Aboard Flights, Conflicts Over Seat Assignments and Religion
April 9, 2015 8:42 AM   Subscribe

“The ultra-Orthodox have increasingly seen gender separation as a kind of litmus test of Orthodoxy." A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down. Several flights from New York to Israel over the last year have been delayed or disrupted over the issue, and with social media spreading outrage and debate, the disputes have spawned a protest initiative, an online petition and a spoof safety video from a Jewish magazine suggesting a full-body safety vest (“Yes, it’s kosher!”) to protect ultra-Orthodox men from women seated next to them on airplanes.
posted by holborne (255 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you can't handle sitting next to 50% of the population, you need to buy another ticket so you're guaranteed an empty seat next to you.
posted by Aizkolari at 8:44 AM on April 9, 2015 [149 favorites]


If this matters so very much to Orthodox men, I think they need to be the ones putting the burden of the inconvenience on themselves and not on women who are just trying to get from point A to point B. They can buy additional seats, only travel with their wives, see if the airlines are willing to accomodate them, or find some other method of traveling if this bothers them so much. But delaying the transit of the whole airplane and making women uncomfortable for trying to fucking exist on public transportation? Come the fuck on.

I would be so very offended if someone asked me to move and find a new seat because they didn't want to sit next to me because of my lady cooties. Fuck you, you go find a new seat if your religion finds me so distasteful.
posted by sciatrix at 8:48 AM on April 9, 2015 [195 favorites]


Wait, it's a religious freedom-to-be-a-jackass problem, it involves Israel, and it's about being horrible to women? The Republican Party can help!
posted by Artw at 8:50 AM on April 9, 2015 [182 favorites]


Due to my job and where I live, I spend a lot of time around different types of Orthodox Jews and there are haredi-friendly (i.e. gender segregated) parallel services set up for almost anything you can name. I am really, genuinely surprised there hasn't yet been a serious push for a haredi airline considering how much of a pain in the ass this is for everyone involved.
posted by griphus at 8:50 AM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I'm typically all about some religious accommodation, but the phrase undue burden applies here. If you don't want to sit next to half the population, the burden of accommodation falls to you to not people who just want to travel in peace.
posted by Twain Device at 8:51 AM on April 9, 2015 [32 favorites]


Is it because of lady cooties though? It seems like it's a different kind of failing: if I accidentally brush my (clothed) arm against yours, I run the risk of having impure thoughts about you, or something.

Which I mean, god, if you're that hung up about how to handle your own brain, maybe you should just stick with living in some small village without billboards or magazines or, I dunno, cars and electricity and shit, so that you're never accidentally exposed to something that might make you think about things.
posted by nushustu at 8:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [18 favorites]


Sometimes I really think the New York Times is trolling Metafilter.
posted by swift at 8:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [75 favorites]


I'm actually pretty appalled that (1) anyone would agree to move; and (2) that the Haredi men are not immediately removed from the plane when they refuse to sit down.

But yes, if your purity is so important to you (and, btw, I don't think there's any halachic authority saying that a man may not sit next to a woman on public transport), save your pennies and buy two seats, end of story.
posted by holborne at 8:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [29 favorites]


maybe you should just stick with living in some small town

Demography and Destiny: America's Youngest Community
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Is it because of lady cooties though? It seems like it's a different kind of failing: if I accidentally brush my (clothed) arm against yours, I run the risk of having impure thoughts about you, or something.

That's fucking worse because it's making me responsible for accommodating his thoughts and desires, which I don't have any actual control over. Hey, it's not like that's a common expectation on women or anything in multiple cultures! It's not like women don't have to deal with this shit all the fucking time as it is!

Fucking hell, I'm not even interested in men. I'd prefer they not fantasize about me either. Maybe the solution to that is for this religion to expect some goddamn control out of the men in this equation for once.
posted by sciatrix at 8:55 AM on April 9, 2015 [107 favorites]


Actually, I have decided that if I'm on a flight and a Haredi man insists that I move, I will not only decline to do so, but I'm going to start singing. A bawdy song. Loudly. That'll get him off the plane fast enough.
posted by holborne at 8:57 AM on April 9, 2015 [30 favorites]


Ok, so do you guys think there's enough of a market for some kind of collapsible plexiglass purity cocoon that can be worn on an airplane? If my Kickstarter reaches its first set of funding goals, I promise to add breathing holes.
posted by Behemoth at 8:57 AM on April 9, 2015 [30 favorites]


Hey, a chance to use my new vocabulary word: khnyok, "a sanctimonious religious prig" (h/t zarq). And it's probably not necessary to point this out, but the fact that there's a Yiddish word to express disapproval of this type of behavior makes it pretty clear how this kind of stuff is viewed by most Jews.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:57 AM on April 9, 2015 [118 favorites]


I had a similar situation in Turkey several years ago when taking one of the long-distance buses between cities, but from the other side: a middle-aged Muslim woman's unwillingness to sit next to me in the seats to which we had been assigned at the ticket office. It took the bus driver five minutes to reorganize a half dozen passengers so the woman wouldn't be seated next to me or any other man.
posted by twsf at 8:58 AM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


I am really, genuinely surprised there hasn't yet been a serious push for a haredi airline considering how much of a pain in the ass this is for everyone involved.

Well, there's all those laws and regulations that came out of the civil rights movement, for one. Which actually gets to the point - this isn't a "pain in the ass", this is a group of men trying to reduce women to second class citizens. Which is why the proper response is not to create services that cater to them, but to tell them "no, your hangups about women do not mean that they stop being full members of society."
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:58 AM on April 9, 2015 [49 favorites]


Ok, so do you guys think there's enough of a market for some kind of collapsible plexiglass purity cocoon that can be worn on an airplane?

How about just a big plastic bag?
posted by griphus at 8:59 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Fuck these guys. Buy another seat or get off the plane if the purity of your thoughts are so easily imperilled.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:59 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


I'm guessing this whole thing is due to a misreading of some ancient scripture anyway.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:59 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]




Fuck these dudes. That is the only response I can muster. If they want to buy their own planes, or extra tickets, they can. If they want me or other women inconvenienced to accommodate their stupid purity hangups, they can go jump off a bridge.
posted by emjaybee at 9:00 AM on April 9, 2015 [11 favorites]


"(2) that the Haredi men are not immediately removed from the plane when they refuse to sit down. "

This. I wish airlines would stop catering to them. Refuse to sit next to a woman? Fine, you're off the plane, nice knowing ya. I'd have been absolutely livid if I were a passenger on that 11-hour-delayed flight.

I know it probably won't happen, because the airlines want that money, but I can dream.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 9:00 AM on April 9, 2015 [18 favorites]


I'm actually pretty appalled that (1) anyone would agree to move;

I might agree to move because:

1) I would be absolutely mortified and I'd just want to make it stop.
2) I don't want to spend a really really long plane flight next to someone who is appalled by the prospect of sitting next to me.
3) I have been taught over the course of many years that other people's comfort is more important than mine.

I think a lot of women probably have similar experiences.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:00 AM on April 9, 2015 [68 favorites]


I saw this article and wondered if it was another of those NYTimes article of the "this is a rare occurrence anecdote that we are going to treat as a pervasive common experience to whip up some sort of response!" sort.

I am sympathetic to religious needs, but as a woman who requires medication to be on an airplane and for whom seat selection makes a serious difference, sorry, no, if your god won't let you be anywhere near me, you need to move, not me.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:01 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


Given that this seems to be a minority position among Orthodox people, it sounds like it has more to do with people's unacknowledged desire for power and cruelty than with religion, per se - it's pretty much on a par with wanting to tell the queers that you're not going to sell them a birthday cake. You may say that it's about how bad the queers are, but really, lots of quite conservative people just politely ignore sexuality in a public context; it's really because you individually want to exert power and have an excuse for putting others down.
posted by Frowner at 9:03 AM on April 9, 2015 [107 favorites]


Which is why the proper response is not to create services that cater to them, but to tell them "no, your hangups about women do not mean that they stop being full members of society."

That's the proper response, of course. But from an inter-community standpoint, they already have plenty of gender-segregated private bus services; why not a private airline?

(Probably because there's no way to so much as break even on that, but still.)
posted by griphus at 9:04 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm kind of surprised this isn't seen as a (potential) security concern, actually - if you're not in your seat, tray table up, buckled in, phone off, etc when the attendant tells you to, you will be (escorted) TFO the flight, no questions asked.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:04 AM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


Fuck these dudes. That is the only response I can muster. If they want to buy their own planes, or extra tickets, they can. If they want me or other women inconvenienced to accommodate their stupid purity hangups, they can go jump off a bridge.

The danger of saying things like "build your own planes then," is that sometimes folks with this kind of mentality do, and then they use the power of their numbers to suck resources out of community assets while also crying "religious discrimination" against those who disagree with them.
posted by sparklemotion at 9:05 AM on April 9, 2015 [39 favorites]


I'm actually pretty appalled that (1) anyone would agree to move;

On one hand I feel the same way, but on another... Imagining I'm a woman asked to move, if I refuse, a cross-country or international flight is a long time to sit there knowing the schmuck next to me is seething in anger and frustration. That would be really uncomfortable and unpleasant. It's probably for the best if somebody moves, but the first person to be moved should be him.
posted by dnash at 9:05 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


If this matters so very much to Orthodox men I hear there are seats in IDF planes that have no seats on either side. Oh, so you say there's a prohibition against that, too?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:06 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


I don't think this is a request that needs to be reasonably accommodated. They are able to plan their trip for themselves so as not to violate the sabbath. The airlines don't land the plane at the nearest airport at sundown Friday night because that wouldn't be a reasonable accommodation either. They need to buy another seat.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:06 AM on April 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


I was excited to read this because I'm a big Francesca Hogi fan (she's from Survivor). The discussion on her feed is really interesting. Basically, she says that the hassle wasn't worth her time. I think I would have reacted a lot differently. If you need not to sit next to a woman, you need to buy enough seats to make that happen.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:07 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Not only would I not move, I would deliberately and with malice aforethought consume dairy products throughout the flight in the hopes of engulfing all nearby religious extremists in a haze of intestinal horrors.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:09 AM on April 9, 2015 [40 favorites]


Whole thing reminds me of high schools that send GIRLS home to swap the tank top for a sweatshirt so that the BOYS will be able to focus on schoolwork.
posted by scratch at 9:11 AM on April 9, 2015 [61 favorites]


Given that this seems to be a minority position among Orthodox people, it sounds like it has more to do with people's unacknowledged desire for power and cruelty than with religion, per se - it's pretty much on a par with wanting to tell the queers that you're not going to sell them a birthday cake. You may say that it's about how bad the queers are, but really, lots of quite conservative people just politely ignore sexuality in a public context; it's really because you individually want to exert power and have an excuse for putting others down.
Yeah, and if it is—as it seems to be—a rather rare occurrence, the Times' breathless insistence on reporting this (as another episode, I guess, in the long-running serial Jews Behaving Badly) becomes yet another example of majority-group members exerting power over and putting minority-group members down.
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:11 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Honestly though I agree in part with their requests because no woman should be subjected to a long flight next to someone who thinks she is filthy and tainted simply because she exists, but the onus should absolutely be on the haredi man and not the woman.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:12 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


This has happened to me several times. It's frustrating because there's really nothing to be done but move - as someone else pointed out above, better to give in and move than to spend 8-10 hours next to a pretty hostile individual.
As someone who's also been physically and verbally threatened in Israel by ultra-Orthodox men (for my immodest dress, my non-Orthodox lifestyle), this kind of stuff is the least of it.
It's horrifying but true that I have had to just shrug this stuff off, sometimes for literal fear for my own safety.
posted by bookgirl18 at 9:13 AM on April 9, 2015 [16 favorites]


Imagining I'm a woman asked to move, if I refuse, a cross-country or international flight is a long time to sit there knowing the schmuck next to me is seething in anger and frustration.

I am a large man (6'4" 210, 7 feet from finger tip to tip). This is the experience of every flight. I'd love to share the armrest with you, but seriously, there is no way that can physically happen. I'll also be lavaballing the entire flight because absent a hinge in my femur, I can't put my knees together.

So, sit one of these assholes next to me. He'll learn to prefer the company of women.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:13 AM on April 9, 2015 [38 favorites]


a middle-aged Muslim woman's unwillingness to sit next to me in the seats to which we had been assigned at the ticket office. It took the bus driver five minutes to reorganize a half dozen passengers so the woman wouldn't be seated next to me or any other man.

I realized that I feel differently about this and I wanted to examine why. I think I have a lot more sympathy for women who don't want to sit next to men because of general stuff like structures of oppression and patriarchy, but also because there are times I don't want to sit next to a man for actual reasons that have to do with actions that men have taken. I uses buses a fair amount and if I sit next to a man I know from experience that there is the danger that he will take an action, verbal or otherwise, that is unpleasant or uncomfortable for me. This is not theoretical and it's about actual actions men take; it is based on something that is controllable and not an innate quality (yes I know not all men, I'm just expressing why my gut reaction is different in these cases).

