One of the most striking ironies of the Nechemya Weberman trial, which ended with his conviction on 59 counts of sexual abuse, was the revelation that the unlicensed therapist was a member of the Va’ad Hatznius, or modesty patrol, the self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong in the Satmar community.
Until recently, the Va’ad Hatznius was little known outside the Hasidic community, but its actions have reverberated through the community for years. Although they ostensibly monitor the moral behavior of both sexes (men and women are both warned not to read English books, watch television or surf the internet), most of their energies are directed towards ensuring that women and girls dress and behave modestly.
Their reasoning is clear: When a female wears revealing clothing or chats with the opposite sex, it could entice the men, and lead to dire consequences. In other words, the goal of their injunctions is to inhibit the sexual impulses of the male population.
Where did the tradition of the Va‘ad Hatznius originate? And what do the Hasidim themselves think of it? The term V‘ad Hatznius doesn’t appear in the Bible or in the Talmud, but Maimonides does write, in Hilchos Yom Tov 6:21, that “the Beit Din [rabbinical court] must appoint officers during the festivals to patrol the gardens and orchards and along the rivers to prevent men and women from gathering there to eat and drink, lest they fall into sin.”
The Jewish communities of eastern Europe didn’t use the term Va’ad Hatznius either but religious leaders did issue rulings, forbidding women from publicly wearing fashionable clothing and jewelry, said Dr. David Fishman, professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The rulings were announced after prayer services in the synagogue or through posters hung on the synagogue door. In larger cities, posters were hung in a number of places.
A book about these rulings, published in Yiddish by Mordkhe Bernshteyn in Argentina in 1955, explains that these decrees were often quite detailed. According to rules issued by the burial society of the town of Rymanow at the turn of the nineteenth century, for example, women were forbidden from wearing golden veils, pearl-studded or silver-lined kerchiefs. In addition, the dictum said, “women should not wear any fashionable dress or shoes. Even their kerchiefs should be similar to those that their mothers wore.”
Women who defied these rulings were penalized monetarily, as were the tailors that designed them, and if a tailor continued to sew fashionable clothing, he could lose his work permit, Bernshteyn writes, quoting the records of the Rymanow tailors’ guild.
The intention of those rulings had nothing to do with preventing sexual temptation, however. “They were simply worried that if Gentiles were to see how much money Jews were spending, the wealthy landowners would raise the taxes for the entire Jewish population,” Fishman explained. In fact, men, too, were warned not to dress in conspicuously lavish clothing or wear powdered wigs.
However, these rulings were issued during a time when Jews were collecting taxes for the Czarist government and hence had the power to levy fines against members of their own community, and ex-communicate or penalize them for defying the rules. Once the Czarist government took away the power of the Jews to tax their own population in 1844, the only means that community leaders had to ensure adherence to their rulings was through social pressure – a tactic which has remained effective till today, as Hasidim continue to fear being ostracized from their community or losing valuable marriage prospects as a result of so-called indecent behavior.
The strict separation of men and women is a relatively modern one, Fishman explained. In Czarist Russia, men and women used to stand together at weddings; there was no mekhitse, or partition between them. When Sh-Anski, the author of The Dybbuk, led his series of landmark ehnographic expeditions through Volhynia and Podolia in 1912–1914, he photographed cemeteries in which the graves of even the most pious couples were found side by side. Today most Hasidic men are buried separately from their wives. The Ohel (gravesite) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, for example, is not next to the grave of his wife, Chaya Mushka.
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz, who was raised in the Satmar community of Wiliamsburg, and is the director of the Beit Midrash program at the modern Orthodox rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, told the Forverts that the Va’ad Hatznius isn’t an organized body but an informal group of people who act on their own, and whose actions the Rebbe doesn’t officially condone. Every v’aad is comprised of a theoretician, one who decides which kind of behavior to ban, and enforcers.
The theoretician is usually a well-regarded figure, while the enforcers give a more fanatical impression, Katz explained. “They usually wear their tsitsis out, their hair and clothing is unkempt, and they have no job, so they don’t elicit much respect from the community. Weberman was undoubtedly a theoretician, his tsitsis didn’t hang out, his hair was combed, he had a job, this is why families trusted him.”
