Israel's High Court Allows Voluntary Sex-Segregated Buses

Haaretz and YNet News both report on a decision handed down yesterday by Israel's High Court of Justice that allows sex-segregated public buses that serve strictly Orthodox communities to continue on a voluntary basis.  The so-called "Mehadrin" (extra-Kosher) bus routes-- about 50 in all-- were created to satisfy strictly Orthodox Jews whose religious traditions require separation of men and women. However a lawsuit challenging the practice was filed by a group of women and the Israel Religious Action Center in 2007 after women who refused to sit in the back of buses complained about being harassed. (See prior posting.)

Israel's High Court essentially accepted recommendations of the Transportation Ministry that the routes continue, but that no woman can be coerced into complying with the voluntary sex segregation. In its opinion, however, the Court found mandatory sex-segregation illegal. Justice Elyakim Rubenstein, invoking analogies from U.S. law, wrote:

A public transportation operator, like any other person, does not have the right to order, request or tell women where they may sit simply because they are women. They must sit wherever they like. As I now read over these lines emphasizing this, I am astounded that there was even a need to write them in the year 2010. Have the days of Rosa Parks, the African-American woman who collapsed the racist segregation on an Alabama bus in 1955, returned?

The Court ordered the Transportation Ministry to place signs in all the Mehadrin buses stating that any passenger is free to sit anywhere, and that harassing a passenger on the issue may constitute a criminal offense. During a 30 day trial period, the Ministry must conduct both open and covert inspections to see that the plan is working and must create a complaint center to receive complaints from women who believe they have been treated improperly in this regard. A broader report titled Excluded, for God's Sake: Gender Segregation in Public Space in Israel was published last November by the Israel Religious Action Center.