That said, I do get that the word "public" is part of "public transportation" for a reason (airplanes included), and if you can't deal with sharing transportation with the rest of the public then you need to opt for private transportation.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:13 AM on April 9, 2015 [23 favorites]


Knowing some pilots and that culture, it's hard for me to imagine almost any captain putting up with these fuckers. I would think most would be like "stop disrupting things and get the fuck off my plane" ...
posted by despues at 9:14 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is kind of personal for me though because when my mom was in chemo, she fainted on the sidewalk outside of the chemo center and a trio of haredi men refused to help her up.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:14 AM on April 9, 2015 [99 favorites]


“I was fine with that. Everyone was trying to be accommodating because on airplanes everyone is anxious about offending anyone for religious reasons.”

The offense began with a woman simply existing and the refusal of the man to consider her as anything but a sexual object. No man should ever be humored in his belief that women are responsible for his sexuality. That's exactly the same thinking as, "she shouldn't have dressed like that if she didn't want to be bothered/assaulted/raped". Moving seats to satisfy a religious man's sexual hangups is the same as condoning rape culture.
posted by Thing at 9:15 AM on April 9, 2015 [37 favorites]


Also this: "Imagining I'm a woman asked to move, if I refuse, a cross-country or international flight is a long time to sit there knowing the schmuck next to me is seething in anger and frustration. That would be really uncomfortable and unpleasant." describes what it is like to be a woman in a huge swath of professional contexts. As a woman, with an obviously female name, I cannot tell you the number of times male judges have addressed the men standing next to me to explain the situation when we are in court on a motion filed under my obviously female name even though I am the only woman in the room and the likeliest author of the motion. Then a bunch of men get uppity when I try to assert my right to be there and my dominion over the motion.

So outside of this narrow construct, the world is full of men angry and frustrated that women are in their spaces, being all independent and confident and not concerned with their needs. It's fewer and fewer men, and fewer and fewer places. But fuck that, seriously. Dude, no. You accommodate your own ass and leave mine out of it.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2015 [64 favorites]


It's frustrating because there's really nothing to be done but move

No, the thing to be done is for the man to find someone else to switch seats with himself.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2015 [21 favorites]


Yeah, and if it is—as it seems to be—a rather rare occurrence, the Times' breathless insistence on reporting this (as another episode, I guess, in the long-running serial Jews Behaving Badly) becomes yet another example of majority-group members exerting power over and putting minority-group members down.

I mean, I think it's a story, but it seems like the story is about airline policy more than about a few men who are neither willing to sit next to a woman nor willing to make their own accommodations. Or maybe it's a story about - in general - when the basic universal-civic-framework comes into conflict with small community norms.

I really cannot be having with people who think that women are responsible for preventing random "lustful" thoughts and therefore need to move/dress in ways the women don't like/etc, though. Perhaps there is some accommodation that can be made for this belief without burdening others, but it's not a belief about which I am going to be neutral.
posted by Frowner at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


“My buddy who is Orthodox was saying this is a traditional thing — he doesn’t want to be tempted when his wife wasn’t there.

This attitude has always stuck in my craw. It's neither my fault nor my responsibility if *your* ability to keep within the strictures of *your* faith is lacking. Surely a truer test of faith would be remaining pure in the face of "temptation", rather than living this life of ease where everything is handed to you on a platter and you never have to work at it. It's the same justification for wearing a niqab and abaya or burqa, not to save women from men but to save men from their own potential impure thoughts.

Something something Job something something.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 9:17 AM on April 9, 2015 [74 favorites]


Imagining I'm a woman asked to move, if I refuse, a cross-country or international flight is a long time to sit there knowing the schmuck next to me is seething in anger and frustration. That would be really uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I'm petty and malicious enough that I think I'd feel a good deal of schadenfreude. I don't know what that says about me as a person....

Plus, on a practical level, chances are good that he wouldn't hog the armrest or jut his legs or elbows into my space because then he'd risk contamination from my girl cooties. Win!
posted by imnotasquirrel at 9:17 AM on April 9, 2015 [31 favorites]


No, the thing to be done is for the man to find someone else to switch seats with himself.

Yeah, I'm thinking if I'm ever on a plane where this happens, I'll offer to switch seats with the Haredi man. Not out of any desire to accommodate him, but out of desire to (a) get the plane in the goddam air and (b) because the solution shouldn't involve moving someone who isn't the cause of the problem.
posted by nubs at 9:19 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


And obviously I am no religious scholar, but isn't that part of the point of free will? That we choose the correct path in the face of temptation? Because if there was no choice of path to take then it basically doesn't count. So if a man can't resist an impure thought if he sits next to a woman, then that is because the man is spiritually weak and he needs to look within himself to fix it between him and his god, not remove the temptation so he gets a free pass.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 9:20 AM on April 9, 2015 [17 favorites]


Not only would I not move, I would deliberately and with malice aforethought consume dairy products throughout the flight in the hopes of engulfing all nearby religious extremists in a haze of intestinal horrors.

oooh, you should also blatantly take an enormous pad out of your purse and go to the restroom, to make it clear you are also on your period. And then read inappropriate comics on your Kindle.
posted by emjaybee at 9:21 AM on April 9, 2015 [31 favorites]


I'd be tempted to very overtly get a tampon out of my purse and head off to the bathroom after accidentally touching the guy.

But in the real world I would probably just acquiesce with irritation as long as I could still get an aisle seat for the same reasons Mrs. Pterodactyl gave.
posted by jeather at 9:21 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Previously: “You don’t understand, women are holier than men.” (my own fpp, Elana Sztokman on Tablet)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:21 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Who would have guessed that the 21st century would be such a time of public demonstrations of false piety in so many places? Florists, Congress, airlines, too much of Afghanistan.

I hate to hate on religion, but I'm intolerant of your intolerance.
posted by GuyZero at 9:22 AM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Yeah, I too was thinking about why the example of the Muslim woman didn't bother me as much. I've got a couple of ideas.

First one boils down to that old slogan about what women and men are afraid of: "Women are afraid men will kill them, men are afraid women will laugh at them." Or in this case, men are afraid they'll want women, which will dilute their holy purity. Which, frankly, that's a far lesser threat than fearing men will attack or harass you, which is what it sounds like is the motivation for this Muslim woman.

Second one is that women are already expected to cater to and help shape men's thoughts as a matter of course in pretty much every culture I've ever looked at the topic in. Women are told that their dress is important because otherwise, what will men think of you? The onus is on women to perfectly control their behavior and appearance at all times because men cannot even be expected to control their thoughts, let alone what they actually do with those thoughts.

So a lot of this is, for me, colored by gender dynamics that already exist. Women are the targets of harassment by men, which makes me think this Muslim woman's request may have been partly motivated by fear. And the different expectations on women and men with respect to accommodating other people's comfort in public means that I have different feelings about a woman requesting a strange man to accommodate her and a man requesting a strange woman to accommodate him.

That said, my honest feeling is that people who have a strong gender preference about who to sit next to on public transit need to make that clear at the ticket counter and either adjust their own travel to match (buy another seat, travel with an acceptable seat partner) or request a preference and see if the ticket salesman can accomodate it. There is absolutely no reason to ever tell someone that another passenger was assigned to sit next to them but refused on the basis of gender. At that point, the seatmate's day is already ruined; whether the complainer or the seatmate moves is almost beside the point.
posted by sciatrix at 9:23 AM on April 9, 2015 [17 favorites]


“I wasn’t going to put his comfort for no good reason above my husband’s,” she said.

Also I thought this was great. Here she is, honoring her husband like her vows said she should do. It's awfully presumptuous of this stranger to interfere in their marriage for his comfort.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 9:23 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Maybe Israel and Iran are too much alike when it comes to root disfunction. Fundamentalist males expect to have no personal responsibility for their behaviors, even the most embarrassingly intimate choices, whom to marry, what one does after they marry, where one sits or stands. All of these complicated decisions handled by Ayatollahs or by Rabbis, now women are expected to shoulder this infantile adherance to personal irresponsibility. The issuer of my proxy moral compass, says you are a potential cause of my potential moral malfeasance, therefore you must leave my proximity, cover your body, stay out of public places I might frequent, avoid eye contact, or else I will summon a proxy physical force to remove you, punish you, forbid you, etc.

I think those of this ilk, wherever they are, seek a neonatal isolette lifestyle. It is a supremely infantile ambition to bear no reponsibility for one's acts mundane or horrific.

If you think this bulshittery is ridiculous and annoying on airplanes, public conveyances in an allegedly democratic society, well there is a harsh upwelling of anti-feminine sentiment that is loping along with the rabid racism right here in the US, right now.

Ladies, in a commanding tone as you go to take your seat, tell these nimrods to "Stand up!" "Move over!" "Request a new seat assignment from staff!" "Do Not Address Me!" American women owe this to Rosa Parks.
posted by Oyéah at 9:24 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


If your faith is so fragile it cannot withstand the presence of a woman on an airplane, then you should just never leave home. Lock your doors, turn out the lights, hide in the closet. Only then will you be safe from our impurity.
posted by emjaybee at 9:24 AM on April 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


What an astonishing coincidence, my religion prevents me from sitting next to religious bigots.

this makes it very difficult for me to use public transit
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:24 AM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


Some passengers are sympathetic. Hamilton Morris, a 27-year-old journalist from Brooklyn, said he agreed to give up his seat on a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Newark via Chicago because it seemed like the considerate thing to do.

Fun fact: This is Errol Morris's son.
posted by asockpuppet at 9:24 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Actually, I have decided that if I'm on a flight and a Haredi man insists that I move, I will not only decline to do so, but I'm going to start singing. A bawdy song. Loudly. That'll get him off the plane fast enough.

May I suggest a full 14 verse rendition of Dayenu?

Thankfully my relatives stopped after two last Friday.
posted by Talez at 9:26 AM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


And by the way--thank you, benito.strauss, for explicitly pointing out that many Jews think this is poor behavior, too. It actually means a lot to be reminded that there is within-larger-community disapproval of this within Jewishness, as a woman who is not herself Jewish.

Plus that word is kind of perfect--it looks like it contains just the right amount of "I'm going to make a disgusted nose-wrinkling face because your behavior is so appalling" sounds. Kind of like calling someone a fuck-knuckle. I'm glad I know that it exists, although I would never try to use it myself because I'm sure I would mangle the context and pronunciation.
posted by sciatrix at 9:27 AM on April 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


My partner and a lot of my friends work for a major airline. If someone called to book a flight and asked not to be seated next to a woman for religious reasons, the agent would make every attempt to arrange that. As the Delta representative put it, "We’re aware of it, and we do what we can to get ahead of it prior to boarding." I can understand that people looking for religious accommodation may not like the idea of it being a personal favor on the part of this agent or that flight attendant. But it can be done; it could probably even be done at the gate.

I know I'd be less judgmental about this if it weren't so sexist.
posted by BibiRose at 9:28 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


oooh, you should also blatantly take an enormous pad out of your purse and go to the restroom, to make it clear you are also on your period. And then read inappropriate comics on your Kindle.

And assuming you're not Jewish, Muslim, or vegan take along a big-ass bag of pork rinds to snack on throughout the flight.

“My buddy who is Orthodox was saying this is a traditional thing — he doesn’t want to be tempted when his wife wasn’t there."

Yeah, no, fuck you. Guess what? Not every woman is a potential sexual partner. Women are not walking vaginas. Maybe that's their primary function in your backward-ass shitty patriarchal fundamentalist enclave, but out here in secular society we do things differently.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:28 AM on April 9, 2015 [28 favorites]


"I demand this woman move, for my religion forbids impure thoughts and she is a temptation!"

"I demand you shut up, for my religion forbids stabbing you in the face."
posted by Clueless in Crocodilopolis at 9:29 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


Yeah, and if it is—as it seems to be—a rather rare occurrence, the Times' breathless insistence on reporting this (as another episode, I guess, in the long-running serial Jews Behaving Badly) becomes yet another example of majority-group members exerting power over and putting minority-group members down.

Depending on how you define "rare," this does not, in fact, seem to be particularly unusual. This is anecdata, of course, but it's happened to my brother on one flight to Israel (a Haredi man asked him to switch seats and he agreed, to my consternation), and there have been other reports of it long before this article. While it certainly doesn't happen on every flight -- I fly relatively frequently and have never seen it -- I don't think that translates to "rare." And certainly, among the ultra-Orthodox, there have been other examples of disputes over public transport, such as women in Israel literally being obliged to move to the back of the bus. (That link is from the Jewish Daily Forward, btw.)

So no, it's not accurate to cast this as media persecution of the Jews. (And everyone knows we control the media anyway, so.)
posted by holborne at 9:31 AM on April 9, 2015 [20 favorites]


May I suggest a full 14 verse rendition of Dayenu? Thankfully my relatives stopped after two last Friday.

And lucky for you they did.

Customs associated with Dayenu - Jews in Afghanistan and Iran hit each other over the head with green onions during the refrain beginning with the ninth stanza...

As was the fashion at the time...
posted by Naberius at 9:31 AM on April 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


"Women are afraid men will kill them, men are afraid women will laugh at them."