Katz recalled that the Va’ad Hatznius of Williamsburgh issued an edict about 20 years ago against women wearing ponjelos (loose houserobes) and turbans that revealed some hair, as they stepped outside to dump the garbage. Posters were hung everywhere, warning that tragedies might befall the community if women didn’t start dressing modestly. The Va’ad also rebuked the owners of dress shops for selling ponjelos and immodest turbans.
Katz says that the Satmar Hasidim he knows are privately upset with the Va’ad. “They say they’re bullies, extremists and have nothing better to do because they have no jobs,” he said. “But even if people don’t admire them, they still fear them.”
Rabbi David Niederman, President of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, denied any knowledge of the Vaad Hatznius. When asked whether the group has the blessing of the Satmar rebbe, Niederman replied: “I don’t know (what) the Va’ad Hatznius is all about.”
The UJO is the central planning and social service agency for more than 200 organizations in Williamsburg.
The Satmars are not the only Hasidim to use modesty patrols. Katz remembers an incident his friends had with the Va’ad Hatznius of the Gerer Hasidim, while studying in Israeli yeshivas during their teen years. They had heard that the Tel Aviv Museum was interesting, so they took a trip there. Soon afterwards, their parents back home in the United States received anonymous phone calls, warning them: “You have no idea what your children are doing in Israel.”
“My friends suspected that the Va’ad was shadowing them – Katz said – and one day there was a knock at the door, and there was a Gerer Hasid saying, in Yiddish: ‘We’ve heard that improper things are going on here, that there are too many newspapers. So I’ve come to check it out.”
“Look all you want, you won’t find anything,” one of the students replied. The Gerer Hasid searched the entire apartment until he found an issue of Time Magazine with a photograph of Princess Diana on the cover. “You see?!” he exclaimed. “There really are impurities here!”
This article was adapted from the Forverts.
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Judge Slaps 4 Years on "Modesty Patrol" Thug
Jerusalem court sentences “Modesty Patrol” thug who beat a woman who had begun to lead immodest lifestyle. Judge: "The group is not modest."
By Hillel Fendel
Israel National News - March 15, 2009
Jerusalem District Court Judge Noam Solberg sentenced a hired thug of the “Modesty Patrol” group to four years in prison for beating a woman who had begun to lead an immodest lifestyle. The judge cited religious sources to determine that the “Modesty Patrol” is far from modest itself.
News1’s Ruthie Avraham reports that Elchanan Buzaglo was sentenced on Sunday. Buzaglo had been found guilty of arriving at the woman’s house during the evening hours in June of last year, together with four others, a club and tear gas. The five beat, kicked and cursed her, taped her mouth, questioned her about her relationships with men, and threatened her with tear gas, stabbing and even murder. Buzaglo accepted $2,000 for the job from the local “Modesty Patrol” group, which wanted her to leave the neighborhood – the increasingly hareidi Ma'alot Dafna, near Ramat Eshkol.
Judge Solberg had harsh words for Buzaglo’s actions, but partially accepted his defense plea that he was merely a tool of the Modesty organization. The judge recommended that the law enforcement agencies take action against the organization, and said that it had “raised such wild weeds… It must be totally condemned.” Leaders of the organization were arrested together with Buzaglo at the time of the incident.
Immodest modesty group
The judge cited the Middle Ages commentator Ibn Ezra (to Proverbs 11,2), who wrote that the truly modest are those who “are ashamed to do evil, and walk modestly." This means, wrote Judge Solberg, "that the convicted [Buzaglo] and his fellow Modesty Group members are ‘500 parasangs away’ [based on a Jewish idiom –ed.] from being truly modest.”
Judge Solberg added a citation from another traditional source -- 17th-century Rabbi Avraham Gombiner, author of the famous “Magen Avraham” commentary on the Shulhan Arukh law code – stating that “one should not fight over any Torah precept.”
