Women to No Longer Sit in the Back of the Bus

NY Post

The Orthodox Jewish-run Brooklyn bus company that stuck women in the back seats is putting an end to the controversial practice after a reprimand from the city.

The Private Transportation Corp. — which runs the Williamsburg-to- Borough Park B110 bus — wrote a letter to the Department of Transportation promising to instruct drivers not to move women to the back.

Operators pay the city more than $20,000 a year to run the line as part of a 30-year-old franchising agreement, which specifically forbids discrimination.

16 Comments

  • menucha

    its not about the back or the front for the frum community its about not having mixed seating. the crown heights/boro park bus is the same way but side by side.

    and its not about the back or the front for the people fighting this its about what can they do to ruin the frum community from going about their normal life

  • Sara

    Hopefully, the women will move to the back of the bus of their own accord. It’s just the right thing to do…:)

  • And you shall be holy:

    No problem, just put the men in the back half, or would that also be a “discrimination” (a K.G.B. code for yidishkeit)?

  • Easy targets?

    What do the men do on the subway? Ride between the cars?
    If they can’t have their way on the subway why do they push the Jewish woman around?

  • Chicken

    To “4” – wake up! Before Orthodox Women had a right to a separete sitting! We want that right. Not the sinister shadow men you suspect – but us tzniasdich wemen that are much more comfortable in the separate sitting bus than in a mixed one. Thanks to liberal minded idiots(I hope I get “good points” for not saying like you) took away that right.
    Thanks, what is next – mandatory mixed seating in shul?
    Separate seating is not a diskrimination – it is a separation. After all men were not allowed to ride in the back of the bus too. But it would not have made a catchy headline.

  • AZ

    In Igros Moshe, it clearly paskens that it isn’t even a problem to sit next to a woman on a bus, since it isn’t derech chibah.

    CHUMRAH CHUMRAH CHUMRAH

  • anonymous

    i agree w/# 6

    if we take on too many chumros we’ll neglect basic halachs

    this isn’t about tzenua it’s about fanaticism

  • Milhouse

    The drivers didn’t enforce the separation in the first place, so it’s no chidush that they won’t enforce it now. One hopes that the passengers will continue to enforce it, so that the kedusho can be preserved. If chas vesholom the kedusho of this bus is diminished then it will be a sad day.

    #3, if the men are in the back then they’re still looking at the women.

    #4, since when is the subway not a problem? Why do you think community buses exist in the first place?

    #6 you are a liar. The Igros Moshe does not say that “it isn’t even a problem”. On the contrary, he acknowledges that it IS a problem, and permits it because there’s no practical alternative. In any case, since when is every Jew bound to Igros Moshe? In Satmar they don’t hold of him bichlal, and why should they? And why do you write “CHUMRAH” as if it were a bad thing? What is a chossid about, if not chumra, staying lifnim mishuras hadin, kadesh atzmecho bemutor loch (kal vochomer something whose heter is not at all clear).

    KEDUSHOH KEDUSHO KEDUSHO

  • OH MY GOSH

    WHAT WIERDOS!
    WE WOMEN SHOULDN’T BE PUSHED TO THE BACK LIKE PUPPETS!

    DEAREST CHICKEN,
    WHATIS YOUR PROBLEM!

  • media bias

    This was presented in the media showing how Orthodox Jews treat their women like “second class citizens” and relegate them to the back of the bus like l’havdil Negros in the South years ago. Somehow the media gets away with portraying frum Yiddin in a negative light in a way that would be condemned for “insensitivity” or “bias” if it were any other group. Esov soyneh es Yacov…

  • A WOMANS VIEW

    SOME OF THESE COMMENTS ARE REALLY FOR THE BOOKS. I AM A WOMAN AND A LIBERAL MINDED ONE THOUGH CHASIDISH AND IN TOTAL FAVOR OF TZNIUS. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE, IF IT IS A JEWISH BUS THAT MEN AND WOMEN SIT SEPERATELY. (NOT WITH A MECHITZA…) AND FOR THE WOMEN TO SIT IN FRONT OF THE MEN IT WOULD NOT BE VERY TZNIUSDIK. LET’S CALL A SPADE A SPADE. THIS IS THE WAY HASHEM CREATED HUMAN NATURE….. SO IT’S GOT TO BE EITHER THE WOMEN IN THE BACK OR ALONG SIDE WITH THE AISLE BETWEEN THEM AS ON THE BORO PARK BUS.THREE CHEERS TO THE WOMEN WHO ADHERE TO TZNIUS REGARDLESS OF THE RIDICULOUS NON JEWISH UNCOOPERATIVE RULES.

  • Who even cares?!

    Grow the up people. If you want to sit in the back than sit in the back; if you want to sit in the front than sit in the front; if you want to sit in the middle than sit in the middle; if you want to take the subway than take the subway; if you want to take the bus than take the bus; if you want to take a taxi than take a taxi; heck, if you want to walk from Williamsburg to Borough Park than be my guest! Why should anyone else care?!

    If anyone else has a problem than let them figure it out, its not the world’s problem to solve.

  • Chicken

    Hello! “Gosh” lots of frum men travel with baby carriages. Carriages go to the back of the bus. Since very few men travel by themselves with a baby carriage it naturally follows that women should have the part where they can place the carriages. Simple. Logical.
    Nothing to do with being pushed anywhere.

  • The fall of intellect

    This media bias is like the CH riots nonsence: “Jews beating up poor black” “Jews shoving women around”

    I could understand a dumb kid jurnalist trying to impress her superviser. I could understand a clever liberalist trying to justify her warped comprehension. But what happened to the editors? where is the review board? Is there any intillect overlooking the quality of what gets published?

    I guess stirring up the public to hysteria via catchy headlines is more important then delivering true information and educating them to seek their human potential. Perhaps because it will generate more popularity and with that more profits.

    Liberal liars. Or, instigators. Chote Umachte es harabim

    This reminds me of what Ari Goldman has to say about this. They have a story to sell and will mold anything that passes to support that story. Their story is that unequal social status amoung blacks and women and the struggle to equalize all things good and evil. If a women was asked to respect a cultural practice by siting in the back section of a bus, the truth gets warped and the struggle for human rights seizes an opertunity to yell in chaos.

    I always knew that the liberal beleif in human equality is at its heart the ultimate disrespect to individual cultures and their practices.

    No, liberals, we are NOT all the same. Some of us resect the will of our creator while others disrespect Him. So we are NOT all equal.

  • Just a bus ride

    Its a bus ride from BORO PARK to WILLIAMSBURG, nobody is riding the bus looking for “action”. It’s just a bus ride of regular men and woman going from one place to another. Sitting in view of one another is not going to cause untznius behavior.If someone is looking to act untznius, it will not be because of where he sits on a bus, he or she will make it happen wherever he is. Keeping the women on one side and the men on the other would be fine so their arms would not haveto touch by mistake but back to front is a bit degrading to women, dont you think?

  • Milhouse

    #15, haven’t you ever heard of shmiras eynayim? Obviously not. What a sad thing. Yiddishkeit teaches that it’s not a good thing for men to look at women. It has nothing to do with “behavior”.

    By the way, when did the CH-BP bus become side-by-side? I haven’t ridden it in more than 20 yeras, but back when I was a regular rider the men were always in the front and the women in the back.