Men are afraid they'll get a bit tingly, women are afraid someone will actually initiate aggressive, unwanted sexual assault.
posted by easter queen at 9:31 AM on April 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


One of hack journalisms favorite ploys. Find a couple of outrage provoking annecdotes, claim there is a growing trend. I saw an incident like this back in the early 90s when I was regularly visiting Israel. It isn't a new thing. Of the reasons people ask to switch seats around this is the least common one I've seen in my decades of air travel.

Also as a frequent traveler, I think that it is best if we all work together to lower everyone's anxiety. If some guy is having a panic attack and that makes him afraid his G-d will smite him for sitting next to a woman, then try to work something out with the people in the rows around you.
posted by humanfont at 9:32 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


What is life like day-to-day for grown dudes that are this hung up on preposterous shit?

I mean if you are really just moving through the world like a bubble of artificial problems and aggro bullshit circumstances, are you just constantly looking for situations where you can snap like some kind of human mousetrap? Or do you sometimes just watch TV and doodle on notepads like regular people?
posted by SharkParty at 9:33 AM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


Customs associated with Dayenu - Jews in Afghanistan and Iran hit each other over the head with green onions during the refrain beginning with the ninth stanza...

Just like the 9th verse of the 12 Days of Christmas! Just goes to show that religions have more in common than they have differences.
posted by Talez at 9:33 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Something I truly love about the patriarchy is the fact that it touts the immutable inherent superiority and power of men writ large while simultaneously perpetuating the myth that men are so helpless/uncontrollable in the face of female existence that they must regularly issue demands for women to cover ourselves up from head to toe, behave in a manner that is more accommodating to male desires, and/or make ourselves disappear from any and all spaces a dude wishes to claim on behalf of his sex.

Like we're supposed to just accept that dudes are the All-Knowing Most Powerful Rulers of Everything... right up until it comes to being 'made' to have impure thoughts, at which point women are given the astonishing power of forcing the apparently now helpless man to think and feel all of these dirty, dirty things against his will. OK, patriarchy, which one is it? Is a man the source of all purity, force, bravery, and righteousness in the world, or is he a hapless sap who utterly lacks the incredible strength that is apparently required to prevent himself from trying to (or at least wanting to try to) fuck the poor woman seated next to him when she just wants to get home or go to work?

All aboard the "not only would I not move..." train, no stops. I eat vile sexist hostility for breakfast. It's like vitamins to me. Fuck this antiquated, dehumanizing bullshit. News flash: Women are human beings who deserve to walk and sit and live in the world wherever the fuck we want to, even if it makes your dick uncomfortable.
posted by divined by radio at 9:34 AM on April 9, 2015 [147 favorites]


I'm confused why we're only supposed to discuss extremely frequent sexism.
posted by kiltedtaco at 9:35 AM on April 9, 2015 [27 favorites]


Being told even just once that your very existence renders you unclean is enough for anyone, I think.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:37 AM on April 9, 2015 [23 favorites]


For those saying that this is a minority opinion of Orthodox folks - yes, certainly (and clearly not an opinion held by more modern Orthodox people) but this minority is loud, vocal, and dangerous, especially in Israel. For example.
It is a huge-ass problem, entrenched in the Israeli government and political system, that is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Last time I was in Jerusalem, haredi men yelled and threw rocks at us whorish American women for singing loudly and showing our elbows, and the cops stood there watching. Literally watching it go down.
Which is why, much as I dream of yelling in some haredi dude's face on a plane or kicking him in the nuts when he insists that I move seats, I've never gotten up the courage. Maybe this makes me cowardly ... but mostly it just makes me sad.
posted by bookgirl18 at 9:37 AM on April 9, 2015 [24 favorites]


1. I am Larry, thy pilot. Thou shalt have Roger as thy co-pilot, along with Shari and Bernice to assist you on this non-stop flight to Denver.
2. Thou shalt not use personal wireless devices during takeoff or landing.
3. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain, unless there is a screaming baby nearby.
4. Remember the location of thy exits, to keep them free of debris.
5. Honor thy Fasten Seatbelt sign.
6. Thou shalt not smoke.
7. Thou shalt not commit terrorism.
8. Thou shalt not be too drunk.
9. Thou shalt not bear long, boring witness to thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's neck pillow.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:37 AM on April 9, 2015 [46 favorites]


The thing is, if a Haredi man were polite about it and tried to inconvenience himself rather than the woman (taking a worse seat, whatever) and didn't delay the flight, I wouldn't find it that horrible. It's when they are rude or decide that it's okay to delay the entire flight or want to keep THEIR seat but make other people move that bothers me a lot more.
posted by jeather at 9:37 AM on April 9, 2015 [25 favorites]


What is life like day-to-day for grown dudes that are this hung up on preposterous shit?

Honestly, their communities are set up in a way that this sort of thing is the default. You will not, for instance, find a magazine or newspaper with a photo of a woman in it in a haredi community. Gender segregation is enforced and accommodated for from the get-go because these rules were in place before the community was structured.

It's when they venture outside of Kiryas Joel (or wherever) and encounter a world that rightly considers their views on gender to be bizarre and insulting that the conflicts arise.
posted by griphus at 9:37 AM on April 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


That's interesting that the back-of-the-bus thing is changing in Israel. I was going to suggest reserving a block of the worst seats on the plane for men who insist on not being near a woman but thought that would have horrible associations.
posted by BibiRose at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2015


What is life like day-to-day for grown dudes that are this hung up on preposterous shit?

Like if you really just move through the world like a bubble of artificial problems and aggro bullshit circumstances, are you just constantly looking for situations where you can sound off like some kind of human mousetrap? Or do you sometimes just watch TV and doodle on notepads like regular people?


This comment reminds me of some the bullshit you see in 4chan video game generals where the involuntary celibate talk about "waifus" and how "pure" they are. If anyone desperately needed therapy and a dose of reality about women it would be these people.
posted by Talez at 9:39 AM on April 9, 2015


I travel with children (the presence of children on a flight is sometimes as controversial as the presence of ultra-Orthodox) and I am not shy about asking people to switch seats if, as it turns out, we are seated separately. Most of the time, people are happy to help out, and I've also been on the receiving end of this, where I'll give up a choice aisle seat to switch to a middle seat (the horror!) so that a family can travel together.

And as humanfont said above, we're all stuck together in a metal tube for six hours, so we might as well do what we can to lessen everyone's anxiety.

But what would happen if an u-Orthodox guy asked me to switch seats while I was sitting next to my five-year-old son? Sorry, buddy, but unless you can find two people to switch seats with me & my son, my family takes precedence over your God.
posted by math at 9:40 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


pretty sure their God is tapping his his foot in increasing annoyance with them just like everyone else.
posted by SharkParty at 9:42 AM on April 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


If some guy is having a panic attack and that makes him afraid his G-d will smite him for sitting next to a woman, then try to work something out with the people in the rows around you.

No. Like I said, if you can't handle reality in the world outside your enclave, the solution is not "quick, everyone honor the enclave rules!" it is, stay the fuck home in your enclave. That's what it's for, presumably. Keeping out those who are Not Our Kind. Which is fine. But you don't get to carry a little radius of that enclave with you everywhere and force the Not Our Kind people out of their rightful places with it.

You have every right to your belief. You don't have the right to weaponize it to bother and hurt others.
posted by emjaybee at 9:43 AM on April 9, 2015 [58 favorites]


Just like the 9th verse of the 12 Days of Christmas!

Nine scallions swinging?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:44 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was going to suggest reserving a block of the worst seats on the plane for men who insist on not being near a woman but thought that would have horrible associations.

No, no, do not make that joke... no. No good will come of it... no. Just walk away... Don't do it. Think about baseball...
posted by Naberius at 9:44 AM on April 9, 2015


I travel with children (the presence of children on a flight is sometimes as controversial as the presence of ultra-Orthodox) and I am not shy about asking people to switch seats if, as it turns out, we are seated separately. Most of the time, people are happy to help out, and I've also been on the receiving end of this, where I'll give up a choice aisle seat to switch to a middle seat (the horror!) so that a family can travel together.

The difference is that your request doesn't dehumanize an entire gender simply for being born with a vagina.
posted by Talez at 9:45 AM on April 9, 2015 [37 favorites]


I saw something similar happen recently, only it was a Muslim woman.

I was on an Emirates plane out of Dubai. I was in the front left hand side seat, the one with all the legroom. To my right was an Indian guy. Across the aisle there was an Indian couple with a toddler, a Muslim man (looked pretty religious) and an empty seat. The woman to whom this seat was assigned was an orthodox Muslim woman with a tiny baby (in a bassinet), which was obviously sick and coughing. The first I noticed was that the baby's temperature was being taken by a flight attendant. Apparently if the temperature had been above a certain limit, they would not have allowed them to fly. They were cleared to fly.

Next, she didn't want to sit in the seat next to the Muslim man. She then asked the Muslim man if he could ask the Indian couple to move, such that the Indian woman was sitting right next to her, because she did not want to sit next to him. I thought that this was really weird - you're really going to talk through this guy rather than ask the couple directly? They're right there -- they can hear everything you're saying. The Muslim man dutifully conveyed the message, but the Indian couple did not want to move. The Muslim man exchanged his seat with a woman sitting somewhere else after much conferencing with the flight attendants.

Then the Indian couple suddenly asked me and the Indian guy next to me if we'd be willing to move to their seats. They claimed that their toddler was very prone to getting infections and they were afraid to be so close to the sick baby. I didn't really think my chances of getting an infection were higher if I were two seats closer to the baby than where I was (plus I really really just wanted this flight to get airborne) so we agreed. It turned out to be a great conversation starter and so the Indian guy and I chatted happily through the flight.

The woman who exchanged with the Muslim man disappeared somewhere before the flight actually started (thought better of sitting next to a fretful baby?).

I don't know that this story actually has any sort of moral per se -- it was just an interesting experience.
posted by peacheater at 9:45 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Don't want to be tempted by impure thoughts? Fine. Porta-eruv. Hang up this thing between the seats, and now you're in a room all by yourself.

That, or put a bag over your head. In fact, why don't you just put a bag over your head?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:47 AM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Saudi airline denies gender split on flights (Jan 2015, in response to a false report.) "No airline in the world currently segregates passengers by gender, although women must wear the hijab on flights operated by IranAir, the Iranian national carrier."
posted by Nelson at 9:47 AM on April 9, 2015


pretty sure their God is tapping his his foot in increasing annoyance with them just like everyone else.


Aside: If you believe in heaven as represented by most editorial comics, God tapping his foot when you were in an airplane would be totally dangerous.

If anyone wants me to be a male seat filler, I am willing to do this as long as you pay for my ticket (round trip), my hotel and incidentals upon arriving at the destination, and my exorbitant fee that I would donate to a rotating list of feminist causes. Small print: I'm super-fucking-Leviticus-stomping-on gay
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:48 AM on April 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


And as humanfont said above, we're all stuck together in a metal tube for six hours, so we might as well do what we can to lessen everyone's anxiety.

The difference is that your request to be seated with your young child is reasonable. A man's request to not be seated next to a woman isn't. Why should we cater to anxieties born of prejudice and discrimination? If men are that anxious about sitting next to a woman to the point that it could cause a panic attack, then they can be escorted off the flight. Or just buy an extra seat ahead of time.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 9:50 AM on April 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


it almost makes me to see some sort of movement where a bunch of ladies just start buying up cheap plane tickets on flights where these dude bros will be on them and then refusing to accomdate the dude bros idiocy.

"nope, sorry, i picked out a window seat and i am staying here. YOU move."


The game theorist in me is compelled to point out that the most efficient way to do this would be to have women buy up all the middle seats, assuming a 3-3 configuration or the like.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [25 favorites]


so we might as well do what we can to lessen everyone's anxiety.

I don't in any way care about someone whose anxiety that my permanent and irrefutable birthright of filth and sin makes them paranoid that I might somehow taint them because I exist nearby them. No one's religious beliefs trump my right to fucking exist.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [31 favorites]


Thinking on this more, this is what I would most like to have happen if a Haredi man did this to me. I would love it if a man who noticed the conflict stood up, said something cutting to the Haredi man, and volunteered to sit next to me. For me, that is a way more satisfying fantasy than making the asshole stay put. It would put loud public opinion directly on my side, it would counter some of the shame and embarrassment I would feel at being asked to move (although not the anger), and I get a seatmate who is a decent human being instead of a sulking bigot. Plus I don't have to put in the work of finding a new seat or even have to figure out how I want to respond while I'm processing the huge insult of being asked to move.
posted by sciatrix at 9:53 AM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


Of course, it's not like I can control any of that myself. Something to think about, guys?
posted by sciatrix at 9:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'd switch seats in an instant....if the seat being offered to me was in first class. Because, hey, free upgrade!
posted by I-baLL at 9:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Classic NYT style in the article title.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:54 AM on April 9, 2015


I would agree to move seats for pretty much any reason-- and at times I have moved to a worse seat, sacrificing legroom or whatever. That doesn't mean I should be asked to. I don't think these kinds of questions should become a referendum on how reasonable it is or is not to respond to this type of request.
posted by BibiRose at 9:55 AM on April 9, 2015


The game theorist in me is compelled to point out that the most efficient way to do this would be to have women buy up all the middle seats, assuming a 3-3 configuration or the like.