The judge did not note, however, that this was an admonition against fighting over the privilege of performing a commandment, whereas the case at hand deals with a fight to ensure that a commandment is fulfilled altogether. However, the late Bnei Brak Rabbi Natan Tzvi Freedmanexplained that the proper understanding of this approach is that one must be internally “bold and unafraid” in performing mitzvot, even in a hostile environment, and at the same time externally “bashful,” with no “toughness showing on his face,” when doing so.
The Modesty Patrol originated some 60 years ago in certain hareidi-religious neighborhoods with the goal of ensuring that the neighborhoods remain that way. It has long been active in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, and had branched out in recent years to Modiin Illit, Beitar Illit and elsewhere.
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'Modesty Patrol lynched me'
By Yaron Doron
YNET News - February 29, 2012
A 70-year-old ultra-Orthodox woman found herself the target of a brutal religious hate crime on Monday night, when four thugs broke into her home and beat her up before leaving her handcuffed and bleeding.
"They were sent by the Modesty Patrol," the woman, S., told Yedioth Ahronoth. "They told me, 'You are destroying the neighborhood with you missionary teachings."
The thugs hit her repeatedly with a metal rod, breaking her right hand, crushing her left leg and injuring her face. They used their cell phones to document the attack, evidently to report back to those who sent them.
Jerusalem police investigators confirmed that the attack was religiously-motivated.
"It's clear that this wasn't a robbery," a source close to the investigation said. "The suspects didn't come to the apartment to steal property, but to send a message."
S. made aliyah from the United States two decades ago. She has two sons, one of whom resides in Israel, while the other lives in the US. On Sunday, she was supposed to travel to the US to attend her grandson's Brit Milah. Instead, she was hospitalized at the Hadassah-Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem.
Over the past eight years, S. has been living alone at a primarily haredi area of Jerusalem's Nachlaot neighborhood, and has been teaching women who wish to convert to Judaism.
"They thought that I'm a missionary because I teach non-Jewish women," S. said.
On Monday night, a haredi man claiming to be a beggar came to her door and asked for spare change. Less than a minute after he left, she heard another knock on her door. This time, four masked men in gloves forced their way in, cuffed her and searched her home.
"They yelled, where are the video tapes, where's the computer," S. recalled. They didn't find any tapes, but took her laptop and her cell phone, and left.
S. managed to get up and get help, but when she stepped outside she realized the nightmare wasn't over. The assailants were still in the yard; they forced her back into her home and brutalized her.
"They yelled, you have a bad influence on our neighborhood," she said. "I knew there were rumors in the neighborhood that I'm a missionary, because they see non-Jewish women entering my home, but I'm only helping them convert to Judaism."
When they finally left again, the neighbors called emergency services, and informed her son, who reiterated the suspicion that his mother was targeted by the Modesty Patrol.
The haredi extremist group is known for violently targeting religious individuals who act in a way they deem unworthy of the ultra-Orthodox world.
The police launched an investigation but has yet to apprehend suspects.
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Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men offered blurry glasses look to keep Israeli women out of sight
Associated Press - August 8, 2012
JERUSALEM - It's the latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don't have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.
In an effort to maintain their strictly devout lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox have separated the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces in their neighbourhoods. Their interpretation of Jewish law forbids contact between men and women who are not married.
Walls in their neighbourhoods feature signs exhorting women to wear closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. Extremists have accosted women they consider to have flouted the code.
Now they're trying to keep them out of clear sight altogether.
The ultra-Orthodox community's unofficial "modesty patrols" are selling glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses. The glasses provide clear vision for up to a few meters so as not to impede movement, but anything beyond that gets blurry — including women. It's not known how many have been sold.
For men forced to venture outside their insular communities, hoods and shields that block peripheral vision are also being offered.
The glasses are going for the "modest" price of $6.
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Hasidic Modesty Patrols Enforce Jewish Law in Orthodox Neighborhoods
Nechemya Weberman Was Leader in Feared Va'ad Hatznius
By Rukhl Schaechter
Forward - January 30, 2013.
One of the most striking ironies of the Nechemya Weberman trial, which ended with his conviction on 59 counts of sexual abuse, was the revelation that the unlicensed therapist was a member of the Va’ad Hatznius, or modesty patrol, the self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong in the Satmar community.
