Driving Rebellion
FreiFem2011With the ‘credentials’ of a father who has spoken at many an Agudah convention and a Bais Yaacov diploma of my own, I was still shocked to find out – only last year – that Chasidic women in New Square and Williamsburg aren’t allowed to drive. Where on earth is this craziness coming from? Didn’t the matriarch Rivka ride her own camel??? (but then again, she wore nose rings, so I guess she could hardly be a good role model).
I once was comparing frum people to the Taliban, and a friend of mine protested that frum people weren’t nearly as extreme in their actions. “They would be if they could be!” I retorted. Learning about this driving ban, coupled with incidents like the burning of a man in New Square makes me sadly wonder if I was more accurate than even I imagined. If this is what happens with a little power and a few square miles, what kind of world would they create if they controlled a country half the size of Afghanistan? (Given current population trends in the state of Israel, I guess we might just find out….)
Women in Saudi Arabia have been bravely protesting their driving ban. I wonder if we’ll ever see widespread protest by Chasidic/Charedi women of their conditions. What will it take (if anything) to goad rebellion on a larger scale than the brave few who pull themselves away?
15 Responses
You know, FreiFem, I was thinking the same thing when I heard the news story and hoping you’d do a post on it. I mused, Even Saudi Arabian women are daring to stand up for their rights and Chassidic women STILL aren’t protesting? What’s it gonna take, women? Get with the program already. It’s 2011!
It’s sad when Jews are decades behind the Muslims and Saudi women are out ahead when it comes to women’s rights.
Really. Fucking. Sad.
Here’s another way you can show people how they’re similar -
By Chareidim: ‘Vaad Hatznius’ Suspected Of Spilling Acid On Teenage Girl
By Taliban: …In his early years, the warlord distinguished himself by throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women.
I wonder how many women actually want and value their freedom. Do you think if there would be a ballot initiative the pro women driving side would win, if not we come to an old question which i always grapple with when I visit Boro Park or Williamsburg which is , is it really moral to force someone to have a freedom which they themselves don’t want, aren’t you then limiting their freedom?
It’s a really interesting point, VB. I have a feeling a vote by women would NOT change the ruling. But then, one could go down the rabbit hole arguing whether these women have true free will to consider their own best interests when all the rest of their lives are dictated by men (and then to apply that idea to any group of people….).
Driving? Let’s pick something important. Let these women pick birth control. Once they can control their reproduction, they can worry about driving.
It’s very likely that many women would not welcome change. But having grown up in a Chassidish community, I did hear grumbling from women who would have loved to drive. Being able to drive is very freeing. Having to ask your husband, a brother etc. for a ride is inconvenient, creates dependency, and is yet another barrier to discovering the world.
Times have changed though. Women from certain families would never dream to drive, but there are some from the younger generation that are completely religious, living in Chassidish communites and driving. It’s slowly becoming more acceptable. It should be a personal choice.
Todd writes: “It’s sad when Jews are decades behind the Muslims and Saudi women are out ahead when it comes to women’s rights.
Really. Fucking. Sad.”
But Todd, here’s the rub. JEWS are not behind, CHASSIDIM are behind! It is infuriating that Chassidic women in the 21st century keep having more and more rights taken away and their response when told to jump continues to be, how high? Which brings me to a point I’ve been dying to make and this is the place to do it.
When a Chabad rabbi lit the Chanukah menorah at the Washington Ellipse, a friend remarked ruefully on Facebook, who let these guys become representative of Judaism? I posed this question to a friend, a woman, a rabbi and director of education for a large conservative synagogue and we had a lively albeit disturbing discussion on this.
Chabad, as extremes go, isn’t that bad. Oh yes, they are, but rather, there’s even worse as you address this question. What concerned my friend and me goes back to that original Facebook question. How did these guys become representative of Judaism as a whole? Why are they speaking for all of us?
We both worried that the world will come to think that these Jews are representative of Jews as a whole. We spoke here of maskilim. Enlightened Jews of the last century, immigrants who came off the boat and forged a new path. In the early parts of the century, Jews were beginning to dominate in theatre, literature, poetry, the arts. We went on to become notable in science, medical breakthroughs, economics, physics. And yes, there was a time that a Jew felt it was either or. If you were going to break into the wider world, you had to shed your Jewishness. You had to drop your old antiquated ways of doing.
We don’t see many shtreimels in science and the arts. But we have found a way in America to do what was virtually impossible in Europe. We can find a way to integrate without assimilating. The challenge, if you want it (and if you don’t, I can accept that too), is to be fully engaged in a Jewish life and the world.
What concerned my friend and me on that long walk is how America might look in a hundred years. The Chassidim are populating like crazy, and suffice it to say, modern moderate Jews are not. Will our Jewishness be completely polarized in a hundred years? Will Jews either have intermarried and assimilated completely on one side, with Chassidim on the other?
With Chabad representative at the Ellipse, we run the risk of presenting Judaism as medieval, pre-modern, intensely xenophobic, uneducated secularly, and non professional. Think of how Jews flourished in the 20th century despite the devastation of the Holocaust, how immigrants bore children who went on to become wildly successful? I for one don’t want to lose that strong element of our Jewish identity. And for the Emes Rockers out there, this need not be a negation of my Jewish self.
This is something to ponder. I fully understand why people leaving the stifling, oppressive narrow insular world of Chassidim would choose atheism. I have many questions about God myself, borne out of the ashes of the Holocaust. For those questions, I reach for Elie Wiesel for some insight. Not the trolls here.
And by the way, constant dire warnings of a life doomed to misery if you dare leave, smacks of cult tactics. Completely. You think conservative rabbis don’t sermonize about intermarriage, Jewish involvement? But they don’t keep hitting us over the head with it.
“Driving? Let’s pick something important. Let these women pick birth control. Once they can control their reproduction, they can worry about driving.”
How about letting them drive to pick up the pills?
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SO glad you wrote this J. – it’s a MAJOR pet peeve of mine.
You might enjoy this article by Dr Alex Sinclair in Haaretz on the topic:
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/toward-a-more-assertive-liberal-judaism-1.350656
Zee- I ask you to consider , whether people should have the right to choose to give up some freedom? I was going to elaborate but I think in this instance shorter is clearer.
Frei Fem- your “rabbit hole” interests me , but my libertarian , anti- paternalistic (how ironic) side would not allow me to dictate to individuals in other societys how to be , even if I thought their judgment is clouded by outside factors. As I write this, I hear the other side screaming in my head , that there are other societies where I think it is morally right to step in , so as I began, it is a gray area where I am torn.
Your question regarding the nature of rabbinical rule can be easily researched.
What was Jewish society like in Palestine during the Second Temple era?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple
Or in seventeenth century Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Four_Lands
People were coerced to conform or leave the community. Some people were shunned and in ancient times occasionally flogged or rarely executed. (Bear in mind that gladiator combat was in Roman times the most popular gentile entertainment.) However honor killings? Mass terror? Inquisitions? Haven’t heard of it.
jacob stein needs to do some reading about jewish history. berel wein has a couple of good books and even with his artscroll bias, still tells some pretty nasty war/murder/killing stories. i urge you to read.
us jews used to kill eachother en mass consistentnly
VB: Wouldn’t forcing someone to accept freedom defeat the purpose of freedom?
Zee I am not sure if I get your point exactly (so if I completely miss your point please tell me) , but that is why I would never “force” someone to be free, but I don’t think freedom overrides everything, for example childrens safety, I believe a person does not have the freedom to molest a persons own children ect.