Hm. Does my desire to see these guys miserable outweigh my desire to not be miserable myself in the dreaded middle seat? I'm not sure I'm dedicated enough to the cause.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 9:57 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Porta-eruv.

[50s filmreel announcer voice]

Top haredi scientists are hard at work this very day on designing a portable eruv for use on modern conveyances such as automobiles and airplanes.

[Grainy video of a lab full of haredi dudes in kittel. One pours a string from a beaker into a second beaker. Another holds a clipboard watching a car with a roof-mounted eruv in a wind-tunnel, writing notes as it is shorn off. A third trains a camera on a man on a bicycle with the eruv attached from the handlebars to the top of helmet to the back of the bike. The string gets caught in the wheels and they fall over.]

Looks like that design has a few ... kinks in it.

What does the future hold? Who knows, but look out world! Innovation is here to stay.

[Crude SFX shot of Orthodox astronauts with hats and peyot on the outside of their helmets setting up an enormous cubic eruv around the planet]
posted by griphus at 9:59 AM on April 9, 2015 [37 favorites]


It seems to me that making other people move to accommodate one's own religious beliefs is, in effect, forcing them to practice a piece of your religion on your behalf. Instead of segregating yourself from others in accordance with your religious beliefs, you are requiring that they segregate themselves from you.

By this logic, the ultra-Orthodox man who refuses to sit down next to a woman on board an aircraft isn't practicing this part of his religious belief at all. In effect, he's attempting to transfer responsibility for that practice to the woman or women he's trying to displace (and to the flight crew which he is asking to accommodate his request).

This takes the issue from one of rights and religious practice to one of safety and security. The plane can't take off with a passenger standing up because of the risk of injury to that passenger and/or those around him. Passengers who pose safety hazards before takeoff need to be escorted from the aircraft.
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 10:05 AM on April 9, 2015 [19 favorites]


they already have plenty of gender-segregated private bus services

And apparently some public bus services too (linked in the NYT article)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:05 AM on April 9, 2015


griphus, with the caveat that Bill Maher is a bit of a jerk, Religulous covered this.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:11 AM on April 9, 2015


I'm sensing a big market opportunity for non-stop flights from Indianapolis to Tel Aviv.
posted by aaronetc at 10:12 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


How about we issue Oculus Rift headsets to all the Haredi men, so they can virtually immerse themselves in the wonderful ca. 1750 shtetl experience they so dearly crave? Or an augmented reality app, where their gaze (via the app) transforms women into something they can tolerate, like giant bottles of Slivovitz?

Or as my brother the rabbi might say: Fuck these intolerant assholes and their idiotic, misogynistic, and incredibly reductive interpretations of halakha.
posted by mosk at 10:12 AM on April 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


Flipping: Wonderfully put.

I guess that is the core question, do they believe that god is asking THEM to make sacrifices to prove their love/obedience/worship or do they believe that god is asking them to make OTHERS make sacrifices to prove their love/obedience/worship?
posted by Cosine at 10:12 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Of course, it's not like I can control any of that myself. Something to think about, guys?

Personally, I wouldn't do anything. I fear that by intervening I would give off some paternalist sexist vibe, and I wouldn't say a word to the Haredi guy lest in be interpreted as insulting his religion.

If you asked for help, then I would be glad to help out.
posted by just another scurvy brother at 10:15 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't suppose it would be too much to ask these guys to identify themselves in advance. They can then fly at the back of the airplane, evoking certain segregation related images that we have mostly put into the past.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 10:19 AM on April 9, 2015


Frowner: " Perhaps there is some accommodation that can be made for this belief without burdening others"

This cannot happen when the foundation of the belief is literally to burden others.
posted by rhizome at 10:22 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


What's up with goddamn rock-throwing, anyway? Do these guys carry rocks with them to throw at people they don't like? Are there that many rocks just laying around?
posted by Existential Dread at 10:24 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


> Personally, I wouldn't do anything.

Same here. I'm going to assume that the woman is competent to handle things and doesn't want some random man to save her. Plus I wouldn't want to make the woman feel uncomfortable, like Mrs. Pterodactyl describes.

But of course if asked to help, or if it seems strongly likely that help is wanted, I'd be glad to provide it.

Unlike scurvy brother, I'd have to hold myself back from attacking the Haredi fellow's version of religion too strongly, but would probably end up being kind of insulting anyways.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:27 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


@ Cosine - I'm honestly curious about that. I don't know much about Judaism in general, let alone ultra-Orthodox beliefs and practices. I did find a Wikipedia article about shabbes goy, which had this in the intro, "Judaism prohibits Jews from doing certain types of work, known as melakha, on the Sabbath. Within certain guidelines (see Shulkhan Arukh), a non-Jew may perform certain acts which are beneficial to Jews but which may not be performed by Jews on the Sabbath. However, certain other types of work may be prohibited, such as contractor work.[1]". This seems like a similar kind of vicarious practice. The article implies that the participation of the non-Jewish person is voluntary, though. This is so far out of my depth, I have no idea whether or not the men in question might have been thinking along those lines.
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 10:29 AM on April 9, 2015


Contracting someone to work as your shabbos goy, which is employing someone to turn off the lights after temple services, or operate an elevator in a residential building, or perform similar menial tasks for pay, is not at all the same as demanding that a woman of any religion change seats because you find it offensive to sit next to her.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:32 AM on April 9, 2015 [21 favorites]


What's up with goddamn rock-throwing, anyway? Do these guys carry rocks with them to throw at people they don't like? Are there that many rocks just laying around?
she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you. -- Deuteronomy 22:21
They take the old testament pretty fucking seriously when it comes to stoning who they consider to be whores.
posted by Talez at 10:33 AM on April 9, 2015


If an FA asked -- and I wasn't flying with my family -- I would jump up and give the XX-panicked guy my seat. I would also ask said FA for extra pretzels and a couple of free drinks, and then have a noisy, raucous time telling jokes and laughing with the Scary Lady so she sees the whole thing as a mild gain and not a contemptuous imposition.

Guys, "Do A Good Turn Daily" meets "Hey, free drinks!" is not a hard question.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:33 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Fuck these intolerant assholes and their idiotic, misogynistic, and incredibly reductive interpretations of halakha.

I'm not defending these idiots here, because I would be the first bitch to wave a maxi-pad over my head while loudly singing Tikvah or Lecha Dodi or whatever else came to mind if they asked me to move - but here's the deal - this isn't just reductive interpretations - this is an over-extension of halacha that has become absolutely absurd.

The laws of negiah are based on two lines in Leviticus "Any man shall not approach his close relative to uncover nakedness; I am God" (18:6), and: "You shall not approach a woman in her time of unclean separation, to uncover her nakedness" (18:19). The gezirah (fence) that was constructed around this law was not to touch someone of the opposite sex. Most people who keep (shomer) negiah just won't purposefully touch a person of the opposite sex. But just in case that fence might me broached - the more Orthodox won't sit next to someone of the opposite sex. Then there's the gezirah in cities like Mea Shearim and Kiryat Joel where they aren't even allowed to walk on the same side of the sidewalk.

At this point, we can't even see the law (uncovering nakedness) through all of the fences (gezirot) that have been erected around it.

And then, what about the halacha against chillul hashem?
posted by Sophie1 at 10:34 AM on April 9, 2015 [26 favorites]


(replying to Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger)

If you were an observant Jew who made enough money, you would hire a shabbes goy. I met a friend's relatives, Mexican-Americans who lived in L.A., who had picked up some Yiddish from working as shabbes goys for Jewish families in the 1940s-50s. I'd guess that the practice has diminished, but it's only a hunch.

As another anecdote, I had a college housemate in the 1980s who would sometime wander into a room on Saturday and say very loudly "It sure would be nicer in here if a light were on, not that I'm asking anybody to do anything." He was a nice guy otherwise, so someone would usually sigh and turn on a light, not for him, you understand, just because it would be nicer in the room if they did.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:35 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


As another anecdote, I had a college housemate in the 1980s who would sometime wander into a room on Saturday and say very loudly "It sure would be nicer in here if a light were on, not that I'm asking anybody to do anything." He was a nice guy otherwise, so someone would usually sigh and turn on a light, not for him, you understand, just because it would be nicer in the room if they did.

So much of the rituals of Judaism is following the letter and not the spirit of the laws. At that point why even have the law if everyone is just working around it by things like eruvs and goys.
posted by Talez at 10:39 AM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


"Any man shall not approach his close relative to uncover nakedness; I am God"

Tacking a little verbal signature at the end of every thought is a baller move.
posted by SharkParty at 10:40 AM on April 9, 2015 [37 favorites]


Sometimes I really think the New York Times is trolling Metafilter.

No, it's trolling Failed Messiah, which has been all over this sort of thing for quite a while now.

I recently read an article about the insane lengths the Harerdi will go to keep chametz (leavened bread) out of their homes during Passover. Ah, here it is.

Among other things, the article says that obeying the Commandments should be difficult, so that we remember the suffering of our people in the past, or something. Except that nowadays, there isn't much that is difficult anymore. There's non-dairy butter, and kosher bacon. So they have to keep inventing ways to make their own lives difficult, and this is one of them.

It's also, from the people I know, just another way for people to one-up one another. See? I take off my shoes AND my socks before entering a house, so that I will not possibly bring chametz in from the street. I'm more religious than you, ha! Therefore, I'm better than you. A universal human problem, perhaps.

One of hack journalisms favorite ploys. Find a couple of outrage provoking annecdotes, claim there is a growing trend. I saw an incident like this back in the early 90s when I was regularly visiting Israel. It isn't a new thing.

No, it isn't. The trouble is, these families are having 7-10 children each, and they are now numerous enough to be more of a threat. Giving in now "just to make the problem go away" will only make it worse in the future. First they came for...
posted by Melismata at 10:42 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


It was all I could do to maintain decorum when an Orthodox friend-of-a-friend wouldn't shake my girlfriend's hand. If this happened in my presence, I'm sure I'd be the one hauled off the plane in cuffs.
posted by whuppy at 10:43 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


someone would usually sigh and turn on a light, not for him, you understand, just because it would be nicer in the room if they did.

There's a machine for that now.
posted by flabdablet at 10:44 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't know that this story actually has any sort of moral per se -- it was just an interesting experience.

That we should get rid of assigned airline seats and let people sit with whom they choose?
posted by jonp72 at 10:44 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


So much of the rituals of Judaism is following the letter and not the spirit of the laws. At that point why even have the law if everyone is just working around it by things like eruvs and goys.

When I was still representing clients, I had one client who was Orthodox and involved in a major business deal; of course, negotiations were continuing around the clock for days . Somehow, he got his rabbi to make an Eruv so that he could go in a room to use the phone, sign documents, etc., on Shabbos. I mean.

A corollary: my cousin, who is modern Orthodox (not Haredi, but reasonably strict), once wanted to use a hot tub on Shabbos and she "accidentally" walked into the switch to turn it on. She said, "Oh, oops!" and climbed in. Again: I mean.

But yeah, of course, we have no Pope, so a lot of people's observance depends on whether they can find a rabbi to let them do what they want (and they usually can find such a rabbi).
posted by holborne at 10:45 AM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I recently read an article about the insane lengths the Harerdi will go to keep chametz (leavened bread) out of their homes during Passover. Ah, here it is.


Former shabbos goy here- ironically, I've now probably consumed so much craft beer with active yeast cultures in it that I am no longer kosher for Passover.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:46 AM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


"It's uncomfortable if the host offers you a cucumber, for example, and you don't eat it because its seeds resemble grains of wheat."

Sorry what? This is taking kitniyot way too far.
posted by jeather at 10:46 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I-baLL: I'd switch seats in an instant....if the seat being offered to me was in first class. Because, hey, free upgrade!
Not a woman, but... I wouldn't.

And if I were black, I wouldn't let you bribe me into not using the whites-only drinking fountain, either. Some things are more wrong than a little pocket change can righten.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:47 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


Despite ostensibly sharing a religious identification with these men, if one of them asked me to switch seats on an airplane so they could get away from a woman, I would tell him that the things he does to be closer to the divine are only pushing him away from God and from righteousness. I would rather lecture a stranger about my own personal conception of Judaism than permit him to demand an absurd and misogynistic accommodation.
posted by clockzero at 10:48 AM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


I recently read an article about the insane lengths the Harerdi will go to keep chametz (leavened bread) out of their homes during Passover. Ah, here it is.
"At Passover," he says, "it is customary not to visit and not to host people, except for close family members, of course, because no one will eat at anyone else's home.
All who are hungry, come and eat; all who are needy come and celebrate Passover. Right?

The absolute fucking corruption of a religious rite by holier than thou bullshit.
posted by Talez at 10:49 AM on April 9, 2015 [21 favorites]


Tacking a little verbal signature at the end of every thought is a baller move.