Until recently, the Va’ad Hatznius was little known outside the Hasidic community, but its actions have reverberated through the community for years. Although they ostensibly monitor the moral behavior of both sexes (men and women are both warned not to read English books, watch television or surf the internet), most of their energies are directed towards ensuring that women and girls dress and behave modestly.
Their reasoning is clear: When a female wears revealing clothing or chats with the opposite sex, it could entice the men, and lead to dire consequences. In other words, the goal of their injunctions is to inhibit the sexual impulses of the male population.
Where did the tradition of the Va‘ad Hatznius originate? And what do the Hasidim themselves think of it? The term V‘ad Hatznius doesn’t appear in the Bible or in the Talmud, but Maimonides does write, in Hilchos Yom Tov 6:21, that “the Beit Din [rabbinical court] must appoint officers during the festivals to patrol the gardens and orchards and along the rivers to prevent men and women from gathering there to eat and drink, lest they fall into sin.”
The Jewish communities of eastern Europe didn’t use the term Va’ad Hatznius either but religious leaders did issue rulings, forbidding women from publicly wearing fashionable clothing and jewelry, said Dr. David Fishman, professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The rulings were announced after prayer services in the synagogue or through posters hung on the synagogue door. In larger cities, posters were hung in a number of places.
A book about these rulings, published in Yiddish by Mordkhe Bernshteyn in Argentina in 1955, explains that these decrees were often quite detailed. According to rules issued by the burial society of the town of Rymanow at the turn of the nineteenth century, for example, women were forbidden from wearing golden veils, pearl-studded or silver-lined kerchiefs. In addition, the dictum said, “women should not wear any fashionable dress or shoes. Even their kerchiefs should be similar to those that their mothers wore.”
Women who defied these rulings were penalized monetarily, as were the tailors that designed them, and if a tailor continued to sew fashionable clothing, he could lose his work permit, Bernshteyn writes, quoting the records of the Rymanow tailors’ guild.
The intention of those rulings had nothing to do with preventing sexual temptation, however. “They were simply worried that if Gentiles were to see how much money Jews were spending, the wealthy landowners would raise the taxes for the entire Jewish population,” Fishman explained. In fact, men, too, were warned not to dress in conspicuously lavish clothing or wear powdered wigs.
However, these rulings were issued during a time when Jews were collecting taxes for the Czarist government and hence had the power to levy fines against members of their own community, and ex-communicate or penalize them for defying the rules. Once the Czarist government took away the power of the Jews to tax their own population in 1844, the only means that community leaders had to ensure adherence to their rulings was through social pressure – a tactic which has remained effective till today, as Hasidim continue to fear being ostracized from their community or losing valuable marriage prospects as a result of so-called indecent behavior.
The strict separation of men and women is a relatively modern one, Fishman explained. In Czarist Russia, men and women used to stand together at weddings; there was no mekhitse, or partition between them. When Sh-Anski, the author of The Dybbuk, led his series of landmark ehnographic expeditions through Volhynia and Podolia in 1912–1914, he photographed cemeteries in which the graves of even the most pious couples were found side by side. Today most Hasidic men are buried separately from their wives. The Ohel (gravesite) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, for example, is not next to the grave of his wife, Chaya Mushka.
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz, who was raised in the Satmar community of Wiliamsburg, and is the director of the Beit Midrash program at the modern Orthodox rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, told the Forverts that the Va’ad Hatznius isn’t an organized body but an informal group of people who act on their own, and whose actions the Rebbe doesn’t officially condone. Every v’aad is comprised of a theoretician, one who decides which kind of behavior to ban, and enforcers.
The theoretician is usually a well-regarded figure, while the enforcers give a more fanatical impression, Katz explained. “They usually wear their tsitsis out, their hair and clothing is unkempt, and they have no job, so they don’t elicit much respect from the community. Weberman was undoubtedly a theoretician, his tsitsis didn’t hang out, his hair was combed, he had a job, this is why families trusted him.”
