Sex Segregation In Israel And the Religious Right

Here’s something for cognitive dissonance: Liberal American Jews whom are zealous about enforcing the separation of church and state in the United States simultaneously champion and cheer not only the religious framework of the Jewish state of Israel but are indifferent or at least choose not to concern themselves with the rising religious right in Israel.

armed settlers EOTZK 19672

American Jews fight the Christian Right here while being apologetic about the Jewish Orthodox Right in Israel.

Here are a few case examples that if you were to switch the persons from Jews to Christians and the country from Israel to the United States would cause an uproar among groups like the Anti-Defamation League but when it happens in Israel, silence is the response from such groups (if not support):

Intel will not employ Jewish workers on Saturday shifts in its Jerusalem plant. The chip-maker has suggested in a new compromise proposal. The move comes after large crowds of ultra-Orthodox protesters attacked the plant on Saturday, in protest of it continuing operations on Shabbat. The plant, in the Har Hotzvim industrial area in Jerusalem, employs some 150 workers.

Israeli police have arrested a Jewish woman for wearing a prayer shawl at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Police said wearing the shawl - known as a tallit - was a violation of a High Court ruling that a dress code must by abided by at the Jewish holy site.

Female teachers say they were told the main entrance is not safe, but they believe the real reason is pressures exerted by ultra-Orthodox elements.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef came out on Saturday night against the feminist lineup at the Western Wall and called for the condemnation of its members. According to him, the movement is made up of “stupid” women who do not act “for Heaven’s sake,” but merely because “they want equality.”

Why is this? Simply because for many American Jews Israel is a fantasy land. They refuse to see the country through anything but rose-colored windows. It is idealized and beyond criticism. And whenever inconvenient facts arisen then the response is to shut down the critic as biased or anti-Semitic, and deny the reality.

So while most American Jews subscribe to feminist views they have nothing to say about the Medieval sex segregation which is taking place in Israel:

The volunteer coordinator for a movement campaigning against Jerusalem bus lines instituting separation between men and women has received dozens of harassing phone calls over the past few days, Ynet reported Thursday. Avital Livni of the Free Israel movement has been running an intensive campaign against what she calls. The volunteer coordinator for a movement campaigning against Jerusalem bus lines instituting separation between men and women has received dozens of harassing phone calls over the past few days, Ynet reported Thursday.

Avital Livni of the Free Israel movement has been running an intensive campaign against what she calls "religious coercion" and a "haredi takeover." As part of the campaign, Livni published her phone number on Facebook and flyers to recruit activists and supporters.

The result, Livni said, was dozens of phone calls from people impersonating prospective activists who tried to find out more information on the group's activity. These conversations, she said, usually deteriorated to cursing by people "with a heavy Yiddish accent" at the other end of the line.

Continue to live in fantasy land.