"Any man shall not approach his close relative to uncover nakedness; I am Groot."
posted by Naberius at 10:49 AM on April 9, 2015 [22 favorites]


Man I think if leavened bread was this dangerous to my home and my soul, I just wouldn't eat it at all. Sounds like these folks just love to play with FIRE!
posted by SharkParty at 10:49 AM on April 9, 2015


I mean if some guy was raising a stink I would probably offer to change seats with him just to spare the poor woman from dealing with his shit, but I'd hiss yiddish swears at him the entire time and also write an angry letter to the foverts about it.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:50 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


When I was still observant, I didn't follow the kitniyot thing because I thought that was ridiculous. There is no way in hell I was mistaking corn or rice for wheat - I figured that out when I was about 14.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:51 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I recommend women wear this shirt on such flights. I own a long sleeve version. It makes me giggle.
posted by atomicstone at 10:53 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Sounds like these folks just love to play with FIRE!

well...
posted by griphus at 10:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


At around age 16 I became Sephardic for Passover, opening up a range of foods that made Passover super easy to follow. (Now I typically follow the goyish diet.)
posted by jeather at 10:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


jeather - honestly, it's what made me want to go to rabbinical school.

I figured out that if the law was that bread shouldn't rise so that we remember the Exodus, then that was the law. I started looking at what other ridiculous things we were doing because of how the laws were interpreted. I didn't start questioning the laws themselves until I was in college and that's where things got very problematic for seminary.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:59 AM on April 9, 2015


At around age 16 I became Sephardic for Passover, opening up a range of foods that made Passover super easy to follow.

What kind of God would make people eat Ashkenazi food on a so-called holy day, anyway?
posted by clockzero at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


POTATO PRIDE

also this is probably the best place to mention that griphus and i are currently obsessed with the hilarity of FRUM LIFE knuckle tattoos
posted by poffin boffin at 11:08 AM on April 9, 2015 [16 favorites]


All this eruv talk. I think you mean mechitzahs. An eruv turns public property "private" so one can carry on shabbat. A mechitzah is a curtain/wall/divider that divides the men and women [depending on how "mean" the mechitzah is it might be short, made of sheer curtains, or a solid wall] during prayer.

It's been a fascinating thing to watch-back in the day, Haredim had much more mixed gender contact outside of prayer. This is a weird cultural thing about creating more and more challenging ways to apply Jewish law. The stricter you are [even if you made up the rules], the better.

I hasten to remind people that Hillel always won over Shammai.
posted by atomicstone at 11:12 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm actually pretty appalled that (1) anyone would agree to move;

Unless I were in a pissy mood, I'd probably agree to do so - they seem genuine religious convictions. If I'm in a pissy mood, though, all bets are off.
posted by corb at 11:13 AM on April 9, 2015


If your god loves you, your god loves everyone because who are you to expect they aren't equally deserving?
posted by tommasz at 11:15 AM on April 9, 2015


A mechitzah is a curtain/wall/divider that divides the men and women [depending on how "mean" the mechitzah is it might be short, made of sheer curtains, or a solid wall] during prayer.

Also super-useful installed in the JCC mixed-use hall for when the kids from the effectively secular JCC summer camp from out of state are sleeping in there and they need to keep the boys and girls separate at night for entirely different reasons.
posted by griphus at 11:16 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


These people are assholes, plain and simple. I have no use for them.
posted by doctor_negative at 11:18 AM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Hillel always won over Shammai.

Yeah, well, Shammai is making a bit of a comeback.
posted by Sophie1 at 11:18 AM on April 9, 2015


I thought that was WHY we went to Jewish summer camp?
posted by atomicstone at 11:19 AM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


The game theorist in me is compelled to point out that the most efficient way to do this would be to have women buy up all the middle seats, assuming a 3-3 configuration or the like.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:52 AM on April 9 [6 favorites +] [!]

Eponysterical!
posted by chavenet at 11:19 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, well, Shammai is making a bit of a comeback.
Great. Cue these assholes telling the bride she's ugly.
posted by atomicstone at 11:21 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Tacking a little verbal signature at the end of every thought is a baller move.

Any man shall not approach his close relative to uncover nakedness;
- Todd Lokken
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:25 AM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Did I miss it or did someone already link the tempting the inner demons of sin in men cartoon from Bloom County? Because that was totally where I went when I read the OP link: these guys are the Jewish equivalent of Otis Oracle.

I try not to be the annoying atheist and just go along with my unbelieving self, but this sort of thing makes me want to get all Imaginary Sky Daddy all over people who try to mess up my day over their religious convictions.
posted by immlass at 11:34 AM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


That we should get rid of assigned airline seats and let people sit with whom they choose?
posted by jonp72


Then they'd have to take attendence for who's in what seat, slowing the start of the flight down. I believe they have assigned seating to assist with identifying bodies in a crash. Maybe that's crazy and there's some other reason but I always thought that.
posted by agregoli at 11:36 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lately I've been thinking that there are a lot of situations that could best be answered with a plaster cast of my ass. No words, just hand the fucko in question a lovingly crafted, big white butt. I would like to think that as someone stood there holding it they would contemplate the life choices that made them deserving of such an item, but even if they didn't, they'd still be standing there holding a plaster cast of my ass.

I really can't imagine any other reasonable response to someone demanding I move because my ovaries are scaring them.
posted by DingoMutt at 11:38 AM on April 9, 2015 [25 favorites]


ValuJet used to have festival seating.
posted by thelonius at 11:43 AM on April 9, 2015


I think the proper response to a request like this is "Go shit in the ocean"
posted by Oktober at 11:49 AM on April 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


There are plenty of flight companies that offer charter services direct LAX to vacation destinations in Mexico for instance. Are there really no charter companies that offer such a service direct NYC - Israel? They could tailor their seating plans according to their customers observances.
posted by vignettist at 11:50 AM on April 9, 2015


Then they'd have to take attendence for who's in what seat, slowing the start of the flight down. I believe they have assigned seating to assist with identifying bodies in a crash. Maybe that's crazy and there's some other reason but I always thought that.

I don't know about any of that, but Southwest already lets you sit wherever you want so it's obviously an option.
posted by SharkParty at 11:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does Southwest still have unassigned seats? Or did they change that?
posted by holborne at 11:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


jinx!
posted by holborne at 11:52 AM on April 9, 2015


“My buddy who is Orthodox was saying this is a traditional thing — he doesn’t want to be tempted when his wife wasn’t there."

I wouldn't worry about that temptation, pal: if women really wanted to fuck guys in weird hats with shitty facial hair we wouldn't have PUAs
posted by Awful Peice of Crap at 11:52 AM on April 9, 2015 [44 favorites]


I really can't imagine any other reasonable response to someone demanding I move because my ovaries are scaring them.

Come on now, be fair. It's not your ovaries scaring them. It's your skin. And your hair. And your voice. And your elbows.
posted by holborne at 11:54 AM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Come on now, be fair. It's not your ovaries scaring them. It's your skin. And your hair. And your voice. And your elbows.

I always thought being a monster would involve things that were more fun than just getting hassled on airplanes.

DISAPPOINTMENT
posted by DingoMutt at 12:00 PM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I know Southwest does that, I flew with them for many years. Other airlines may make this choice with this in mind, however.
posted by agregoli at 12:00 PM on April 9, 2015


Tacking a little verbal signature at the end of every thought is a baller move.
posted by SharkParty at 6:40 AM on April 10


In my head the voice of God is now that of Tom Haverford.
posted by supercrayon at 12:11 PM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


Abon, not true. Many bodies are still seatbelted into their seats.
posted by agregoli at 12:19 PM on April 9, 2015


Most bodies arrive safely at their destinations.
posted by el io at 12:21 PM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


True as well, but that's not relevant to my comments.
posted by agregoli at 12:23 PM on April 9, 2015


also this is probably the best place to mention that griphus and i are currently obsessed with the hilarity of FRUM LIFE knuckle tattoos

I love this
posted by clockzero at 12:32 PM on April 9, 2015


Does Southwest still have unassigned seats? Or did they change that?

Bit of a derail, but I flew Southwest last week and have four upcoming flights with them. They scan boarding passes at the gate (so they always know who's on board) and you can sit where you please (subject to what boarding number you ended up with when you frantically clicked the reload button twenty-four hours before). There is no reason why unassigned seats wouldn't help this issue.

On the other hand, I am definitely of the opinion that the onus is on the observant man to solve the problem. Your problem, your moving seats.
posted by librarylis at 12:33 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I hadn't thought about identifying bodies, but that makes sense. I always just assumed they assigned seats so that it wouldn't turn into a giant free-for-all, like the ones we had in middle school. That would suck even worse for the flight attendants.
posted by Melismata at 12:44 PM on April 9, 2015


Speaking as a generally reticent and probably over-polite person, I thought airlines had assigned seats to keep the pushy assholes from stampeding to the front of the line taking all the good places.

I didn't know about Southwest not having assigned seats (being a north-easterner) and I have to say would make me inclined not to buy a seat on one of their flights (even apart from their controversies in recent years such as unfriendliness to LGBT, overweight, people with political slogans on t-shirts, etc.). I mean, I just want to plan ahead, choose my seat, pay for it, know my seat is waiting for me with a minimum of logistical stress, and get to where I am going, without undue controversy.

Re: accommodating the ultra-Orthodox, didn't a US District court rule about a decade ago against some Yale students who were demanding special accommodations in the otherwise co-ed university residence halls based on religion?
posted by aught at 12:46 PM on April 9, 2015


re: Southwest seating: My one superpower is an ability to fake a surprisingly credible sneeze; the only time this was almost useful was when my mom and I were on a Southwest flight and wanted the comfort of three seats to ourselves. I sneezed and sniffled while my mom played up the cough drop offers and sympathetic noises like nobody's business; sadly, it turned out to be a full flight but the empty seat in our row was the very last seat taken.

This was years ago, and she and I still chuckle about it from time to time. Funny how being an antisocial jerk can be a kind of fun mother-daughter bonding moment ...

I actually have a Southwest flight coming up soon and absolutely expect to get stuck next to five babies and someone made of mucus to balance out the karma here
posted by DingoMutt at 12:48 PM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


It seems to me that making other people move to accommodate one's own religious beliefs is, in effect, forcing them to practice a piece of your religion on your behalf. Instead of segregating yourself from others in accordance with your religious beliefs, you are requiring that they segregate themselves from you.

BING. BING. BING.

That's what all rightwing, imperialistic religious strains have in common and it's no surprise this sort of ultra-Orthodox demand that the whole world conform to its strictures is most visible in imperialistic societies like the US and Israel. Horrible rightwing politics go hand in hand with horrible right wing religion, be it Saudi Arabia and Wahabist Islam, fundie Christians in the Southern US, certain kinds of Orthodox Jews in Tel Aviv or New York or even fundamentalist Hindus in India.

The sexism is of course part and parcel of this.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:50 PM on April 9, 2015 [19 favorites]


One of the women in the article is a friend of mine so this was an amusing read this morning on Facebook. I guess the guy ended up seated somewhere else, so her icky womanhood earned her a long flight with an empty seat beside her to stretch out in.

People with special seat assignments needs should talk to the airline before they fly, or go directly to a flight attendant with their issue.

I also don't have the "respect people's religion" gene. I mean, people can have their stupid religious beliefs if they keep their shit to themselves and don't try to make it my problem. And in no universe is there a reason for me to help perpetuate misogyny.
posted by Squeak Attack at 12:51 PM on April 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


Have you ever tried to buy a 2nd seat for 1 passenger? I can't even imagine the problems you'd run into:
- No way to actually book a seat like that except in person
- The TSA would probably shoot you on the spot
- I've seen near fist-fights break out on full flights over already occupied seats, can you imagine what would happen if there was an empty seat next to you, and someone wanted to sit there?
posted by blue_beetle at 12:54 PM on April 9, 2015


The NYT is both reporting an increasingly frequent problem with haredi *men* imposing their version of purdah on women outside their insular communities, AND trying to scoop/more effectively cover than Schmarya at False Messiah. The NYT, however, is informationally, politically, (and likely financially) constrained to not alienate their haredi elite sources. Failed Messiah is citizen journalism with an unending supply of disaffected sources marginalized or victimized by Haredi elites. Both types of news complement each other.

IME, the Haredi sexism and violence problem is real, frequent, far-reaching and getting both more extreme and more ubiqitous in Israel and Diaspora locations with Haredi enclaves. As a queer, genderbending person, I see this crap almost every time I fly El Al, most trips on other carriers before/after major Jewish holidays, and many times a day in Israeli cities that are not primarily secular (such as Tel Aviv or Eilat). Haredi chumrah creep is removing ALL pictures of wonen and girls or any parts of their bodies/attire from all media - bus posters to food wrapoers to news reports (rven when the woman, such as Hillary Clinton, is the topic of the news!). Occasional Shabbat rock-throwing at cars near Jerusalem has turned into physically attacking women a girl children on the street any day of the week in Israel and now NYC area Haredi enclaves (I was sefer shopping with a modestly-dressed friend and their toddler in Brooklyn - they were physically accosted to prevent them entering the store while men were inside).