Katz recalled that the Va’ad Hatznius of Williamsburgh issued an edict about 20 years ago against women wearing ponjelos (loose houserobes) and turbans that revealed some hair, as they stepped outside to dump the garbage. Posters were hung everywhere, warning that tragedies might befall the community if women didn’t start dressing modestly. The Va’ad also rebuked the owners of dress shops for selling ponjelos and immodest turbans.
Katz says that the Satmar Hasidim he knows are privately upset with the Va’ad. “They say they’re bullies, extremists and have nothing better to do because they have no jobs,” he said. “But even if people don’t admire them, they still fear them.”
Rabbi David Niederman, President of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, denied any knowledge of the Vaad Hatznius. When asked whether the group has the blessing of the Satmar rebbe, Niederman replied: “I don’t know (what) the Va’ad Hatznius is all about.”
The UJO is the central planning and social service agency for more than 200 organizations in Williamsburg.
The Satmars are not the only Hasidim to use modesty patrols. Katz remembers an incident his friends had with the Va’ad Hatznius of the Gerer Hasidim, while studying in Israeli yeshivas during their teen years. They had heard that the Tel Aviv Museum was interesting, so they took a trip there. Soon afterwards, their parents back home in the United States received anonymous phone calls, warning them: “You have no idea what your children are doing in Israel.”
“My friends suspected that the Va’ad was shadowing them – Katz said – and one day there was a knock at the door, and there was a Gerer Hasid saying, in Yiddish: ‘We’ve heard that improper things are going on here, that there are too many newspapers. So I’ve come to check it out.”
“Look all you want, you won’t find anything,” one of the students replied. The Gerer Hasid searched the entire apartment until he found an issue of Time Magazine with a photograph of Princess Diana on the cover. “You see?!” he exclaimed. “There really are impurities here!”
This article was adapted from the Forverts.
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Satmar Hasidic scolds pressure merchants to comply with dress codes, other
standards; force business owners to choose between boycott or potential
discrimination rap
By Simone Weichselbaum
New York Daily Nes - February 21, 2013
So-called 'modesty patrol' strikes again Thursday, blanketing lightposts and windshields with flyers calling for boycott of new shop at 100 Lee Ave.
A gang of overbearing religious scolds is targeting Jewish store owners who open shops in Williamsburg’s Satmar Hasidic enclave, ordering them to comply with a shadowy but strict set of standards or face sinful consequences.
Residents said the Va’ad Hatznius — known as the modesty patrol — struck again Thursday, blanketing lightposts and car windshields with flyers calling for the boycott of a new women’s clothing shop at 100 Lee Ave. and trumpeting an afternoon protest.
The store’s offense? Having big windows, through which the sight of women holding up dresses and picking through clothes are too easily observed from the street.
“It is not right,” said Moshe Spira, the manager of Grill on Lee, a sandwich shop down the block from the dress shop, explaining that the “man and his wife, trying to make a living for them and their family” opened just days ago.
“When we opened the store, they put up flyers,” Spira added. “They made a protest saying, ‘Don’t eat here.’ We were the first fast-food restaurant in the neighborhood. They were saying men and women can sit together and are on the line together. We just ignored them and they moved on.”
The manager of the dress shop declined to comment about being the modesty patrol’s newest magnet for wrath. Community affairs cops checked out the store Thursday, scouting for protestors who never showed up.
Members of the Va’ad Hatznius don’t advertise, and its leadership is unknown. During the recent sex abuse trial of Satmar counselor Nechemya Weberman, prosecutors said the 54-year-old was affiliated with the shadowy group.
But its influence is unquestionable.
“They came to me and said they don’t like this and that,” said another merchant, Victor Klein, owner of Ice Cream House on Bedford Ave.
Bearded men paid Klein a visit one month after he opened his two-story parlor, demanding that he put up signs telling customers how to dress.
Klein spoke to his lawyer, asking how to follow their orders without being sued for discrimination should he ban clothes favored by the non-religious.
“You have to respect the community,” Klein said, describing the dilemma. “I want people to send their children here. If people don’t send their children here, I am out of business.”