I don't see any difference between these supposedly religious sexist power plays and MRAs. It's still entitled men afraid of losing their power over women and blaming women for the men's anger and fear of loss.
posted by Dreidl at 12:55 PM on April 9, 2015 [39 favorites]


Have you ever tried to buy a 2nd seat for 1 passenger? I can't even imagine the problems you'd run into:
- No way to actually book a seat like that except in person
- The TSA would probably shoot you on the spot


This used to be doable, at least pre-9/11. My wife and her family would do it when she was growing up to give them extra leg room. As there were 5 of them, the typical 3 seats on either side of the isle gave them the extra seat for random stuff.

No idea if this is still possible as the cost of plane tickets isn't very friendly, but it used to be a thing.
posted by Twain Device at 1:00 PM on April 9, 2015


The bodyguards for Tibetan monks were assaulting women at Versailles when I was there with my wife a few years ago. Basically, they pushed their way into a crowded tourist attraction and then started forcibly moving women away from the monks even though it was very crowded and there was nowhere for anyone to go.

I was not too cool with this and they were lucky they didn't push my wife because it may have triggered some deeply buried french ancestral desire to do something awful in a royal palace.
posted by srboisvert at 1:03 PM on April 9, 2015 [17 favorites]


Now imagine that you are only allowed to marry men who think that about you.
posted by rhizome at 1:10 PM on April 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


Have you ever tried to buy a 2nd seat for 1 passenger?

People do it every day, if they do not fit into a single seat. Some airlines make this easier than others - Southwest makes it as painless as possible, and refunds the second seat if the flight is not full.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:19 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


The other appalling piece about Haredim is their communities are financially supported by social welfare systems in Israel and the diaspora. Their temper tantrums, refusal to secularly educate their numerous offspring (making them unemployable and untaxed), and general micro- and macro-scale michegos is literally our tax dollars (and euros and pounds) at work.
posted by Dreidl at 1:27 PM on April 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


Unassigned seats wouldn't help. I was once asked to switch seats on a Southwest flight so a newlywed couple who got on late could sit together. I refused, because I am mean and stubborn and I won't give up my aisle seat for anybody.
posted by interplanetjanet at 1:32 PM on April 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


So, I went took a look into Wikipedia to find out how ultra-Orthodox Judaism has manifested itself throughout history and was a bit surprised to find out this particular interpretation of Judaism only started in the early to mid 1800s. Somehow, I had subconsciously assumed this was a super-old tradition but in fact is around as old as Mormonism, which I usually think of as a relatively new thing.
posted by mhum at 1:47 PM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Some 2011-2012 articles I found through jetaddict's comment on jcifa's FPP (I highly recommend reading it):

8-year-old Naama called a prostitute and spit on, others called Nazis
Ultra-Orthodox protestors wearing stars mimicking Holocaust symbols
Chaana Mayaan forced to have husband accept medal on behalf of her due to women not being allowed on stage
60% of Ultra-Orthodox men not fully employed, 50% below poverty line and getting state allowances

Please note that a lot of the people described in the above articles are extremists inside the orthodox culture, and likely even more shunning of technology and freedom.
posted by halifix at 2:51 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I mean, Moses didn't insist on a fancy black hat.

no, he had an NRA ballcap
posted by pyramid termite at 2:59 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


poffin boffin >

This is kind of personal for me though because when my mom was in chemo, she fainted on the sidewalk outside of the chemo center and a trio of haredi men refused to help her up.

I am so sorry to hear about that, poffin boffin. There's actually a name in the Mishnah for people like that: chasid shoteh, or "pious idiot":

(Sotah 20a): A Chasid Shoteh (foolishly pious individual) is a destroyer of the world. The Gemarah (21b) goes on to describe a Chasid Shoteh as a man who refuses to save the life of a drowning woman because she is naked and doesn’t want to look at her.

I think this illustrates rather dramatically that overly-zealous, obsessive rule-following as a sort of ersatz form of religious life is not at all new, nor are its obvious problems.
posted by clockzero at 3:09 PM on April 9, 2015 [21 favorites]


The disconnect between the "Readers Choices" and the "NYTimes Choices" in the comments section of the article is classic NY Times pandering.
posted by Rumple at 3:14 PM on April 9, 2015


Delaying the takeoff of a plane sounds a helluva lot like something that isn't quite terrorism or a criminal act, but should get you kicked the fuck off regardless.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:15 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


A bit off topic, but I'd Always Known that girls and women are 52% of the world's population. Seeing the 50% figure a few times here made me look it up, and it turns out there actually are more males than females in the world. Is this just another lie my teachers told me?
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:25 PM on April 9, 2015


The woman who was charged was the daugher of the Chairman of the airline. She wasn't some random peanut-hater. She was all DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS which is apparently not cool in Korea.
posted by GuyZero at 3:34 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm losing track of all the things to be outraged about because some so-and-sos don't like teh gay/ black people/ women.
posted by NorthernLite at 3:36 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


A bit off topic, but I'd Always Known that girls and women are 52% of the world's population.

According to the Census Bureau's International Data Base, the United States population is about 50.7% female. The world population is about 50.3% male.

posted by Shmuel510 at 3:40 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


In China, males comprise 51.27 percent of the population, outnumbering females by about 9 million per Wikipedia, thanks to the confluence of one child policy and cultural preference for aborting female fetuses. And it's getting worse, with 118 boys born for every hundred girls in 2010. Similar imbalances elsewhere endure. Of course, if allowed to exit the womb, women live longer and suffer fewer deaths from accidents and war.

It's infuriating.
posted by carmicha at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2015


My mind boggles au contemplating what would happen if a visibly Muslim man made this kind of stink on a plane on Australia, and I imagine the US. Over here, a criminal charge would be the likely outcome, if not a bloody swat team hauling him off the flight.
posted by smoke at 4:13 PM on April 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


People with special seat assignments needs should talk to the airline before they fly, or go directly to a flight attendant with their issue.

They should, and those needs should be accommodated as far as is reasonably possible. But this isn't a need. This is a want, and a want rooted in hate. People with those can go fuck themselves.
posted by kafziel at 4:21 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I don't move from my window seat from anyone. I like to watch the clouds and tuck myself up cozily. I wouldn't care if it was the Dalai Lama with a baby in tears asking me to move.

Also honestly I love the way Judaism is all about working the rules. The way someone once explained it to me is that God made the rules so he obviously knows what all the loopholes are, so if he wanted us not to use the loopholes they wouldn't be there. So God is the DM and all the faithful Jewish people are the rules lawyering players. It's lovely.

But there are always jerks in anything, I guess.
posted by winna at 4:34 PM on April 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


MetaFilter: there are always jerks in anything, I guess.
posted by asterix at 4:36 PM on April 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I've always been happy to move for women (especially mothers with children) who need the extra seat for space or to be next to friends, but also no-way-in-hell definite with men who ask for the same favour, regardless of whether it's for religious or any other reason. I'm uncomfortable with examining my reasons why, but I'm hoping it's not sexism.
posted by The Zeroth Law at 4:45 PM on April 9, 2015


An Orthodox Jewish colleague once declined to shake my hand. He quickly rattled off a well-rehearsed patter to explain that it was nothing personal, but he didn't shake hands with women because it was against his religion to touch any woman but his wife. He had just shaken hands with my male colleagues.

I was left thinking that the polite thing to do in that situation would be to decline to shake anyone's hand.

But if he did that, he might offend a man.
posted by Compared to what? at 4:49 PM on April 9, 2015 [55 favorites]


> I've always been happy to move for women (especially mothers with children) who need the extra seat for space or to be next to friends, but also no-way-in-hell definite with men who ask for the same favour, regardless of whether it's for religious or any other reason. I'm uncomfortable with examining my reasons why, but I'm hoping it's not sexism.

Seriously, not for "any other reason", like some medical condition, will you do the favor for a man, but you'll do it for a woman who wants to sit next to her friend? If that's actually your behavior, I'm going to say it sounds like sexism to me.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:05 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


People who interfere with commercial aviation by refusing to sit in their assigned seats are among a very small group of of people who should actually be put on the no-fly list.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:15 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


"At Passover," he says, "it is customary not to visit and not to host people, except for close family members, of course, because no one will eat at anyone else's home.
All who are hungry, come and eat; all who are needy come and celebrate Passover. Right?

The absolute fucking corruption of a religious rite by holier than thou bullshit.


They broke Passover! Isn't it a commandment that you must take in any Jew without a Seder to go to?

But they probably wouldn't want to come to my house. We just shove all the forbidden stuff in a cupboard and "sell" it to the downstairs neighbours. If they don't pay us a million dollars by the end of Saturday, we're repossessing it.
posted by jb at 8:26 PM on April 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


Bizarrely, the current chumrah of not eating at other people's homes is only for the the non-Seder meals. For the required ritual dinners, you go wherever. There's a 2nd Shabbat tomorrow night during this Pesach, and I cannot figure out what reasoning forbids people from dining with family/friends as Shabbat usual.
posted by Dreidl at 10:37 PM on April 9, 2015


I didn't read everyone else's answers but I would be happy to move on up to first class to help the situation.
posted by BoscosMom at 10:49 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I would totally offer to switch seats with any harangued woman in this situation, and then I would proceed to gay it the fuck up all over these assbag dudes. Perhaps starting with "Sitting next to a man makes me think all kinds of impure thoughts. Let me explain them to you in intense graphic detail until your fucking head explodes."

Childish, maybe. Well-deserved, though.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:03 PM on April 9, 2015 [20 favorites]


I would like to know realistically what would everyone's reply to this request be? Like the actual thing you would say if they asked you to move to accommodate these asshats?

The reason I ask is I get really inarticulate when I'm furious and I would probably sound childish and awkward and end up giving up my seat out of sheer embarrassment.

My hypothetical esprit de l'escalier would be something like "He doesn't need to worry about me tempting him. I find him repulsive." I am sure you can think of better ones.
posted by Tarumba at 5:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


I would like to know realistically what would everyone's reply to this request be? Like the actual thing you would say if they asked you to move to accommodate these asshats?

Honestly, I do think I would refuse. I reflexively get VERY stubborn when I think I'm in the right (not always a good thing but hey), and in a case like this I would feel so much disgust and contempt for the person in question that there's no way I would want to do ANYTHING that could be seen as suggesting it's reasonable to expect me to move (which isn't at all to say that women who would move are wrong - you have to do what's best for you!). I don't see any way in which asking the woman to move is acceptable, when two other very possible solutions are 1) Make the person with the problem move or 2) Remove the person with the problem from the plane.

Generally I go for the blandly polite response to utter bullshit, my theory being that giving voice to my outrage implies that the request in question is legitimate enough to get outraged over, whereas blandness suggests that of course we all know anybody can ask for anything - bless their heart - but real adults OF COURSE aren't taking this shit seriously. Pretty sure I would say "Aw, no thanks, I'm fine in my assigned seat - take care now." At that point I'd put my headphones back in, get back to my audiobook and assume the matter was closed from the perspective of me and my scary lady body.
posted by DingoMutt at 6:17 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


I would like to know realistically what would everyone's reply to this request be? Like the actual thing you would say if they asked you to move to accommodate these asshats?

"I'm sorry, that won't be possible."

"I'm sorry he feels that way. However, this is the (window/middle/aisle) seat (with good legroom/with easy toilet access/close to the emergency exit) that I asked for and was allocated, and I intend to stay seated in it. If the airline has allocated this gentleman a seat which is unsuitable for him, that's between him and the airline. It's nothing to do with me."

"I sympathise, I really do. I can see how a belief like that must inconvenience him, and I can see how having to deal with bizarre requirements like his is a nuisance for you. But unless you're prepared to offer me a free upgrade to (business/first class), I'm not going to change seats."

"No, that's not reasonable."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."
posted by flabdablet at 7:18 AM on April 10, 2015 [21 favorites]


If they were polite, I'd probably say something like "I would like to keep my aisle seat and stay seated near my carry on which is in the overhead compartment here". If they find me another aisle seat that has room for my bag, whatever, fine. If they were polite I'd say "No, I would like to keep this seat, but of course I am happy to get out of the way for you to change to a different one."

If it is the flight attendant, well: if they are offering me a better seat (business/first class, or aisle if I am not on one), I'll probably say yes even if the guy is rude because there is standing on principle and there is more room in my airplane seat and I know which one wins.
posted by jeather at 7:28 AM on April 10, 2015


they do not have my permission to speak to me.

oh man I like this. this is step one for all interactions from now on.
posted by SharkParty at 7:28 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


There's a simple answer for this. Whoever is being asked to move, ask for $100. Or something like that. Demand compensation for your inconvenience. In fact, an airline policy to directly charge more for seating change requests and funnel a portion of that to the effected people would a.) be popular with the airlines that like to nickle and dime us already and b.) give a material reward to the people who had to put up with this shit.
posted by Hactar at 8:33 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm confident I am unlike to be bullied into moving, because I have been asked to move before and I don't (save for once on an early flight after which I swore I would never do it again.) I like my window seat, thanks. In fact, such a refused request happened just this Christmas.

I might make an exception for a parent who needed to sit next to a critically ill child that they couldn't get a medical transport for, but that's about it. Or if they wanted to offer me an upgrade to first class. Apart from that, I planned ahead to get my seat next to the window in the extra legroom section or first class; if you didn't plan for your needs and desires, sucks to be you. So it would go:

spiel
"No, I don't want to move"
if more spiel
cut them off, "No. You'll have to find someone to trade with or deal with it."
if they keep going
headphones go on, lean against window, go to sleep
posted by tavella at 8:54 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


I would say, "If you require a new seat assignment, you should speak with the flight attendants." And not engage any further, because it's not my problem.
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:15 AM on April 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Were these guys even talking directly to the women, though? Or did they make someone else do it? Because they can't talk to us either, right?

Whoever asks, though, the neutral route is just "No, sorry."

The non-neutral is, "No, I will not accommodate such sexist nonsense and he should be ashamed to ask me to." If he then wants to stand in the aisle like the asshole he is, that's his problem.
posted by emjaybee at 9:29 AM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


the perfect Larry David set up...

"You want us to what?" grinning,.."sure we'll move, for 100 bucks"
posted by judson at 9:37 AM on April 10, 2015


I pay close to $100 just to have more legroom, and that's when I haven't upgraded to first class. I actually have a credit card whose specific purpose is to make sure I have enough miles to upgrade to first class on cross-country flights. Unless you want to upgrade me to first class, I ain't moving.

Man, I am so, so glad that I mostly missed out on the female socialization to prioritize other people above myself. As I get older, I more and more respect the really good job my parents did raising me. Thanks mom and dad! You gave me the tools to respect myself and stand up for myself.
posted by tavella at 10:30 AM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I would like to know realistically what would everyone's reply to this request be? Like the actual thing you would say if they asked you to move to accommodate these asshats?

I am an extremely frequent traveler for my job and have had a number of seatmates over the last few years that I would describe as difficult, many along stereotypical lines - a woman who was extremely intoxicated, toddlers who kicked, screamed, threw water, and wouldn't stop touching me, parents who let them do this or spoke to them in that high-pitched talk-to-baby voice or got mad at me for asking their kids to stop touching me, parents who are personally offended that I'm a woman with no interest in children, people who can't keep their elbows to themselves, conservatives who want to talk about politics... yeah. I am also pretty mellow about traveling and have volunteered on multiple occasions to switch seats with people if they seem to need that, especially folks traveling with kids. Double especially if it takes me further away from the kids, that's a win-win situation.

I would not switch seats here. I don't know what I'd say in specific because it would depend on what was said to me, but I would want to make clear that the burden for accommodating someone's sexist religious preference is not on me, it's on the airline. If the airline wanted to, say, give me free stuff? We could talk. I'd also be happy to mention that I don't identify with gender as a concept or that I'm gay, but I would want to focus on that the right to practice your religion is a right to mind your own business and not a right to force your beliefs on others, that the burden to accommodate religious preferences is not on me, that this dude is holding up the flight and can we get this thing underway so I can make my connection please?
posted by bile and syntax at 8:51 PM on April 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I would say no, put my headphones on and completely disengage from everything. It disconcerts people when you behave as if they simply aren't there, but there's not a lot they can do about it on a plane.
posted by winna at 7:18 AM on April 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think the real problem is when they get the flight attendants involved -- can you really refuse to give up your seat if you are asked by someone who has the authority to make you give it up?
posted by jeather at 7:27 AM on April 11, 2015


I think the real problem is when they get the flight attendants involved -- can you really refuse to give up your seat if you are asked by someone who has the authority to make you give it up?

I've wondered about that, too, actually, and would love to hear from anybody who knows what your actual rights are. Personally, I would keep up the bland politeness while I first asked to speak to the highest-ranking person I could, and then documented the everloving HELL out of everything. I would use my cameraphone if at all possible, and would conspicuously write everything down.

"Okay, so let me be sure I'm understanding you here. You are a representative of [SexistEnablerAirlines], correct? And your full name is what? - okay, got it, thanks. And as a representative of [SexistEnablerAirlines], you're telling me that because this person doesn't want to sit next to a woman, you are going to make me move ... is that correct? Okay, got it - now I need you to explain why your solution is to move me rather than the person who has the problem. And just so we're all clear, I have indicated that I do not want to move and you understand that, correct? Please tell me what will happen if I refuse to move."

Document, document, document. Then as soon as I was off the plane (honestly, whether I chose to let them kick me off or move me at that point would depend on the trip), I would - heh - head over to AskMe for ideas on what to do with what I'd documented, how best to make it public, whom to contact at SexistEnablerAirlines, what kind of lawyer I should talk to (if any), etc.

No idea how far I'd be able to get with this but by god I would try, and at the very least, I hope I would make the airline people I spoke to hesitate before they ever tried to pull such absolute bullshit on someone who was just existing on their plane again.
posted by DingoMutt at 7:57 AM on April 11, 2015 [6 favorites]


In that situation you contact the corporate HQ directly, don't bother with customer service. Straight to the C-suite, and might unlock doors by saying "I have video of this, might want to get someone with power to talk to me before I give the video to CNN."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:20 AM on April 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think the real problem is when they get the flight attendants involved -- can you really refuse to give up your seat if you are asked by someone who has the authority to make you give it up?

I am a jerk as I've said before, so I would make them force me. I would just refuse until the options were to explicitly order me to move (and at that point I would certainly have my phone out recording) or they would move the dude.
posted by winna at 10:15 AM on April 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Why assume the flight attendant would force one to move? I just can't imagine that would be their approach. They have two paying customers, one who wants to stay in their assigned seat, and one who doesn't. Seems like they'd just put the Orthodox guy who making all the fuss somewhere else. I'm sure they have protocol for people demanding seat changes.
posted by Squeak Attack at 12:11 PM on April 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I would very much hate to burden the flight attendants who have a real and important job to do and a bunch of shitty busy work to do at the same time, but I spend so much of my time in airports being treated to casual violations of my civil liberties that this really would be a straw breaking my poor camel's back and I would refuse to move. I would hope to be polite about it.

I suppose the airlines move the woman because it's simplest, fastest.I imagine that, logistically, it's much easier to stand the woman up and say "is there a man who will take this seat" than it is to find a seat to move the sexist jerk to. Swapping a man for the woman just requires one man to volunteer, moving the intolerant jerk requires finding someone who is sitting next to a man who is willing to move to the seat of the woman sitting next to the sexist dude.
posted by crush-onastick at 4:51 PM on April 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


If this is actually a regularly occurring problem, and given the relatively close-knit communities who are likely to produce these particular men, I'm surprised they don't solve this problem socially. Travel in groups of three and pay the advanced seat selection fee to be able to sit together in a bank of seats. Cheaper than buying extra seats to leave empty and less hassle than making a fuss on an airplane.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:12 PM on April 11, 2015


But then the onus to fix their problem would be on them, instead of the filthy women who dared be seated next to them.
posted by kafziel at 7:18 PM on April 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't particularly like this sort of thing, and I sympathise with people that imagine these travellers think women are icky, but it's really not so. Their cultural norms dictate that men and women avoid intimate contact or seclusion with someone of the opposite sex.(*) Lots of us would feel weird if we were in a society that expected men and women to use the same public bathrooms; that's arguably a lot less intimate than sitting pressed up against a stranger for nine hours. So while I think their preference is inconsistent with how we as a society have agreed to run our lives, there's no cause for the (rather petty IMO) suggestions for humiliating/annoying/discomforting Chassidim.

(*) I tried to get in an elevator that was already occupied by a Haredi woman once. O, the embarrassment, as she tried to pretend that she didn't mind sharing an elevator with me and had simply changed her mind about ascending.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:02 PM on April 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lots of us would feel weird if we were in a society that expected men and women to use the same public bathrooms; that's arguably a lot less intimate than sitting pressed up against a stranger for nine hours.

Maybe, but I wouldn't demand that women leave the bathroom so I can use it in peace. Because that's being a colossal entitled asshole. And if I did, I would deserve to be humiliated, annoyed, and discomforted.
posted by kafziel at 11:10 PM on April 11, 2015 [10 favorites]


Maybe, but is it possible that you would get a friend to stand at the door and ask that people stay out for a moment? Because that's happened to me in a place where there was a single public lavatory. I obliged, but I suppose if I'd been brought up to think such things were silly I might have refused. And it is kinda silly, and inefficient, and leads to all sorts of humiliations for people who are non-gender-compliant or whatever. But that doesn't mean we're awful for being uncomfortable outside our cultural matrix. This sort of exposure is a learning and broadening opportunity; I think it's a good idea to be patient and tolerant even if we choose not to tolerate someone else's quirks.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:25 PM on April 11, 2015


This sort of exposure is a learning and broadening opportunity; I think it's a good idea to be patient and tolerant even if we choose not to tolerate someone else's quirks.

Cartoonish, weapons-grade sexism (whether on the part of the men on the planes or the woman in the elevator) is not merely a "quirk". Moreover, it's reaching quite far to ask that anyone but the men refusing, on the given grounds, to be seated next to women, take an opportunity for learning and broadening.
posted by busted_crayons at 11:38 PM on April 11, 2015 [10 favorites]


I swear I wasn't aware of this earlier, but The Atlantic has a current article on this very topic: The Private Lives of Public Bathrooms
How psychology, gender roles, and design explain the distinctive way we behave in the world's stalls
In which we learn, among other things, that Oprah Winfrey used to get people to sing outside her bathroom door, after which she would sweep out majestically and bestow shillings upon them.1

1 Not really.2

2 The singing bit is true, though.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:27 AM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lots of us would feel weird if we were in a society that expected men and women to use the same public bathrooms

Most of us do live in exactly such a society, provided that the men and women you're talking about require a public bathroom with accessibility aids.
posted by flabdablet at 4:34 AM on April 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


Those bathrooms are always single-user, aren't they? I meant that many people would find it weird to have both men and women in a public toilet at the same time. I don't suppose that I'd be unable to use one, but I could understand people feeling awkward about it.

Anyway, I have a better example: women- (or men-) only hours at swimming pools. The majority of Australians seem fine with mixed pools, but lots of public swimming pools have segregated hours. I recall that this segregation was initially controversial, but the people who went on about importing Islamic fundamentalism weren't the ones who were really into swimming: they were mostly xenophobes who didn't like being confronted by difference. And people are different; we can embrace those differences, even if we choose to not accommodate them. There is room for both beetroot and pineapple in the great hamburger that is life.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:25 AM on April 12, 2015


while I think their preference is inconsistent with how we as a society have agreed to run our lives, there's no cause...for humiliating/annoying/discomforting Chassidim.

I might agree with you if the Haredim were asking nicely for their own seat to be changed, but demanding that the other person move? Nope. Shoulda planned better if it's that important.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:17 AM on April 12, 2015 [11 favorites]


It is much, much less inconvenient to think "Okay, I'm going to swim on Saturdays at 3pm, not at 1pm, because noon to 3 is men-only swim; I am planning ahead and I will go to the store first" than to think "hm, I booked this seat because I really need to be able to stand up during the flight and right now today this guy is telling me I have to move".

There's ideology and there's inconvenience. It's reasonable to say "I may really loathe your ideas about gender and bodies but there's an accommodation that doesn't inconvenience either of us, so I'm going to value basic good-will and civic privacy ideas over getting into a huge fight" (which is where I come down on a lot of stuff). It's not reasonable to say "my plans will never really be stable because I never know when I will be asked to inconvenience myself for the "convenience" of someone who believes something that is deeply repulsive to me". If there is gender-segregated swimming for men and women, the burden falls on everyone relatively equally. If it's "women are the sex class and I can't sit next to one", that's really saying "women are not actually able to buy airline seats; their ability to have an airline seat is entirely at the discretion of men".
posted by Frowner at 8:53 AM on April 12, 2015 [13 favorites]


> There is room for both beetroot and pineapple in the great hamburger that is life.

Everybody can dress their hamburger the way they want. The problem in this case is that the person complaining is complaining about what other people put on their burgers, i.e. who sits in a seat that isn't theirs. As so often in these cases, they claim that it's their religion that gives them this right.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:25 AM on April 12, 2015 [7 favorites]


Moreover, it's reaching quite far to ask that anyone but the men refusing, on the given grounds, to be seated next to women, take an opportunity for learning and broadening.

I, like most women, already know that there are a lot of men who think I'm a second-class citizen of the universe because I'm a woman. I get reminded of this in meatspace and online every day. A man who thinks so little of me as a person that he requires me to change seats on a plane lest he be tempted is not broadening my life experience or teaching me anything new.
posted by immlass at 9:42 AM on April 12, 2015 [14 favorites]


If it's "women are the sex class and I can't sit next to one", that's really saying "women are not actually able to buy airline seats; their ability to have an airline seat is entirely at the discretion of men".