The Williamsburg merchants’ dress codes are being probed by New York City’s Commission on Human Rights, which filed suit against seven Lee Ave. shops last August.
“It’s a new kind of discrimination case,” said Cliff Mulqueen, the commission’s general counsel. “There is a clash between anti-discrimination laws and freedom of religion.
“If you have a business in New York, you have to treat everyone who walks in your door the same way, regardless.”
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London Jewish community launches modesty patrol
By Sarah Weiss
Your Jewish News - May 1, 2013
If you are a Jewish woman who likes to dress sexy, and not according to strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish custom, you will have to move away from London.
Strictly Orthodox Rabbis in London have created a modesty hotline to report any violation of modesty in the Jewish community.
Notices in the English and Yiddish language, have gone up in all synagogues publicizing a mobile phone number of the new “Vaad L'Toihar Hamachneh Committee” who will watch over the purity of the Jewish people.
Locals are urged to report any lapse in modest dress standards or a breach in the barriers of decency, for example, mixing of the sexes.
A spokesperson for the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, said the committee was not a direct initiative of the organization, but had been launched by some of their rabbis in response to public demand.
The notice says that the calls will be strictly confidential and the committee will "monitor, investigate and make every effort to solve the problem, according to the direction of the rabbis."
“This is an outrage. Who are the ultra-Orthodox Jews to dictate how other women should dress? The government should investigate the organization and arrest anyone who engages in harassment,” Dina Rubin, 20, of London, England told YourJewishNews.com after learning about the modesty patrol.
Recently, some ultra-Orthodox Jewish women began dressing in full Muslim garb. As we reported earlier, ultra-Orthodox Jewish women have always felt proud wearing modest dresses.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women proudly dress modestly in order not to attract attention of men who are not their husband.
Now, in some ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects, women have gone to a new level of modesty by covering their whole body and face.
According to Wikipedia the sect is called “Haredi burka sect” or "Taliban mothers". Many of these families dress their young girls of all ages with the same full dress garb, except for the face veil. This modest ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, is concentrated mainly in Israel, in which ultra-Orthodox Jewish women feel that modesty requires covering their entire body burqa-style, including a veil that covers the face.
The garment, which is more like a burka niqab, is also called frumka, a play on the word frum (Yiddish for the devotee) and the burka. This ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, is estimated to have started out with about 100 women in 2008, and grew to several hundred in 2011. To date, there are about 30,000 women who wear shawls, according to Rabbi David Benizri. The group mainly resides in the city of Beit Shemesh.
“This dress code was adopted due to concerns about the state of deterioration of modesty in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community," Rabbi Benizri said.
“The rabbi explained to us the benefits of Jewish women dressing modestly. We leave our body for our husbands and we don’t want to share our bodies with others,” Saari Rothberg, 22, who proudly wears the Jewish burqa in Beit Shemesh, Israel told YourJewishNews.com.
What is a burqa? A burqa is usually associated with the dress code of Muslim women, but the word burqa simply refers to
the face-veil portion, which is usually a rectangular piece of semi-transparent cloth whose top is sewn to the corresponding part of the headscarf.
The new ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman by old-mcdonald
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Ultra-Orthodox ‘modesty patrol’ clashes with police
Haredi men attack women for ‘dressing immodestly,’ then turn on law enforcement officers called to the scene
Times of Israel - June 6, 2013
A group of ultra-Orthodox men attacked a police car in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Yisrael on Thursday, shattering its front and back windshields.
Police were called to the scene after the neighborhood’s so-called “modesty patrol” beset a car in which a group of ultra-Orthodox women were traveling, claiming that they were dressed immodestly.
Several ultra-Orthodox men broke the car’s windows, punctured its tires and poured fish oil on it.
After the attack on the police car, another group of police arrived and quelled the disturbance.
Informal “modesty patrols” have been known to operate in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and towns to enforce — sometimes violently — a strict reading of Jewish views on modesty and propriety
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Touring the Village of New Square, NY
By Vicki Polin
YouTube - December 7, 2013
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Pamphlet about modesty and clothing
January 6, 2014
The following pamphlet is being handed out in many ultra-orthodox communities in the United States.
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