I'm not sure that even could be true. Men and women seem to travel in roughly equal numbers,1 and in a dystopian Handmaids Tale-esque scenario where no women could sit next to any man you'd just end up with a game of musical chairs and one row partially filled. Also, from what I understand, Chassidic women (and according to a couple of commentators above, Muslimas) are unwilling to sit next to unrelated men, too. But I don't want to imply that I think this is OK; my feelings on this are somewhere between "OK to silently hope for it" and "OK to ask for it", but they're a long way short of approval for "OK to demand it".

I fail to see how sitting in adjacent seats in a space shared by a couple of hundred other people qualifies as secluded or intimate.

Well, lots of people do, not just Chassidim. I'm not even sure if all the NYT's reported instances actually involved Chassidim: the mentioned flights from New York to London (7-8 hours) don't say. Delta's NY-Israel flights leave close to midnight, so you're talking about 10-11 hours pressed up against a stranger, during much of which you're going to be sleeping. I suppose I have some body issues but I would never do that under normal circumstances; it really is a boundary-challenging experience.

Incidentally, I was disappointed to see people go on about Chassidim having too many kids and being on welfare in the comments above. This isn't the first time I've seen those sort of sentiments on Metafilter. They're offensive when directed at (e.g.) African-Americans; they're offensive when directed against Chassidim.

Also, Talez's claim that Judaism is about "following the letter and not the spirit of the laws" is a very bad thing to say. It's the theological equivalent of calling people subhuman. The expression is drawn from Romans 2:29, which asserts that Jews' lack of "circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit" means that their faith by definition consists of empty ritual. The elimination of Judaism as a meaningful religion was not only rhetorical: it justified the physical elimination of Jews. The doctrine is called supersessionism and it's really not OK to invoke it, support it, or even use it as a way of insulting people you don't like.

1 52% male to 48% female from a (self-reported?) study of travellers through LAX.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:01 PM on April 12, 2015


Also, Talez's claim that Judaism is about "following the letter and not the spirit of the laws" is a very bad thing to say.

No, it isn't: it's a criticism of a certain form and practice of Judaism. Just because it has been used by antisemites doesn't make it any less valid than vegetarianism is evil because Hitler practiced it. Where Talez is wrong is that it is not true of all Jewish movements.

"Follow the mitsvot strictly, and the kavanah will follow" is one approach to Judaism. I have a friend who was raised this way; she now attends a Reform Shul, but her world-view remains this one: the letter of the law is a framework in which the kavanah will grow.

Many ultra-orthodox Jews, however, have apparently forgotten to leave room for the kavanah. As noted above, the concern of some about keeping their house free of chametz has led them to ignore the greater mitzvah of hospitality. I never even removed the chametz from my house, but I volunteered 6 hours last Tuesday to assist with a Seder at a long-term care facility to ensure the Jewish residents had one - but in the eyes of many ultra Orthodox, the fact that I didn't move my chametz (and especially that I don't keep kosher the rest of the year, though I am very conscious of how I eat) makes me a "bad Jew". As I noted above: they broke Passover.

The relationship between the spirit and the letter of the Torah isn't an issue of Jews being attacked by anti-Semites, it's an intra-Jewish issue, and it is one that is ripping Judaism apart. In demanding that we respect their interpretation of the laws, ultra Orthodox are actively hurting other people, mostly other Jews. And I'm not talking chametz here, but gender segregation on buses enforced on others, denying women the right to read Torah at the Wall, etc.
posted by jb at 7:11 AM on April 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


I tried to get in an elevator that was already occupied by a Haredi woman once. O, the embarrassment, as she tried to pretend that she didn't mind sharing an elevator with me and had simply changed her mind about ascending.

So she got out even though she was there first, rather than attempt to board after you, force you out, and stop the elevator going anywhere for several hours until she got her own way?
posted by billiebee at 5:03 AM on April 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


It isn't like non-religious women haven't been known to get out of elevators when it is only them and a man who followed them onto the elevator, either.
posted by jeather at 5:19 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


A man who thinks so little of me as a person that he requires me to change seats on a plane lest he be tempted is not broadening my life experience or teaching me anything new.

Uhm, I know. That's why I wrote what I wrote.
posted by busted_crayons at 7:09 AM on April 14, 2015


It isn't like non-religious women haven't been known to get out of elevators when it is only them and a man who followed them onto the elevator, either.

I'm pretty sure that in this instance it had something to do with yichud, a religious injunction against secluding oneself with a person of the other sex.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:58 PM on April 14, 2015


Sure, but again, as billiebee pointed out above, it was the woman who removed herself rather than trying to force the man off. That's not what happens with the Haredi men on the airplanes; the women are expected to accommodate them, not the other way around. I think you're being a wee bit intellectually dishonest here, to put it kindly.
posted by holborne at 10:24 AM on April 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


In an effort to, I guess, be fair and balanced, the Times has a newer article on the topic, with no mention of the Orthodox Jewish issue:


For passengers in increasingly stratified plane cabins, the scramble for the right seat has become more intense than ever.

Just asking to switch remains a popular choice, but increasingly, frequent travelers say that fellow passengers are breaching long-established etiquette and simply plopping down in a seat of their choice.

“It’s a little bit of they don’t understand the value,” said Joanna Bloor, a consultant. “It is truly lack of an awareness that this is a transaction.”

posted by Rumple at 11:04 AM on April 15, 2015


I'm not sure that even could be true. Men and women seem to travel in roughly equal numbers,1 and in a dystopian Handmaids Tale-esque scenario where no women could sit next to any man you'd just end up with a game of musical chairs and one row partially filled.

No, the point is that if any woman at any point can be told that she has to move because she is a source of sin and there's no appeal to that - if there's no traction to say "I don't believe that and I requested this seat, I'm not moving" - then any woman in any seat is there on the sufferance of men. She can be told to move by any man who feels that she's a source of sin and she has no possibility of appeal. Just because most men most of the time don't do this does not mean that she's not still on sufferance, or not conscious of her supposed "inferiority" - she always has the possibility that she'll be told to move based not on on airline policy but on her gender. Ie, she has not really bought her seat as other male customers have.
posted by Frowner at 12:34 PM on April 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


and in a dystopian Handmaids Tale-esque scenario where no women could sit next to any man you'd just end up with a game of musical chairs and one row partially filled.

And the use of the word "just", as in "only" is revealing of a rather sinister mindset.
posted by Rumple at 1:35 PM on April 15, 2015


as billiebee pointed out above, it was the woman who removed herself rather than trying to force the man off. That's not what happens with the Haredi men on the airplanes; the women are expected to accommodate them, not the other way around.

An elevator isn't much like an aeroplane in that respect; I don't even know whether you can leave a plane without getting arrested by the TSA or something. And you can't force someone out of an elevator without physical contact, which in this instance would have been a Catch-22.1 So maybe the aeroplane passenger would have been willing to get a later flight; maybe the elevator passenger would have appealed to the elevator authorities if such a thing existed. She didn't act as if she were leaving the elevator out of some sense of deference to me; she looked upset and embarrassed and as if she were extricating herself from a socially awkward situation.

Jewish misogyny is definitely a big issue, but I don't think it's what's going on here. Chassidic women aren't expected to defer to men socially, because men and women do not socialise. There are a bunch of first-person accounts of Chassidic life by women, and they generally describe a strong (although less acknowledged and perhaps less-valued) female-centred social and religious sphere that is mostly parallel to the male one. It's complicated, and I'm not suggesting that gender-separation is without problems of its own: I'm surprised that nobody raised the question of how this affects trans- and non-gender-compliant people.

In fact, this expectation of separated genders isn't primarily Chassidic or even Jewish: three people (beside myself) in this thread have reported similar experiences when travelling; in two of those the aggrieved passenger was a Muslim woman. This was hardly acknowledged - instead it was all Chassidic men, Chassidic men, this is what I would do if a Chasid asked me to move, and fantasies about shocking Chassidim with pork rinds and tampons. That's classic "othering" and it's bad enough, but then we had highly-favorited comments about how Chassidim have too many babies, they're on welfare, and they practise empty rituals. So it's no longer about the behavior of Chassidic men on planes or even the behavior of Chassidic men generally: it's frank xenophobia and religious bigotry, specifically expressed against a stereotypically Jewish2 group of people2 while ignoring other groups with the same cultural values.

I think you're being a wee bit intellectually dishonest here, to put it kindly.
and also
And the use of the word "just", as in "only" is revealing of a rather sinister mindset.

Can we not do this please?

1 Not that force was necessary; I was reflexively as mortified as her but couldn't figure out how to make things right. By the time I realised the problem she was on her way out and she got more upset when I made to follow her. It was very awkward.
2 Chassidic Jews, not coincidentally, are the ones predominantly featured in anti-Semitic illustrations. They're very easy to caricature and they're very clearly "the other".
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:02 PM on April 15, 2015


So it's no longer about the behavior of Chassidic men on planes or even the behavior of Chassidic men generally: it's frank xenophobia and religious bigotry, specifically expressed against a stereotypically Jewish2 group of people2 while ignoring other groups with the same cultural values.

As far as I can tell, everyone who's made the comments you're complaining about is Jewish. Is it really so surprising non-Hasidic Jews would be more likely to focus on bad behavior by Hasidim/Haredim than on that by members of other religious groups? (I mean, you know what the phrase "a shanda fur die goyim" means, right?)
posted by asterix at 7:02 PM on April 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


(But I do like that we're reenacting the same internal arguments Jews have been having since at least the 19th century. The sense of connection to history was always one of the things I liked best about Judaism!)
posted by asterix at 7:05 PM on April 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've had enough male Hasidic Jews being actively sexist to me that I am entirely comfortable imagining shocking them with a tampon and I don't think it's othering, I think it's a normal reaction to obnoxious behaviour. There's a big community here; I run into them a lot.
posted by jeather at 7:12 PM on April 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


Jewish misogyny is definitely a big issue, but I don't think it's what's going on here. Chassidic women aren't expected to defer to men socially, because men and women do not socialise.

This is a straw man. The Haredi men who insist that women move on airplanes haven't limited their objections to Hasidic women; they insist upon not sitting next to any woman, be she secular Jew, gentile, whatever. The point, as several people have made here, is that the Haredim are insisting that the rest of the world abide by their religious restrictions, including the misogyny engrained into Haredi culture, complete with "shelo asani isha"* (and no matter how you try to spin that one, you know very well that there are plenty of men, probably most of them, who take it at face value).

Can we not do this please?

Can we not do what, precisely? Do you mean will I refrain from pointing out that you're being disingenuous? Well, no, I won't. There's nothing wrong in honest discourse with pointing out when one party is skirting the relevant issues, and no, I won't stop calling that out when I see it. It's not a personal attack.

And while we're calling things out, I'll note that your equating criticism of Haredi culture with virulent anti-Semitism is a cheap rhetorical trick. You've used it more than once in this discussion, and I'll tell you flat out that I find it offensive. I'm as Jewish as the Haredim are, and I resent anyone suggesting otherwise, much less suggesting that the criticism makes me as bad as an anti-Semite.

*The daily blessing praising God "who has not made me a woman."
posted by holborne at 7:53 AM on April 16, 2015 [12 favorites]


And btw:

I don't even know whether you can leave a plane without getting arrested by the TSA or something.

Yes, you can leave a plane without getting arrested by the TSA.
posted by holborne at 8:50 AM on April 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm as Jewish as the Haredim are, and I resent anyone suggesting otherwise

Going on the intra-Jewish issue: I feel like some progressive Jews unconciously don't feel as Jewish as the Haredi or Hassadim (and good on you to distinguish them, as they can have very different outlooks).

But I think that progressive Jews should challenge this (within themselves, as well as within the community): why should the Orthodox model of Judaism be the definative model of Judaism? Progressive movements (Reform, Reconstructionist, liberal Conservative, etc) of Judaism are their own, valid forms of Judaism -- and also there are so many forms of "traditional" Judaism (especially in the non-European diaspora) that bear little resemblence to (the primarily Ashkenazic) Haredi practice, but which are under pressure (particularly in Israel) to conform to retain recognition as Jewish. If we allow this to continue, we risk losing the wonderful diversity of Jewish culture(s).

And criticism of others' practicies is valid, when they violate (what I feel is) central Jewish values of equality and kindness towards strangers.
posted by jb at 9:03 AM on April 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


The discussion of how (many) Jews feel that Haredi or ultra-Orthodox Jews are the Real True Jews practicing the Real True Judaism is brought up a lot in progressive Jewish circles; I've heard a lot of sermons that touch on this topic.
posted by jeather at 9:12 AM on April 16, 2015 [2 favorites]




In which we learn that a "Professor of Law and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar at Cornell University" will write an essay based on what she remembers from one of the yeshivas (Jewish schools) that [she] attended. I mean, there are actual books on this, or she could have just looked up Wikipedia or something.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:11 PM on April 29, 2015


there are actual books on this

Are any of them written by women? I'd like to know in advance whose reasoning I'm supposed to ignore.
posted by flabdablet at 12:49 AM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


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